If YOU was a professional football manager

Dave2l said:

EricBanterna said:

If it will be anything like my Sunday league team and we are losing 3 or 4 nil.

I tend to play the game of how many Sunday league clichés can I shout at but in context. Most I've achieved is 42 but I did use Google for inspiration. 

"This Ref hasn't got a clue. He just hasn't got a clue..."

"Oh f*ck off ref!"

"I'm gana serious complaint about this ref"

Was I close? 😉

I tend to leave the ref alone. I know most of them quiet well now. 

Also quiet useful as some of them don't mind a beer after and don't process the bookings and now sin bins. 

MuttleyCAFC said:

Leroy Ambrose said:

So the key here is clearly, play shit football, be dirty about it and breed another generation of kids who think the ball is something to be afraid of, and that passing football is for foreign ponces.

Absolutely bizarre that we've not won an international tournament for 50-odd years, innit? 

The key is to develop the skills in kids at the right age. Non competitive games up to 14 and focus on skill, skill and skill. Sadly, our country has always been shit at that. But when you get to 17 and 18 year olds who will never be professional footballers, you can learn different skills. How to overcome disadvantage, work for each over, not give up and how to find a way to succeed. 

Decent response. I suppose once you get past 14 or 15 it's difficult to learn a new way of playing, so best it gets reinforced at an early age. I watched my nephew go from a decent player in an average team to a shit, uninterested player in a good team over the space of three years because they got a couple of fast, tall lads in and changed the way they played from an attractive 'build from the back' style to, basically, Wimbledon of the 90s because parents were demanding that their kids 'win'. Nephew (and a few others) lost interest despite winning the league and getting to a cup final. He stopped playing at 16 completely.

Youth football is definitely better than it used to be (lost count of the number of times I played on pitches on Sunday where there was kids football going on next to us and purple faced fat pricks screaming obscenities at 10 year old - stopped seeing that around 2004/2005/2006) - still got a long way to go though

Yes, the league we played in wasn't too bad in terms of parents but not perfect. We had some issues with a couple of ours and you do have to deal with them. ( I have seen some terrible things in other leagues the worst being a Greek one). I delayed my son playing club football because I was passionate he shouldn't play competitive games too early. It was all about winning and I disagree with that when they need to develop technique. If he wasn't a keeper, I would have delayed even more. He did Brazilian Soccer Schools which is the sort of thing youngsters should be doing rather than playing for clubs.

But when they get to 17, it has to be about winning. They won't do it if they get beat every week. The leagues don't care about the cannon fodder teams and I have seen quite a few fold because no care was taken in terms of the level they played at. We were set up for that in our last season. I will always be proud that we found a way to beat better teams. The secret is the spine, although that isn't really a secret. Don't play your weaker players in defence, stick them on the wings when they are playing or as the second striker.

In our first game of the season, we lost 6-1 to a team where the players were shouting out comments how shit we were. The disrespect was disgraceful. You get a lot of arrogance in the better sides, not all but a significant number. It was great knocking that team out of the cup and beating them in the return league game. I do accept you had to be there to appreciate it. Last season, there were three teams we had a score to settle with because of their early behaviour and we settled it with all three on the pitch. Life isn't supposed to be like that. Our lads won't go on to be professional footballers. My son is a good enough keeper in my eyes, but he is only 5ft 10 and despite being with Spurs for a while, he wasn't tall enough for them. But they will have learned what you can achieve if you work together and look for a way. They will take that with them through life.