I’ve never really heard anything too bad said about my lad while I’ve been stood on the side lines.
That might sound like an obvious statement coming from any parent whose son or daughter plays junior football. But it must start happening for parents at some point. The lad and me have season tickets at United and occasionally when they’re away, we’ll go and watch a local non-league game. At both these levels of football, the players seem like ‘fair game’ to a lot of supporters, in so much as they don’t hold back when criticising them. The attitude of being able to shout what you want at who you want, once you’ve paid your money and gone through the turnstiles is apparently alive and kicking.
Watching Championship football every week from the same seats, you get used to the people around you and their personality traits. The individual voices heard from specific seats, even if you don’t see their faces. It becomes obvious after a while, who their favourites are and who they don’t rate as footballers. Some fans get behind the team regardless, others seem to quite enjoy it if the team lose or don’t play well as it gives them something to be negative about. And they let everybody know it.
Once or twice on a Sunday morning there have been people who think it’s funny to enjoy a young kid’s mistakes. Sometimes the adults are caught up in the moment. Even so, they should know better. Their kid’s team might score a freak goal, a wind assisted effort that flies past the keeper. Or the keeper makes a hash of what would ordinarily be an easy enough piece of goalkeeping. A cheer often goes up from supporters, which may just be a celebration of a goal for their team. The only thing is, the cheer comes straight after that unfortunate incident or mistake. I’m obviously very protective of my own lad as a keeper but also opposition keepers if they have a rough game or make an error. It’s the loneliest place to be on the football pitch if things aren’t going your way and I’ll always shake hands with the opposition keeper after the game as a rule.
In their county cup game at the weekend, our lad’s were there for the taking. A couple of lads unavailable, plus one more injured before kick off meant a bare 11 players for us. The opposition from 3 divisions below had nothing to lose and it showed. It was a real cup tie, with the play quickly moving from end to end. Our lads went a goal up, only for the centre forward to get injured and with no subs, they had to carry on with 10 men. The away team equalised, then it was 2-1 to our lads, only for them to draw level once again. With only minutes remaining, our left back smashed in a great free kick to make it 3-2. That’s how it finished but at 0-0, their keeper had made a great point blank save. As I shook his hand at full time, I made sure he knew that I thought it was a fantastic save. Even though he’d finished on the losing team and was disappointed, it was clear that he appreciated being congratulated on his individual piece of great keeping. It can be a really big boost for a kid’s confidence.
With my own lad, I see him at his best when he’s in training. He constantly wants to improve and be as good as he possibly can. That’s both when I’m training him or when he’s at CYG Goalkeeping. He puts 100% into every session. When it’s me training him, if he deserves praise, he gets it. If not, it may be constructive criticism that comes his way. If he makes a glaring mistake, I’ll wait to see what his face looks like, then I usually burst out laughing. He always ends up seeing the funny side – although it’s not always straight away! But the good thing is that he sees the funny side at all. He can be a very serious young lad and if he’s not getting it right, he can take it too personally. I enjoy giving him praise because I can see him grow in stature, puff his chest out slightly and possibly even blush a little bit.
All that said, as with the majority of parents, I’m also his biggest critic. But watching him train and play and dissecting his mistakes, takes us ‘full circle’ since I’ve been coaching him. After his games, we’ll have a talk about his performance and I’ll strike a balance between criticism and praise. Starting and finishing with praise but sandwiching some things to address in between, keeps him positive but also gives us things to work on in training. He listens to these comments and takes them on board which was always my biggest concern when I started training him. Being his Dad, I thought he’d probably dismiss what I had to say in a ‘what would you know?’ sort of way.
Although I can be critical of him, I do think he’s quite good but it’s difficult to be impartial on the subject. If he plays well, I get a real buzz. A sort of pins and needles, tingling. If he makes a mistake, it hurts in the pit of my stomach.
Over the last few weeks though, I’ve either heard, or been told of comments about him that have given me even more enthusiasm for the training we do together and the aim of working towards him being as good as he can be.
As I was setting up the balls and cones for his warm up a few weeks ago, I spoke to one of the coaches whose session with a younger age group had just finished. He told me that he’d been watching us train a few weeks before and was impressed with my lad’s footwork and handling in particular. He told me his own son had recently finished a 6 year stint with an academy, as a goalkeeper, so I guess he’s seen enough of young goalkeepers to know his stuff. His comments were very well received. I haven’t mentioned it to my lad and doubt I will either, but it felt like confirmation that we’re going in the right direction with his training and preparation. This is something about which I tend to doubt myself.
A few week earlier I was talking to a couple of the coaches that train him on Monday nights and they told me that they’d been discussing how happy they were with his progress over the last couple of months. His positive attitude was mentioned and how they can tell that he wants to keep improving because of how he reacts to the feedback they give him. The coaches in question have a combined wealth of goalkeeping knowledge of approximately 75 years and to have access to that on a weekly basis, we are extremely fortunate. Unbelievably so in fact. And if they’re happy with how he’s doing, what more can you ask?
The most recent comments about him were after his last appearance for his school team. I wasn’t able to get there to watch, but my Dad was. During the match he heard various positive remarks about the way his Grandson was performing on the day, as well as when they’d seen him play previously. According to them, his shot stopping, communication and distribution were all very good. The supporters didn’t know that the man stood next to them was any relation to the keeper, so once again really good feedback on how he’s been playing recently. At full time, as the supporters made their way to the players, one of them asked my Dad who he was supporting. He told him, the keeper. He was then asked who he plays for, so he told him. The man said he was surprised that there was no development squad or academy involvement for him. My lad’s never really shown any concrete interest in that side of things, he’s happy with his grassroots team and his mates. Once again, my lad doesn’t know of this conversation but it seems more proof that he’s heading in the right direction.
So we’ll keep training as we have been and I’ll keep the faith.
Keeper of the faith 