I'm not as young as I once was but what I lack in speed & fitness... It'd be nice to be able to say "...I make up for in experience" but to be honest I'm no Arsene Wenger and I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
I played 1st division club level when I was young and couldn't get enough soccer. My heros were men like Ray Clemence, Pat Jennings, Peter Shilton (yes, I was a keeper), Keven Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, Craig Johnston, Gary Lineker & Trevor Francis and I was torn between Arsenal & Tottenham (but my aligence drifted around a bit - Everton, West Ham, QPR, Southampton, Chelsea, Liverpool...). The team I played in (Lindfield) won 1st division each season and I thought we were pretty good, but there was so much pressure to keep winning (this was how I thought as a 10 year old...a bit sad really). And so when it stopped being fun and it became a bit too nerve racking facing penalties in the season finals or reps games (yes I was in the rep squad for a few years too) I tried my hand at referreeing. That was OK and was pretty good pocket money for a 14 year old. And, looking back, I have to say I learnt a fair bit about the game from doing lines in All Age games but after a while whilstle blowing lost its appeal...I'm not really sure why. So I took a break (for about 15 years) and then decided I wanted to get back into the game a bit but figured I was too old & out of shape to play at the same level I used to (even though, at the time, I was running 8-12km every few days). So, having played and reffed I thought I'd try my hand at coaching. My first team was the Berowra U9Cs and it was a bit of an eye opener (maintaining an authoritative position has never been my strong suit).
This year my eldest son, Isaac, registered and started playing U6. When I registered him at the soccer club I said I was happy to coach if they needed a coach, which of course they did. So I'm coaching an U6 team (now that's an interesting exercise!). That in itself is a hard enough but I offered to coach the U16 team as well. There's a bit more of a story to that but suffice to say I'm basically helping out a friend who wasn't able to coach the team. So, between the 6s and the 16s, I've got 20 faces to put names to (about 5 or 6 of which I already knew) and attempt to teach them something about the beautiful game of football.
Coaching the 6s is basically an exercise in crowd control. Coaching the 16s is actually kind of exciting as I get to work on the higher level skills & tactics. The main problem is I haven't exactly been keeping in shape over the last 10 years (I blame marriage) and so it's a little hard keeping up with a bunch of 15 year olds (the first week I tried, and almost succeeded, but could barely walk for the majority of the next week). So I have to get up to speed with the players (figuratively speaking), how they play, their weaknesses & strengths and how they work together as a team. In addition, training for both the 6s and the 16s is on Tuesday nights and I have to change my mindset from 5 year old mode to 15 year old mode, which is a little tricky (but I'll get there).
So, while this season is looking like being full of football again (my 3 teams - English (Arsenal), Spanish (Barcelona) and Italian (Inter Milan) - have had an excellent Champions League this year), it may be a tad more than I can handle. I've got a little experience under my belt now but I'd better get back into shape otherwise I'll regret it when I can't walk the next day.
