To ask if anyone else who has a child that plays football experiences so much twattery?

Not just you op. What is it with these parents! We had a scouting football tournament (never again) and one of the dads was so obnoxious I told him to leave the premises. He could not believe he was being evicted but as it was private property he had no recourse!

Need to crack down and ban those parents and their kids if they can't behave.

If it's a proper league the kids should be registered with the FA and they aren't allowed to play in the wrong age groups. It would affect insurance etc. You need to bring this up with the team management who should be refusing to play them. Or could you just be mistaken about their ages?

Those saying it's kot possible are not correct.
Those procedures mentioned are not in place everywhere.

In Wales Minis there is no Referee and there is absolutely no checking. At all.
We don't have to declare what players attend.

Maybe posters are talking about Junior leagues but certainly not in Minis

A majority of the parents of kids football are massively shameless, loud, opinionated, love the sound of their own voice, chavs. Hence all the bullshit on the sidelines and rude, reactive, sulky, angry kids if they are ever spoken to by the ref.

That all sounds completely standard

it was a glorious day when eldest lost interest in football and announced he was quitting the team

Non of this sounds surprising, and I'm glad my kids don't play a team sport as a hobby (hoping to get them into rowing at some point). One child has to play hockey with school on Saturdays and it's the same.

My DS (and older DS) plays football a lot, Saturday and Sunday teams. Trains 3 times a week.

There is no way that 10-11 year olds would be playing in an under 7 team I promise you. Apart from the fact that every child has to be registered with the league with their correct dob no 10-11 year old would want to play with 7 year olds.

DS had a child on his team that looked much much older, and we got questioned many times. In the end his Dad just brought a copy of his passport with him to every match.

This isn’t really my experience at all, my DS plays U9s for grassroots and JPL. There’s one grassroots team who are a bit dirty, and I’ve once seen a mum have an argument with a coach. That’s it really. Never thought the opposition were fielding out of age group, not sure how you can tell really when there’s such variation in ‘normal’.

I do prefer his rugby team though!

Sadly none of this is new - my parents were saying the very same things when my brother played football 20+ years ago. Dogs weren’t so much of problem back then but a lot of the parents were and the level of abuse hurled at the often young referees and whoever had been drafted in to run the line was awful.
My little one goes to football - advertised as football for fun - as he loves to kick a ball around and to try and save goals. He’s certainly not the most skilful in his group and this hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of the parents when they are watching the little game that is played at the end of the session. There have been a couple of times when I’ve been close to reminding them that these 5 and 6 year olds are not playing in the premier league, but have thought better of it as my ds really enjoys going.

Once saw a woman yell from the sidelines at one of the kids playing.

“Get your fucking finger out”

They were primary school age.

My son plays u7 and haven't seen any of that all season- some teams parents have been maybe a bit more vocal but not the horror
stories I had heard before he started. The parents on my son’s team are all lovely - if it’s your team that are the problem then I’d try to find a new one

Your coaches can absolutely call out the age issue, and report the club to the league. Ours has. There are age groups for a reason at this age.

I've seen parents threaten my child, and their coach when they were told they were wrong.
Coaches refuses to shake our kids hands when their team lost.
A drunk coach!

I agree, the age thing isn’t possible. Our coach has to show a team sheet every week with a photograph of the children registered to the team.

We take our dog with us from time to time, he’s well behaved and we clean up after him and keep him away from anyone who doesn’t approach him first. So I don’t think it’s a dog at football games thing - it’s a idiot dog owner thing.

I must admit, my pet hate at football is parents and coaches loudly praising a child for a tackle that resulted in an injury and a child on the floor crying. Doesn’t matter whether it was a good tackle or not, if someone is crying you don’t clap and cheer in my opinion.

My son has played for a couple of teams and this was my experience with the first team/league but not our current one. Parents are really respectful, the kids are with each other, it’s lots of fun.
Our coaches show their ID cards that have photos so the age thing can’t happen but children’s sizes at the same age varies hugely.

My DS plays for an U9 team. He's on the verge of quitting due to how rough some if the opposition teams are. DS is average height but very slim and light and some of the kids from nearby areas are extremely overweight and ate basically just taught to use their bulk to their advantage. Most matches DS goes flying due to being shoved, grabbed, pushed and ends up sprawled in the mud and covered in bruises. Luckily he loves cricket too so I'm hoping to get him into that more as he gets older as there's less physical contact.

The teams with the fattest kids also have parents who happily sink 3-4 cans of cider each while watching their kids play and the smell of weed smoke is also very noticeable.

Dance mums are far worse imo!

My DS is the same age as yours and played in a grassroots team since the beginning of Year 2, in September. His Dad is 6’4”, DS is September born, so he’s already the size of an 8/9 year old; no doubt one of the DC you’d think were “playing down”, however he’s in the correct school year age group. He’s also very skilled for his age (I know nothing about football, but have been told this by opposition parents and coaches at each match), which also may make people think he’s older than he is. All his team are registered with the FA, and have a printed photo sheet with DOB which is shown to the opposition at each match (every team in their league does the same).

The only thing we’ve experienced similar is on a couple of occasions there have been wandering dogs who were pulled back fairly swiftly.

Both mine have played for a few years. The parents and players on both my kids teams are lovely.

You do get the occasional nob head parent / coach and the odd badly behaved player but very much the minority. You can report this behaviour to your own clubs welfare officer. Better still you can join the committee and work on the change you want to see!

Again, cant play a player down, but equally some kids look way older / younger than they are. Your coach should be challenging / asking for player registrations and following up as appropriate with the welfare officer as this is a safeguarding issue.

It does definitely bring out the worst in some people. However, it’s tricky to keep everyone happy - some play for fun, others are very competitive and really want to win. Coaches are volunteers and usually work hard.
My DC has been accused by the opposition previously of being too old for his team - not true, he’s just very tall and strong for his age. Kids do really vary.

And in life there are selfish dog and toddler owners in every area sadly, as there are also considerate owners.
All in all, it’s not just football sadly!

I took my nephew (lives with me) to football for a while and then was very grateful when he decided to concentrate on swimming instead

There are always those parents who want their child to be the next David Beckham and earn them millions who take it far too seriously at the expense of all the other childrens enjoyment

Funnily enough, not as much of an issue in swimming, where professional swimmers dont have the same level of options to end up millionaires

Ds 9 plays for the main team of our town. The team that came to play us a few weeks ago took turns pissing in the corner of the astro turf... Toilets 20 steps past the pitch. Neither coach or the ref said a word. The dps must think this is normal and acceptable.. Fucking grim.

Have had kids go through grassrooots football and have never known older kids playing down like that.

Work colleague has a nine year old son. Could have written the same as the OP except for the dog issue.

My friend and I were discussing this exact problem. Grass roots football attracts appalling behaviour that you don’t get at grassroots rugby. Luckily we’re in a rugby region.

Agree the age thing doesn't happen. Why would 10 year olds want to play in an U7s game?