Supporting my DS with his football.

[LetsPlayDarts]

My ex and I separated years ago. We have 2 DC's.

DS 9 plays football. He enjoys it but is by no means obsessive over it.

He plays for 3 football teams...the local town, another development team and the local team where his friends play. This means that minimum there is football 5 days out of 7 and this is a mixture of training, local games and also the odd game within a 100 mile radius.

My ex is completely on board with all of this, telling DS about the promising career he will have and focusses on his 'aptitude and attitude'. I struggle with this partly because I want him to enjoy football and not place too much importance on it.

So this week DS is with me and is with me 70% of the time. There has been a request for him to attend one game daytime this week with 4 days notice 1 hour away. There is also a training session that I cant make the start for - I finish work the time the training session starts. I have suggested the ex collects my DS from my DM (who has no car) and he take him for the first 10 minutes and I'll come straight from work.

All hell has broken loose. My ex has said that I'm not committed to nurturing our DS's sporting talent. He is happy to use his annual leave to do this - I am not for every single time. Furthermore, my boss is accommodating when I have childcare issues and i don't want to take advantage over football practice.

My ex also pointed out that I have used some of my leave to spend with my DP (we don't live together) and not the kids and how this is unacceptable as 'every hour of his has been spent with the kids'.

I haven't gone into the impact of all of this training on my other DC, but games/training means precious opportunities for family time is decreased.

Am I being completely unreasonable here?

DS is also 9 and a talented, county level runner. He was training 4-5 times a week but we have been asked to scale it back, because of the risk of injury in a young, still developing, child, by repeating the same motion so frequently.

He would be far better cross training to keep his fitness up and stop the inevitable boredom which will set in playing so frequently. I agree with you and PP that dropping to 2 clubs would be sensible.

But if course it can cone good.

My lovely friends has two sons, both of whom went through the training programme of a Premier league team, one is still in it (and playing for England at his age level), the other has just signed for a Championship team.

The commitment to get them there is immense, though.

You can catch up on education, but it's much harder to make it as a professional player if you step off the pathway. But yes, it's brutal - boys are removed from the training programmes if they don't make the grade, and there is no guarantee of a professional contract when they are moving to the U19s and adult game.

If your DS really is good, and he is keen about playing 5 days a week, then you have a hard choice. Are you going to be able to let him have a shot at it? Or say he has to reduce, and in effect not even try, because he might not succeed anyhow and you cannot agree with XH how to manage the admin.

The training programme for running is however not comparable to the football one (which AFAIK includes cross training and strength and conditioning once on an elite programme). Success in running for teen is quite strongly correlated to not specialising too early. those who do best and successfully transition to adult competition are usually training in two or 3 sports, not just running (which is indeed too narrowly repetitive for the growing body if done more than 3 or 4 times a week, even with a balance of endurance and speed sessions).

Two things - and i have been there with a football-playing son:

• 9 is fine to travel by coach and not have a parent there. This was DS's life (and furthest travel could be upwards of 3-4 hours away). We attended some, but not all, home games. This was quite normal amongst his peers.

• Cultivate - or get your ex H to cultivate - a small group of the other parents who might help with a lift to training. in fact, if this is e.g. the town team or development squad, contact the coaches directly and ask whether they are able to facilitate this. Again, DS and a small group of the professional team's academy used to share lifts left right and centre, as it was silly for 5 of us to travel from approximately the same place to the training ground 3x a week.

To be honest OP, the dev club may solve your problem for you. If your DS remains that good, they will insist he drops other commitments, including other teams.

YANBU
If you can't get DS to training on time then you can't. End of discussion!
Don't engage with drama with your ex.
Support your son as much as you can. He may only have a limited time to get into the better team.
Advise your ex when you can and can't so he has the opportunity to if he can.
You can only do what you can.
Personally I would try if he has this chance.

OP there is some evidence that dance can help aspiring footballers, because it helps with core strength and stretch. Rio Ferdinand trained as a dancer as a child for example. Sign your DS up for a ballet class, then stand back and watch your ex-husband's reaction. Shall we agree he wouldn't be really supportive, as it doesn't fit his idea of what footballers do?

"Shall we agree he wouldn't be really supportive, as it doesn't fit his idea of what footballers do?"

No, let's wait and see what he actually does. He might be delighted, (assuming it is a ballet-based class, which fits in to the DS's already crowded schedule)