Football teams

[Anon444]

My son has been trying out for a newly forming local football team that was advertised as open to players with no experience. He has been training at technical centres but never played a full game and really wants to join a team. He needs development but he shows up, listens and tries his best. I just want to encourage his love of football - not thinking I have the next Messi or Ronaldo on my hands here!

We have attended over 6 training sessions and each time everyone was told we’ll make decisions soon about joining the team. The manager in the meantime has been making positive noises to all the kids saying he is generally happy with what he is seeing.

we have just returned from a 2 week holiday. In this time there have been no training sessions because too many others were away. I therefore accept the invite on the group chat to the next training session and suddenly messages start popping up about bringing info required to “sign on”.

as I had no idea what this meant, I private messaged the manager. He replies that he hasn’t made a decision whether to sign my son yet and “it hasn’t helped that you have been away for 2 weeks”. Just noting again here that there has been no training during this time.

we turn up and everyone else is filling in paperwork. I then get a v short text message after the session saying we have to let your son go. No explanation. Asked for feedback. No reply.

AIBU to think this has been handled badly? he let us come to training again and for my son to watch everyone else sign on. I am now left to tell him with no feedback or reason to give him. He has just turned 9 btw for context.

That's awful, but not unheard of, there can definitely be some unpleasantness in kids football.

Poor DS, look for another team, they're not all like that!

I coach the same age group and different teams (coaches) have different attitudes. Our way of looking at it is from a community perspective where we want all kids in our area to have a chance to play and we want to build build a successful community organisation that engages with the local area.

Some people think they're the next Alex Ferguson and all they care about is trying to win - this sort of attitude would be immediately banned if I had anything to do with setting rules for the juvenile associations.

There are clubs near us who will actively kick out kids that they think are not good enough and it's enraging. I certainly wouldn't want my kids anywhere near a club like that

Disgraceful - people like that shouldn't be allowed to coach. Keep looking around for a team that's right for your son. All kids should be allowed to play irrespective of their ability. Good luck.

Sounds like an awful team. Don't let it it your son off though, there's loads of nice teams out there

Good lord that's awful, not only the football bit but the passive aggressive comments about missing two weeks IN THE SUMMER HOLIDAY for goodness sake- I would be leaving, find another friendly community grassroots club (ask for suggestions on local fb pages is an idea) and complaining to the club management/local FA that is a disgusting way to treat anyone, let alone primary aged kids.

This is NOT what grassroots football is about and I promise you there will be better clubs out there for your son.

That’s shocking but not surprising, some football clubs treat the kids badly, with no consideration of their feelings - With some clubs, they may as well be commodities.

My advice would be to find a club that is more for the fun of it - at u9 level it should be possible to find such a club near by.

I agree with this.

The only problem you may have is that many clubs are full, if there aren't enough volunteers to run them. But ask around, you might find the perfect one for your child.

I found this in both boys and girls football. Not in any of the other myriad sports my kids tried. Just football. Lots of clubs, all the same. It’s truly diabolical. I wish schools would stop doing after school / weekend football etc until the sport sorts it’s grass roots out.

I don't think this is limited to football. I have been a top grade sporting slacker in my time, turning up to the club for mostly laughs and beers. We used to laugh at the try hards down the road, but I would never have tried to join them (even if they had been willing to have me) because it wouldn't have been a good experience for either me or them and probably would have ended up with me getting kicked out.

I think clubs have different ethos. Some are about a more social and enjoyable experience for all talents and abilities. Others are competitive and looking for the best talent to work together, improve and win. I wouldn't want to judge one type as better or worse than the other, just different. It is difficult if you are in a highly competitive club and people are just being subbed to enable them to get a game when some better team players have worked really hard for an entire season to try to keep the team competitive.

I think where this club went wrong is that they didn't communicate to you the ethos and the likelyhood of your sons chances at the club at an early stage so you could manage his expectations. They should know the kind of club they want to be and it should have been apparent to them from an early stage whether your child would be a good fit for them - and so they should have been able to make you aware of that so you could manage his expectations and also potentially make plans to try out other clubs - and not need 6 sessions to do that. But that might be down to the relative newness of the club and inexperience of the people running it.

I hope you succeed in finding a club that is more suitable - please don't give up.

I really really dislike youth football. I yet have to find a club that plays for fun - not training three times a week, not training for three hours, not having trials…. Just for the fun of it.
my DC plays in a development team, they never have games (nor even friendliest), sessions get cancelled at short notice if the coach is needed for the “A” team…
mit is such a shame. Like they don’t take the kids into consideration at all

The coach could have handled it more sensitively, but ultimately, you presumably knew when your son start the training sessions that it was a trial and not everyone would be signed for the team? So you must have had a conversation with your son about it being a trial and explained that not everyone would be picked for the team.

It will vary quite a bit from club to club, and some will take it a lot more seriously than others. Ultimately football is a competitive sport and a team has a limited number of players, so it can certainly be very much ability-based. If they are putting together a team to play against other teams, the object is to build the best possible team and win, so not every football club will be right for every kid.

I think maybe if you look around you might be able to find other clubs where it's more about the training sessions rather than focusing on competitive matches.

Think of it like a choir. A fun 'community' choir will often take anyone who wants to take part and will sing for the fun of singing, regardless of whether everyone has a decent voice or not, and the better singers will essentially cover for the ones who aren't so good at carrying a tune. But a more serious amateur choir that performs at events or takes part in competitions will test people's singing ability first and will only take the singers that they feel are up to scratch.