The Mighty Mustang’s (the boys football team that I’ve coached for the past five years finished their season last Sunday.
It’s been an out and out disaster.
Of the six games we’ve played, we conceded somewhere in the region of 42 goals and scored 9. We’ve not won a game or even won a point.
Our biggest defeat was 8-0 but that’s about standard for this season to be honest.
We lost our best player (who definitely has a shot at proper professional football) and other players and had lots of disruption so, it’s time for us to go down a division or two.
We also have a separating gradient of motivation among the team (which happens in all aspects of teams and all aspects of boys football). You are able to hold things together for a while but then you are serving some people whose motivation is less and some peoples motivation is more and in trying to serve them all, you serve nobody.
We lost 5-4 on Sunday (it was an extraordinary and exciting game but disappointing to lose) but I had 4 subs and I was chatting to the subs during the game and explaining to them that the most important thing at this level of football (division two on a Sunday is quite high) is first touch.
You have to be able to kill the ball dead and knock it away in a collected way and to a member of your own team.
This sounds ridiculously simple but in essence it is quite a simple game.
The only thing you need to develop that skill is a ball and a wall.
All the boys on my football team have a ball and a wall.
I have told them over the summer they need a ball and a wall and to run, that’s it and they’ll come back in September tons better and tons fitter and ready to go again.
Whether any or all of them do remains to be seen but it struck me when I was talking to them that the same applies to us all of the time.
The chance for improvement for all of us now exists right in front of our faces.
The explosion of the internet and the decrease in value in any aspect of education or even the tools required to get better are within the reach of almost anyone.
What is not available free of charge to pick up out of a plastic basket is the will and motivation.
I have all the facilities and kit required to be an extraordinary cyclist for my age but I ‘choose’ not to do that. I have all the information at my finger tips to practice to be the best possible surgeon in the world and yet I get distracted through other things.
Where we invest our love is where we invest our life.
All we need is our equivalent of a ball and a wall.
Blog Post Number - 2750