Forest Glade FC 1st Friendly

There are times when I really wish I had of been pushed into football or any other sport come to think of it when I was younger. I doubt I would have ever been much good at football but it might have helped with my coaching if I had at least played a bit more throughout my school years. We have now been coaching our under 6's Forest Glade football team for about a year and a half or more, and finally today we got the boys their first friendly game over in Shenfield.

 

This was a very proud day for the 3 coaches and for the parents of the children. To see our lads all booted up and in their matching kits, finally coming together as a little team to play someone else rather than just each other. Talk about throw the kids in at the deep end, they travelled away to Shenfield on a day when it was absolutely bucketing down with rain to play an unknown team, on an unknown ground with an unknown referee! Given the circumstances they all performed absolutely amazingly and despite losing quite heavily, they all had a real good time and came off the pitch grinning from ear to ear. A win would have been nice, but first and foremost the kids have to be enjoying themselves.

 

The Shenfield team runs a football academy and clearly their team was a lot more established as a unit than ours. We took two teams of 5 over and the boys each had about a 30 min game.

 

Ellis, Lorn, Joshua and Ryan waiting in the dry changing room.

And its game on, Shenfield in red, Forest Glade in blue.

Lining up for a goal kick. The smallest kid on the field, our little Ellis did a blinding job in goal.

It was good to see the boys all spread out and not school boy tactics with everyone chasing the ball around.

Ellis strikes another goal kick right out towards Joshua.

Shenfield reds on the attack again.

I think the final score was about 8:1 to Shenfield and our only goal came from a late penalty kick from Ryan (our man of the match). But like I said earlier the score does not reflect the experience gained and the enjoyment that the boys all had. At least we know the standard to be achieved now and also some key areas to start working on during our Saturday training sessions.

Soaking wet and muddy, but still all smiling at the end of their first ever friendly game.

The first ever Forest Glade Under 6's team, Ryan, Joshua, Lorn, Ellis and Own. Well done lads.