12 – History repeating itself, or just improving itself?

Not long after my lad started playing football, one of my old team mates asked me, “Is he as good as you were at his age?”

I don’t know if it was specifically to get a comparison of the two of us, or whether it was a lead into another question of whether my lad’s team were as good as our team back in the day. (To be fair we had some good players all those years ago) If it was, I never got as far as answering the second part. After watching my lad for a year or so though, I thought he’d got something about him.

He started playing organised football at u8’s. One of his mates asked him at school if he wanted to trial for his team, Charnock Ridgeway JFC. Specifically as a goalie. I’m not sure that it was because he’d shown outstanding goalkeeping qualities on the school yard at seven years old but maybe the team were in need of somebody who didn’t mind getting a ball booted in his face. Either way, he was trialling as a goalie.

I can’t describe how it made me feel when he asked me if I’d take him to their next training session that Friday to see if he’d be good enough. I was chuffed to bits with the fact that he wanted to be a goalie. I’d never seen him play though and true to form, I started to get worked up as his trial came closer. Would he be good enough for the team? Would he even be good enough to not be embarrassed by the possible gulf in standard? The majority of the lads had played the previous league season and so knew all the other lads, the setup of the team and how things worked. The two of us had had kickabouts on the back garden but that was it. I honestly didn’t know if he’d be good enough, or even if he knew the basics, such as the rules.

I did some preparation so he wouldn’t stand out too much and got him a load of kit. Boots, goalie shirt, padded shorts, socks, shinnies and of course the compulsory item for a little goalie, oversized gloves. I didn’t want to get giant gloves for him but at short notice the only option was Sports Direct and gloves that were at least 2 sizes too big.

Friday came round and up on the field I stood there with arms folded, squinting into the distance, hoping he’d do ok. A few of the other parents said hello and asked if he’d played before. I muttered a few answers and tried not to appear disinterested but I was trying to keep an eye on how he was doing. The manager came over and asked how I was. The manager was the Dad of the friend who’d asked him to trial. He also played in the same junior team as me 20 odd years before. I felt a bit more comfortable and as I looked down the field, so did the little goalie jumping around trying to keep the ball out of the goal. As the manager went back to his duties, his wife came over to say hello and asked why I looked so worried. I told her I was just nervous about the trial and was hoping he’d do enough. She was a bit surprised because as she understood it, if he wanted to join the team, the place was his. Relief all round.

Fast forward to present day. Somebody at work had seen a post I’d put on Facebook congratulating my lad on moving up from the 2nd team to the 1st team at school but also because he’d been chosen as 1st team captain. I told the work mate how proud I was of his achievement and without giving it any thought, commented that getting the captaincy was “just another thing he’s done that I never did.”

And that got me thinking.

I started playing for a team at u12’s in a similar way to my lad. At the time this was the youngest age group in the Junior Sunday League and as such, the age when most lads started playing organised football. My mates started training with the local team, Charnock Ridgeway JFC (yes, the same) and asked if I was going to trial to be the goalie. I just went along with my Dad. It was the first time he’d seen me play as well. So as it turned out, both our first teams were the same club and it was the first time our Dad’s had really seen us play. There are some more similarities after that point.

Unfortunately for me and my mates, we didn’t have a manager, so some of the parents trained us in the meantime but nobody stepped forward to do the job, so when the season started, our team folded. I went to play for another local team (Ashleigh Spires) and stopped there for the next four years. The season after that I played for one of the better teams in the city who had been relegated from the top division the previous year. We did the league and cup double, beating a few teams out of the top division along the way.

I won quite a few trophies and medals while playing football but at the last count, laddo was rapidly catching me. <Enter quote about medals being thrown about like confetti these days>

During his last season – u12’s – because of the junior league regrading teams in an attempt to create competitive divisions for the current season, my lad’s team had the equivalent of 3 promotions within one season. And they won the cup. To add to the cup he won two years before. So he’s already a cup winner once more than me and had one more promotion than me.

Individually I was also quite successful in my four years at Ashleigh and was Player’s Player of the Year two years in a row and Manager’s Player of the Year once (3 awards). Apart from his first year of playing when there were no player of the year awards, he’s won a player of the year award every year (4 awards) except for last season. So yet again, he’s in front of me by one.

Except that he isn’t really one in front. His current team, Greenhill JFC played in a tournament in Filey, over half-term weekend. Over the course of the matches played over the weekend, the referees voted for a player of the tournament in each age group. Can you guess what’s coming? So he’s actually two in front of me. (I still say it was the pink goalie shirt that made him stand out.)

And he’s playing in the top division again this season (out of 11 divisions) with Greenhill. The highest I played was the second division (out of 5 divisions) when we got promoted. Technically I would have then played in the top division the following year but as this was u16’s, it was the final junior league season. Another coincidence, the last team I played for was u18’s for Greenhill.

But all those statistics can’t be wrong can they? He’s better than I was. Much better.

Keep the faith.

filey trophy