A brilliant, beautiful game that can be lost because of shameful behaviour...

I've had a pretty good day today. I played in a vets game this evening and we managed to win 4-3 and I bagged a hatrick. It was what you might call a direct approach and a battling performance against a very good Sundon Vets team. It shows that it's not always the best 'proper' footballing team on the day that wins. We struggled a bit to start off but tactically our coach decided the way to win was play quick balls to a target man (me!) and play off him. It worked a treat and they couldn't handle it.

This morning though was completely different. My son Matty plays for a fantastic team  and their coach happens to be my vets team coach too. This morning, though, he played a 3-1-3-1 formation that really suits the players they have. The boys were brilliant and moved the ball around really, really well. To be fair, their opponents weren't a bad side and they've got some pretty tasty players, but the behaviour of their coach and one parent in particular was absolutely awful. We started off really quickly and were soon on top. The opposing coach started raising his voice, hollering and generally being horrible. By half time he was screaming at his team. He was joined in his 'chorus or terror' by one of the boy's parents. The dad was repeatedly heard swearing about how bad the team were playing. Now I'm not a prude, but we're talking about 10 year old boys here in the prime of their development years. The half time talks were what you might call a bit different. The opponents were sat down while the 'coach' (and I use the term loosely) balled them out about effort, commitment and just generally being bad. Our coach basically let the team listen to them and then said "I bet you're glad I'm not like him!".

The second half was much the same with both teams trying their best but our team coming out on top. The coach continued his barrage of abuse along with the father. It was awful to watch, witnessing the poor lad looking over at his father yelling abuse. I mean, clearly the lad was trying to play badly just to upset him! Eventually the dad said "f%ck this, I'm not staying here to watch this pile of sh*t" and promptly walked off. His son just stood there, started biting his nails and you could see the tears welling up in his eyes. To make it even worse, at the end of the game with the score 5-1 to our team, the coach again sat his team down and told them how rubbish they were. It's strange, because if he'd actually watched the game and not worried about the score, he might have realised that they were actually a decent team and the kid who's dad walked off was probably their best player!!!

What really worries me the most is the journey home the poor lad had to put up with with his disgruntled father and if he'll even bother playing in their next game. This is the time that the boys need encouragement and positive reinforcement, not screaming abusive coaches and parents. Sadly I see it all too often, where the only people that really care about the results in kids football are the adults. Is it really that hard to just watch and support your kid, even when things aren't going well? Do we really believe they're trying to not do their best?

Something I'd really like to do is video the parents and the coaches and then play them repeatedly at the next game...

How can we get more people to help and how can everyone help?

Every club has a few people that do most of the work. It's the same everywhere and certainly not restricted to football clubs. Our club for instance has about 6 or 7 people that do virtually everything. I'm not taking away anything from the hours and hours that every coach puts into his team because, without the coaches there wouldn't be any teams, but running a club is a time-consuming business. You also have to remember that to get your team onto the pitch every Saturday or Sunday, the teams need registering, players need signing on, kit needs buying, pitches need booking, arrangements with the opponents need making, the team selection, formation and tactics need to be decided, the parents need informing of the details and the list goes on and on and on. This happens week in and week out and it could be made so much easier of more people helped out.

As the kids get older, more and more parents stay away, that's just one of those things (don't get me started on parents that treat kids football as a baby-sitting service!!!), but how could we spread this load? After all, the majority of stuff that needs doing is long before the whistle blows for kick-off. A couple of clubs I know offer discounted registration fees to parents of players that help out. They might arrange the pitch booking each week, or they might make the arrangements with the opponents. Some clubs even offer free registration for a player if the player's parent coaches the team. I'd like to see some sort of incentive scheme set up to include benefits of some description given to those parents that do offer their help. The FA National Development Manager For Youth Football is a guy called Nick Levett ( @NLevett on Twitter) and he recently tweeted "It's hard to get a volunteer to give twelve hours a week, but much simpler to get four volunteers to do three hours a week each". But while there's people like me that will do everything so their own lad can get a game with his mates, it's hard to get any help if there aren't any tangible benefits.

If you're still reading this by now, you're probably someone that would offer some help. Why don't you call your coach now and see what help he needs? I can promise you this, he will be extremely grateful and you might even be the reason he keeps coaching next season. I heard a story yesterday of a coach that called all the parents of his U11s team over at the end of a league match and asked for help. They all nodded, agreed to see what they could do and then went home. He then walked across the pitch and took the goals down on his own. He packed it in at the end of that season and the team folded because no-one else stepped forward to coach the team...

What would you do if your coach decided it was too much and walked away at the end of the season?