Just a normal football mum with a needy neighbour

OP, ignore batshit responses, you’ve been doing the boy’s parents a massive favour over the years at your own detriment, they are not friends or family and the onus was on them to communicate when the club venue location change to find out whether that was still okay with you, etc. Sad that it affected your child’s friendship with the boy but if your refusal to give lifts is the reason for that then that friendship was transactional which is also sad and disappointing.

OP has clarified twice that she actually worded it more politely and explained the difficulty

This is incredibly rude of you.
I'm not surprised the parents think you are odd and have stopped their child bothering you or your dc since you sent it.

Why on earth wouldn't you have spoken to them and just said that, with the change of clubs and other stuff going on in your family, you don't feel able to give their dc lifts anymore ?

Totally up to you if you feel it limits where you can go afterwards, although I still can't see why you couldn't have just said "We sometimes need to go places afterwards so can only give him a lift on the days we are coming straight home".

For those saying that anyone who disagrees with you is a CF, I am the one who gave my dd's friend a lift to training and all matches for 8 years (and she didn't live next door to us). It meant another child got to be part of the team, and the team benefited from having a stronger squad.

I don't understand the attitude of people who don't help others out when they can, but obviously that is your prerogative. The reason YABU here is the fact you - seemingly - did this happily for the two years, then were so blunt with dropping the arrangement.

I’m sorry but why is everyone giving her shit she spent 2 years driving someone else’s child to football practice and the parents didn’t even bother to show up and watch him play in tournaments. As she said they usually had commitments after so had to change plans to accommodate said child she was taking him as she knew the parents couldn’t manage at the time with only having one car so she helped out for 2 YEARS …to be honest I think they took this piss it became expected and why is it up to this lady to communicate regularly to see where they’re at I think they wanted to see how long they could get out of her hats off to you love for doing it this long as you were right to finally put your foot down don’t feel bad you have given them plenty of time to step up it’s on them.

My favourite expression ATM, but no good deed goes unpunished.

Some people, the more you give, the more they expect as their god given right - fuckers.

If it was phrased like that, it sounds rather rude. It would be much more reasonable to put a bit more detail, eg "With the longer distance to the new club, we're often going to want to go straight on from there to do other things without coming home, so it's not going to work for us to take Johnny regularly. We'd be happy to continue to help occasionally."

I wouldnt want to have a conversation with you full stop .You set the tone and made your feelings quite clear,they are following your lead . They probably feel embarrassed,baffled and belittled especially if you have t vices in any way shape or form your displeasure at takingbhim before .

But you did set that expectation by doing it for 2 years, apparently quietly seething with resentment, without disabusing them of that notion.

Whether or not they felt entitled, that makes no difference to how adults deal with situations. Your short/long message was curt/maybe not curt and they may or may not have relied on you/afforded a taxi, but none of that changes the fact that the decent thing to do is knock on their door and speak to them like an adult. Even if they are the shittiest people, why would you want to sink to their level?

Fuck me! The CFs are out in force on this thread!

OP you are NOT being unreasonable. For about 2 years I drove (slightly out my way) to take my DD’s and her best friend to a sport. Half hour there, wait f 90 mins and half hour back. Sometimes to competitions in other towns too.

Her mother was beyond grateful, would buy me lovely flowers and chocolates and Xmas presents.

I once had a problem with my car and job and couldn’t take one of my kid to college for a couple of months and another mum stepped in and offered to help. I burst into tears with gratitude. As a single parent you can be so stuck sometimes. I was very very very grateful and also gave her some flowers at the end of the 2 months and offered petrol money. Which she didn’t take.

Parents help each other out, that’s what we do, but when someone takes the piss and isn’t even grateful they can fuck off. They’ve never offered to help once in 2 years. Do I feel sorry for the wee boy? Yes, but sadly why should your kid (and your parents) suffer because of another kid’s ungrateful CF parents?

Look, you did a nice thing, OP, but if you were only happy to keep doing it temporarily, while they found an alternative club that they could get their child to, I think that needed to be communicated. Plus I do t think anyone changes jobs so they can take small child to his football matches!

You’ve told them it won’t be possible. That’s not a ‘conversation starter’. That’s a conversation ender.

You’ve done the classic people-pleaser thing where you chose to do something that didn’t work for you, seething with resentment, rather than deal with the discomfort of saying ‘Can’t do it this week — we have plans after’ every time it didn’t. Now you’re blaming them for your own anger at what you see as having been exploited.

It’s not complicated, OP. You can complain about ‘entitledness ’ and ‘cheeky fuckers’ till the cows come home, but the only behaviour you can control, ever, is your own. There’s no cheeky fucker without a wet lettuce to facilitate them. If you’d been honest far sooner about it not always suiting you to take their child to football, then you wouldn’t be dealing with this situation, where they possibly think your child no longer likes theirs etc. and a friendship your child values is endangered.

OP, another thread where the cheeky fxxkers are clear.
You have been a saint to be used like this for so long.
In my experience CF's tend to be selfish parents.
Always out for any shortcut to get out of basic parenting.
Good luck.

Yanbu, changing clubs is the perfect time to end the arrangement. Favours so quickly become expectation to CF’s.

It’s not your problem how he gets to football. His parents can work out how to be in multiple places at once at the weekends, just like any other parents with kids in clubs.

Some of the replies here are batshit.

They've not had years because you've been doing it without letting them know it was problematic.

I hope you weren't as blunt as your post on here implies but it's done now. You get your weekends back.

Hopefully the children will start to play again over the summer holidays.

🤣

However long or short the message itself ......it was curt because there was no polite warning, no providing your thought process in advance. No timeframe to allow neighbour to organise a different way

Well that is quite far from what you originally said: It was a short message to a parent saying don't expect us to take your child with us to the new football club.