In his seven years of playing football, this season has been by far my lad’s busiest in terms of teams played for and games played.
He’s been playing for four teams since September. School, grassroots, city schoolboys and county schoolboys. As far as the city and county teams go, this is the first year he’s played for either of them. A huge honour on both counts. Also, each time he was selected, we were both nervous as they were both a step up from the level he’d played at before.
For the city team there were to be very few chances for the lads to get together for training sessions – the managers were up front about the lack of training opportunities from day one and all the parents agreed that due to other commitments, be it grassroots or academy football, there are only so many days in a week.
A compromise was reached. Meeting time would be 45 minutes before kick off, rather than 30 and where possible, training sessions would be squeezed in, if and when there were free Saturday mornings available.
As far as the county team was concerned, there would potentially be less games throughout the season but a training session would be held, a few days to a week before each game. This made sense with the bigger catchment area of players and the fact that they played for a variety of teams.
From the outset, my lad was very proud to have been selected to play, first for his city and then later, his county. He knew straight away how big a deal they both were. He was nervous more or less as soon as the initial realisation kicked in. As I’d done countless times before, I reassured him that he was there on merit, no other reason. None of the managers or coaches involved in picking either of the squads knew my lad beforehand, so their selection of him was based on what they’d seen in the trials, or whose opinions they’d asked.
The first games for the city schoolboys were in a pre-season tournament. The highlight for him was the semi-final, where Manchester threatened to overrun them. They ended up losing 1-0, with him saving two penalties in normal time and making loads of other saves. Throughout the season, he’s continued to perform very well. Any of his worries about the standard being too high for him were way off the mark and he’s enjoyed every minute of playing for his city.
His county schoolboys debut came not long after. At the trials, there had been five keepers trialling for three places in the squad. He was chosen for the squad and again the nerves kicked in. Once again, it was going to be another step up for him but once again I told him that he was there because he deserved to be. I was pleased but also a little uncomfortable, as one of the other parents whose lad had also been selected for the squad said there was (allegedly) a bit of bias in team selection towards one particular area of the county. And it wasn’t ours.
The first game was an ESFA cup game against, on paper the strongest team in the competition. After the initial training session, he was picked for the squad. My lad and one of the other keepers would play half each. We had to be at their ground, 80 miles away at 7pm on a Monday night. We travelled to the game with one of his team mates which helped his nerves a bit. On the way we’d stopped for something to eat. He didn’t eat anything. Then, when we carried on, the rush hour traffic was a nightmare and there’d been an accident, so the nerves were in full swing, as we tried to get there for 7.00.
We got to the ground a few minutes after 7pm, so him and his team mate rushed off to join up with the rest of the squad.
I watched the warm up and thankfully he looked to be well focussed. He was there with the other keeper and the goalkeeper coach. I liked the fact there was a keeper coach, as there are never any guarantees there will be one, so at least I knew my lad wouldn’t be forgotten about. It was the same keeper coach who’d taken him and the other keepers for the training session the week before.
He played the first half and did very well. They were under pressure for most of the half but apart from conceding a goal after defenders not clearing their lines, he kept everything else out. Against the run of play, they equalised before half time. With the game looking like it was going to extra time they managed to score again. It finished 2-1 and he’d more than done his bit in the victory. It was a great start to his county schools football.
From that point on, I started to wonder what the situation would be with the three keepers. In all honesty, for the next game, I thought it would be difficult for the manager to drop either of the two that had played in the match. The other option open to the manager would be to rotate all three, so that each keeper played two halves out of every three games.
As the manager had said before, the next training session was a few days before the next game. I took my lad and watched him and the other keepers from start to finish. I was really interested in how this would pan out. At the end of the session I was more than a little confident that he would keep his place. The other keeper that had played in the first game looked by far the weakest of the three.
When the squad was announced, my lad was the one that was not selected.
I was a bit confused about the decision but I kept my mouth shut, knowing that I might easily say something in the heat of the moment and make matters worse. It had also crossed my mind that I may be on the right track about the keepers being rotated.
The next training session came around, once again, a few days before the following game. I was stood watching the coach put them through their paces when a fourth keeper appeared and joined in the session. Alarm bells were now ringing. As the session went on, once again I thought how well my lad had done, all the time comparing him to the other (three) keepers and how they’d trained. As soon as my lad came off the pitch, I asked him about the new face. It turned out he was one of the keepers from the year above who’d been injured, so was getting an extra session in.
