How to respond to insufferable football dad

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Ds14 has been playing grassroots football for several years on the same team as the child of annoying dad. I’ll call him AD for the purpose of this post. I know AD fairly well now and he is a pain in the ass. He’s one of those men who believe his opinion is right about everything.

I try to avoid him but he often makes a beeline for me at the football and generally mills about talking to everyone. If you say anything about the game, tactics whatever then he will contradict (obviously I’m a woman so know nothing about football). The most annoying thing is he starts ever sentence with ‘listen’ as if he’s about to impart some factual piece of wisdom that we all need to stop and listen to immediately.

Last week there was a bit of a punch up between some of our players and the opposition. It got quite nasty with lots of bad language etc. My ds wasn’t involved and I said something along the lines of ‘if ds was acting like that he’d be off the pitch and going straight home’. AD pipes up with ‘listen your lad is just as bad.’ I reply with ‘well he’s clearly not because he’s stood out of the way not getting involved.’

AD then launches into a speech about how i have to accept that my ds is a ‘lad’ the same as the rest of them and he will be just as bad at school or when he’s out with friends and I can’t know what he’s doing all of the time. Essentially trying to educate me about the behaviour and temperament of my own child who he doesn’t even know beyond seeing him play football. I walked away at this point as he was doing my head in.

This is just one incident. His entire attitude is obnoxious and know-it-all. I need a good response to close him down when he starts with his ‘listen….’ rants.

Oh Steve hears everything and often jumps into conversations he’s not part of purely to impart his superior opinion. So it would have been fairly hypocritical of him to complain even if I had been speaking directly to him.

I didn’t ‘attack’ anyone. I simply said I’d be pissed off if my child was screaming cunt at the top of his voice and throwing punches. It wasn’t just his child, it was a full group of them including the opposition.

“Hey, listen! Did you hear Gary Lineker talking about the parents shouting from the sidelines at his kids football. He said you can guarantee 99.9% of what gets shouted is wrong! Just saying”. Then walk away. When he shouts again or imparts football knowledge just smirk. Or get out some walkers crisps and enjoy!

Also ‘I speak as I find.’ 🙄

A perfect excuse to eat crisps!

I would "sshh" him. Just ssssh and say "not today I'm very tired" or shh him and never explain.

He doesn't give a shit about being rude so you don't have to. I find men seldom like being sshhed.

You find him insufferable. I wonder how he experiences you? You openly criticised his kid and his parenting but then are annoyed when he criticises your child back in defence. Perhaps he finds you insufferable.

Then maybe he should just try to avoid her.

God forbid she points out that it's not ideal behaviour for a bunch of boys to be shouting "cunt" and fighting.

If you dont want to confront him directly then just get out your phone and start scrolling on Instagram or something. Or say sorry, just need to read this and get your phone out and start typing a text.
If you have over ear headphones they can be a useful deterrent

Alternatively get DS to play rugby, parents are a lot less aggressive IMHO!

Once again…I did not openly criticise his kid. I quietly said to my friend that I’d be pissed off of mine acted that way. An attack on Steve and his kid would have been directed at them - ‘Oi Steve your kid is acting like a dick, sort him out.’ This did not happen.

But if he did find me insufferable and stopped talking at me permanently it would be a blessed relief.

“No, Thank you - I really don’t want to listen TO YOU”

would like to say something like ‘no thank you I don’t want to listen’ 😂 but I don’t know if I can be that rude.

You absolutely can.

He is imposing his unsolicited opinions on your son on you, which is incredibly rude. What would you pussyfoot about his feelings?

What has he done to deserve kindness and consideration from you? Sod all.

Ewww football parents are the worst! Just ignore him until he gets the message.

As you can see from my username I’ve spent a few years standing on the sidelines and agree football parents can be a nightmare! When my DS got to U14s I stopped going to watch and left DH to it. It got far too confrontational, with too much teenage testosterone flying around and parents piling in too. I’d come away with my blood pressure through the roof! I’d rather stay at home and do the ironing!

When he says Listen just look at him, say no in a firm voice and walk away

if he challenges just be honest, I am not interested in anything you have to say and walk away

OP didn't mention his child by name. She wasn't even talking to him. She was speaking quietly to another parent and he eavesdropped and butted in.

If the children who got involved in the punch up were throwing punches and calling each other 'cunts', their behaviour does invite criticism. He sounds like a loud-mouthed know-it-all who needs to mansplain parenting to OP.

If he finds OP insufferable, he can give her a wide berth which she does to him.

I wish he would.

Listen Steve, I don’t need you to mansplain this to me

or just ‘Pardon’

or ‘I always listen, there’s no need to ask me to’

or ‘I’m not deaf!’

“I wasn’t speaking to you and didn’t invite you to join the conversation” would probably fall out of my mouth. Or I’d put earplugs in when he starts. Or just tell him to shut the fuck up??!

I’m not sure this is football only issue. My husband is a scout leader and there was a swimming gala for the district. It was decided that 3 “ judges” stood at the end of the pool, one judge was only looking for the 1st , another for 2nd etc. I was the 3rd judge. I had to watch for who came 3 rd, give them a little card that said 3rd and then they took this up to the admin team who noted it down. I thought at first this was a bit of overkill it I realised why it was done like this when a parent came up swearing loudly that his kid was 1st not 2nd. He wasn’t, and everyone agreed that the 1st judge was correct. But omg the abuse. My mother in law was the 1st judge and she was late 60’s at the time but this dad was screaming in her face. Obviously leaders and other parents pulled him away and he wasn’t made to leave. His son was mortified. It was a friendly district scout gala not some kind of official championship.

This 100%
Good grief it is not 'insufferable' to point out that you would not tolerate that behaviour in your child. If you don't want to overhear perceived criticism of your parenting then don't raise your kids to be foul mouthed out of control arsehole. At 14 it would a reasonable age related expectation to manage frustration and raised emotions without having to use physical violence or unpleasant explitives. If you haven't supported your child to learn to manage emotions and made it clear that violent behaviour is a complete no then don't get prickly when someone comments to someone else not even you directly that it's a very low bar....
If go with the "I'm just going to stop you there" and a hand up to reinforce tactics followed by "I'm just not interested" every single time.... It's not rude it's assertive and boundaried. Too many women mistake assertiveness for rudeness because we are conditioned to be 'nice' and 'polite' and stroke male egos. Just makes us fume internally because we are repeatedly silencing ourselves...

We have all met a Steve.
There are a lot of Steve’s or Mrs Steve’s on here as well by looks of it.
just carry on avoiding as much as possible. It’s all you can do!