My daughter has just turned 17. She has been playing football since she was 6, the last 3 years in JPL (Junior Premier League) teams. She is very passionate about her football and a technically skilled player who plays football 4-5 days a week (training and matches). From when they turn 16, girls can play in women‘s teams, and my daughter was keen to give it a go. She went to a trial with a big club who has several women‘s teams. She was invited to an extended trial during pre-season and at the end was offered a place with their 1st women’s team. She was so happy! The team just had a new manager who had been recruited from another club.
Things were ok at the beginning, she really enjoyed the training, made friends and got a decent amount of match minutes (about half of each match which she was happy with - it is a large team). She played well and, using her technical skills, could certainly hold her own against physically stronger adult players. She hasn‘t missed a single training session so far but had to decline one match due to a school trip that had been arranged a long time before she joined the team. She informed the team manager with plenty of notice and an explanation of why she couldn’t attend. It is a big team and they have plenty of players, so she didn’t let anyone down.
On return from her trip the manager hardly played her anymore. She endlessly sat on the bench, getting about 10-15 min at the end of matches. No communication from the manager who stood next to her for 90 min everytime, totally ignoring her. Once she was asked to get on the pitch without notice, had not warmed up, and was then shouted at for not moving faster. She said she was really stiff, especially as it was a cold and wet day. I was not happy at all - this is not how you treat your players and it is also a real injury risk. She was in tears in the car afterwards. We encouraged her to speak to the manager so she understands why she doesn‘t get any game time anymore. She finally did (she is a bit shy so found this quite hard, and the manager doesn’t appear particularly approachable). He told her that he didn’t play her because she missed the one match while she was on her school trip! I must say at this point that there are others on the team who rarely attend training, only turn up to occasional (home) matches and then get played the full 90 min. Some of these aren’t fantastic players and it is obvious that their performance suffers from lack of training - yet they get played.
Someone (I think the team captain as well as some of the coaches) approached the manager and told him that he shouldn’t sign up young players and then just let them sit on the bench. After this he played my daughter for one match - she played really well (the head of women’s football for the club watched the match and spoke to both her and us afterwards and said how well she had played). After that she was mostly back on the bench. More tears and total frustration and her confidence is starting to suffer.
My husband is starting to get annoyed (matches often involve a lot of travel, sometimes 2 hours+ each way, be there 1.5 h before the match, match time, de-brief after - wiping out most of our Sundays). He wanted to send a message to the manager asking for the reason for not playing our daughter. I stopped him from sending the message - this is women’s football and I think our daughter is old enough to have the conversation herself. I didn’t think it was appropriate for us as parents to get involved at this point. I gave my daughter a big hug, told her that she played well in the few minutes she was given at the end of the last match (which is true), encouraged her to speak to the manager again (she said she would) but also said to her that this may just not be the right team for her - if it makes her so unhappy and frustrated perhaps it is time to look for an alternative (unfortunately not many options in our semi-rural area). I said that it’s her decision but we’d support her with whatever she decides. She fully understands that not everyone gets played all the time, but the lack of obvious reasons and non-existent communication frustrates her. She never experienced anything like this before. Also to add - this is not one of the top tier teams where you would expect managers to be super selective - it is women’s grass roots football.
Interested in thoughts and experiences from others who may have had children/young adults in similar situations.
Sorry for the long post!