We Three Kings Blog: Forest Glade 5-a-side Tournament

Sunday 24 May 2015

Forest Glade 5-a-side Tournament

Another very, very busy weekend with football as the May bank holiday is always the annual Forest Glade 5-a-side tournament. I was supposed to be on tea and coffee duty yesterday and then coaching my U7 boys today. However those plans were slightly scuppered earlier this week when I got a call from the club asking to help out with the U6's as a team had dropped out which messed up their groups.

Despite there being more than enough U6 players in the club, for some reason the U6 Manager seemed reluctant to enter 2 teams which seemed utterly crazy to me as these kids are chomping at the bit to just play football. So to cut a very long story short, after a couple of days phoning around I managed to get a second team together and then volunteered to coach them for the day instead of being on tea and coffee duty.

This was a major challenge for me because other than Brandon I did not know any of the kids, or their abilities, or their parents. In fact I didn't even know all their names at first and had to quickly learn them!!! The kids all seemed so happy to have been invited to a tournament but after the first two games (both losses) it was apparent that the fundamentals were just not there and that their coach has really neglected their development in matches. So it was a real up hill struggle but fortunately by the 3rd game things were starting to click and they were starting to listen to me. Subsequently they there had two very good wins which put a huge smile on their faces and gave them all such a moral boost. By the 5th and final game they were all starting to get tired after a very long day and ended up losing a very tight game, 2-1. Quite amazing for a team that was newly formed only 1 day earlier!!

It was a real pleasure to pull this team together and give them an opportunity that their main coach seemed reluctant to give them. Despite losing 3 games out of 5, they all had a smile on their face and simply enjoyed getting out there and playing some football. This is proper grass roots football and I only hope that the club can find a solution for a new coach/manager to run a second U6 team for the 2015/16 season. My fear is that the solution they are hoping for is me and there lies a huge dilemma and a very difficult decision for me as managing Joshua's U7 team and Brandon's U6 team at the same time would be impossible.

The newly formed U6 Tigers that hadn't played together until the day! L-R Brandon, Harry, Charlie, Freddie, Kye and Charlie.

It was great to give these boys the opportunity to play in a tournament and gain some match experience.

Great picture of Brandon striking the ball and then Brandon with his team of Tigers,

So after an exhausting Saturday where I was at the club from 8am to around 4pm to take the U6's through a 5 match tournament, it was home to get the plans and kit all prepared to do it all again for the U7's on Sunday. Fortunately the weather was a bit better on the Sunday and we had a great days football. Joshua's team won 2 games, drew 2 games and lost 1. The final game was a 1-1 draw but was probably one of their best performances. They clearly outplayed the other team but were 1-0 day despite having loads of opportunities. For the first time I really saw some drive and determination from the boys as they fought back to level the game at 1-1. A loss in such a good game just wouldn't have been a fair result as arguably they deserved the win.

Joshua didn't have one of his better tournaments and I put that down to two things. Firstly he had quite a late night on Saturday as he stayed up to watch Britain's Got Talent (so that was my mistake). Then secondly I think he was slightly tired from being at Brandon's tournament all day Saturday and spending the whole day running around and kicking balls. He just lacked his pace and a bit of enthusiasm out on the field today which was a bit of a shame really. Lets hope he bounces back at Leyton Orient next week.