Vilfredo Pareto discovered the principle of what became known as the 80/20 rule or the 'law of the vital few'.
You might recognise it in modern society, as 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people, but it applies to so many more things in society as a whole.
For example, 80% of the wealth rests with 20% of the people.
80% of the land is owned by 20% of the people, but that is by the by.
In this blog post, I'm more interested in the work done, the people who don't do it, the reason that you should do it, and what you should get out of it.
So, I'm going to jump back about nine years to when Callum was seven and even a little bit before that when he started to take an interest in playing football.
Callum came to football a little bit later than other boys, who were pushed towards it by their parents, who knew more about football than I did.
Maybe that held him back.
Maybe that stopped him from having a chance of making it to the big time, but I think I'm cool with that.
He started training with the West Bridgford Colts, and inevitably, they broke into different teams. They didn't have a coach, so I became the coach of Callum's team even though I (honest to God) knew nothing about football in general and certainly nothing about coaching football.
We had to name the team, and so they became the Mustangs. I can't remember if that was after the car or after the horse, but that's what we were, and that's who we were. We started in Division eight out of eight (at the very bottom of the tree back nine years ago).
We had a team full of would-be footballers and butterfly collectors; some people would get caught up in the goal net as they were supposed to be in goal, and other guys who thought they would be Messi or Ronaldo within 2 to 3 years.
We had one real superstar in Iesa, who went on to bigger things, such as Mansfield Town Academy and Notts County Academy.
For the rest of the boys, it became obvious that we were there for the fun and the thrill, even though, at times, not everybody signed up for that.
We did, though, develop a culture.
For the first few years, I coached with a female coach called Katie; she was brilliant (our goalkeeper's mum).
We were the only male team at West Bridgford Colts with a female coach, and there are 160 teams.
But it became clear that the Pareto rule applied.
Alison, my wife, did the admin for the team; that's a hellish job with very little thanks trying to organise referees and pitches, referees cancelling, players cancelling, other coaches shouting, and all sorts of nonsense.
Katie and I coached, and we steadily drifted up the divisions.
We actually reached a point pre-pandemic where we were one goal in our last game away from qualifying for Division One, the very top of the tree.
We also won the league as a 9-a-side team in the most extraordinary penalty shootout you've ever seen (we were 3-0 down in a penalty shootout and won in sudden death).
And so then, on another cup run (we hadn't lost a cup game for some years), we got stopped short in the quarterfinal by a virus called Covid, and when we opened back up later on in 2021, we went forward and won the Cup in the most extraordinary circumstances again.
The photograph here is my son, Callum, celebrating after scoring a free kick to make it 3-2 to win the Cup final, one of the most special memories I will ever have in the Mustangs.
Over the years, I've written a lot about them here because coaching a football team is very similar to running a business. There are stability, expectations, and team management, and sometimes, you need a superstar, and sometimes, you need to train someone to be a superstar.
But always, the Pareto rule applies. In the middle of winter, when you're running training sessions, and nobody else turns up, nobody speaks to you on WhatsApp, nobody pays a tiny little bit of extra money to get a better coach, and nobody engages, you realise that you're doing this for you, not for anybody else. Yes, for your son (whom you frequently argued with about the coaching), but you do it for you.
I learned this years ago, working in accident and emergency as a head and neck surgery junior.
You don't stitch up drunk guys' faces who've been in fights in the middle of town for them; they don't give a shit; you suture them up for you.
And so, at the end of last season, we were flying high, we finished second in division three, we were due for a promotion to division two, we had a really good group of people, an excellent group of parents (Not all of whom engaged very much or ran the line) and then all of a sudden it blows away like a fart in the wind.
Some boys pull out because they've passed their GCSEs and are going into apprenticeships, while other guys move teams. There are 12 of us left in the squad, which needs at least 18, and we can't find anyone else anywhere to play.
And so, the other night, I sent a message on WhatsApp to tell everybody that after nine glorious years, five second-place finishes in the league, two extraordinary Cup wins (and a whole load of love and lessons learned), the Mustangs were no more. In true parental principle, one parent replied on WhatsApp, and another one put a heart emoji.
I reckon there are 27 parents in that group when you count the number of boys. Some parents are on twice for mums and dads, so it's 80/20 or even worse. Nobody even noticed.
They step over you to get to the next one.
But it doesn't matter; I didn't do it for them; I did it for me, and oh, my God, just now and again, it was absolutely marvellous.
The Mustangs are dead.
Long live the Mustangs.
Blog Post Number - 3893
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