AIBU to think my dad actually has a point about this? (Boring - kids' football).

[Cathycomehome]

My son's football team recently won 19 - 0, with my son scoring quite a few (8? 9? dunno) of those goals. My mum and dad came to watch the match. Son and mates obviously well chuffed, but my dad, after congratulating my son on playing well, said "It would have been more gentlemanly to stop after about 3-0".

I did feel a bit sorry for the other team.

It depends on how they took it. As whatmeworrysays, triumphal crowing would have been distasteful.

I would say stop at 6 nil, but anyway, on the principle, yanbu. Even adult games it's pointless to continue (professional sport aside, which is mostly about spectacle on sport anyway).

cantspell, my post was tongue in cheek.

As it happens I hate really mismatched sport for kids. Yes, they've got learn to lose etc but I don't think they learn much by losing 19-0. They just get demoralised.

I disagree with your dad. The whole point of football is to score goals. If the winning team had stopped at 3 the game would have been pointless and boring to take part in and watch too. It would also have given the losing team false beliefs about their skill. If you let in 19 goals it means there is a problem somewhere in the team, the defenders, the goalkeeper, maybe the whole team. If you lose 3-0, well, that might just be a bad day.
Playing sport is all about learning to lose, not winning. It's about team-work and learning to reflect and move on. all essentila skills, not just for sport, but for life too.

Take his point, but what if they'd stopped at 3-0, then the other team had suddenly put it together and scored 4 goals and won?
To me the gentlemanly place would be in, as AKMD says, the way they took it in front of the other team.

Umpire speaks: "Now Andy Murray. You've won the first two sets 6-0, 6-0. You now have to be a gentleman and lose the next set."
Can't see that working somehow.

If they are that mismatched then it is bad management of the team. The managers should have asked to go down a division if they knew the team was going to struggle this season.

We have been on the receiving end of thrashings and also given out our fair share of them, mainly happens in cup games as all divisions are eligable to enter. Sometimes it is good to get a thrashing as it stops the lads getting to cocky and encourages them to work harder.

i disagree too.the kids shouldn't be so fragile to be crushed by what is only a game after all. Although it does sound from your OP as though perhaps your DS's team weren't being too gracious ?

In the US they have the "mercy" rule where the game comes to an end if one side gets more than a specified score ahead. In baseball it's 10 runs.

In college football, if a side is well ahead there's a gentleman's agreement that they put the reserves on

This type of arrangement could be well used over here.

So what are the winning team supposed to do? Deliberately miss the goal? Pass to the other team? As has been pointed out, if it's a league game and goal difference will come into the final positioning, can you rely on all the other teams to "play ball"?

If it was 7 year olds then the ref might have a word with the managers, teams and parents and just do some fun practice stuff, or mix teams for the second half, but not when they're nearly teenagers. The winning team should be courteous, though, and not jeer.

My DS played in one match where they went 10-0 up. By the end of the match, the score was 10-8. Matches should be played to the end - but children who win by an embarrassingly large margin should be taught not to gloat.

Pakdooik, not sure at this level they will have a lot of reserves. In any case, the manager would probably do this automatically to give the kids who might not play much a chance.

I played on my primary school's netball and rounders teams, we were a tiny school and played some dire matches! There was a netball game we lost 24-0.

TBH, we didn't expect to win so it was no big deal - and the next year when the year 6 bullies (who wouldn't pass to certain other players!) had left and the team got along much better, our team was really pretty good, placing well in tornaments etc, despite being at a huge disadvantage in terms of age of players!

A lot learnt in those experiences. Even a bad team wouldn't be loosing 24-0 if they worked together.