Relief.
As we walked back to the car, we went past the keeper who had played both games so far but had not trained particularly well. He was carrying some of the training gear. He stopped at one of the cars where the keeper coach was stood.
The coach said ” Well done tonight.”
He replied “Thanks Dad.”
Jesus. My heart sank. I knew in the long term, there was only going to be one outcome here. My lad had played really well in that first game and trained really well in all the training sessions but the odds now looked stacked against him and I could see why he might not be favoured. I waited for the squad to be announced. It was announced on the Friday before Christmas. The game was the following day, nearly 2 hours drive away. He wasn’t selected again.
After a few minutes digesting the situation, I texted the manager.
“Afternoon *****, I’ve seen the squad for tomorrow and let him know the news. Obviously he’s disappointed that he’s not in. As his Dad, but also his coach, I think he’s done well in the training sessions and the Merseyside game – is there any feedback we can take away, for us to work on? Thanks”
His reply…
“It’s a hard one with the keepers, they’re all roughly of the same standard in my opinion. I’ll speak to (goalkeeper coach) and get his feedback. Although when I asked him for his opinion he couldn’t split them and told me to make the call. Disappointing but certainly nothing for you or him to beat yourself up or worry about, they’ll be other opportunities.”
Within seconds, he sent another text to say that the other keeper had dropped out – not the gk coach’s son – and if my lad wanted to play, he was in the squad. I asked my lad the question and he didn’t hesitate. So the next day we travelled down and he played the second half of the game. It turned out that several others had dropped out of the squad as well. Probably due to it being four days before Christmas. There were a few ringers playing and from being 2-0 up and cruising, they ended up losing 6-2. My lad let 4 in. One of which he could possibly have done better with, but again he was well overworked in his half and kept the score down considerably. The other keeper wasn’t at his best in the first half and the two goals to get them back on equal terms were both mistakes on his part.
Before kick off, I had been talking to a grandparent of one of the opposition players. Initially just a “Hello, nice set up here”, then he asked about my lad. I told him he was one of the keepers, it was just his second game, the nerves etc. As the two keepers were warming up he came back over and asked which one was my lad. We wished each other good luck and went our separate ways back to our seats.
As I was waiting for my lad to come out of the changing room after the game, he walked past with his grandson. He put his hand on my shoulder, smiled and said:
“They should have played your lad for the full match. He did really well without much protection from his team. See you next time.”
For the next fixture, there was no training session, just the announcement of the squad. Again, he hadn’t been picked. I said nothing, just wished the lads good luck on the group WhatsApp.
The next message on the WhatsApp was at the start of the week to announce a training session or potential friendly on that Friday, for the next fixture the following week. My lad had already got prior arrangements to be somewhere else, so I apologised to say that unfortunately he couldn’t be there. It was the first session he’d missed. Apparently, the keeper coach’s lad also missed out due to injury.
The following morning a message appeared on the group WhatsApp just after 8am. There was a bit of chat about the previous night’s friendly and then in the middle of it…
…I’m chopping some from the squad who continually let us down at the last minute and are always injured. I’ll put a revised squad list of who’s left and then it’ll be two games against Merseyside…
As I was reading it, I was thinking, it’s a bit harsh to announce it on a group social media page. Then below that in a blue box it said that I’d been removed from the group. I was just stood there gawping at it. Speechless. After contacting the manager, he said the long and short of it was that my lad didn’t actually fall into that category but he had decided at the ‘business end of the season’, that he didn’t need three keepers. He knew who his first choice keeper and his back up were.
In his own words, he wasn’t going to ring me at ten past eight on a Saturday morning to explain that to me. But on the flip side, he was quite happy for it to look like my lad had been bombed out due to his attendance/injury/etc, to the rest of the squad, without me having the chance to put the record straight.
A text to me read…
“Apologies for any mix up, and he’s certainly not let us down it’s just a numbers game. Best of luck with everything moving forward.”
To clarify, his back up keeper is the lad that seemed to underperform in every training session, conceded two soft goals to let the opposition back into a game our lads were controlling, but is also the son of the keeper coach.
It might sound like sour grapes. And it probably is. But I also think my lad’s had a really raw deal.
When I coach my lad, if there’s something to work on, or a mistake in a game, I tell him my thoughts and we work on it. I am 100% honest with him. It doesn’t benefit either of us for me to gloss over things. Having watched him in the training sessions and games (and this is me being 100% honest with myself and him) there’s no way he was the third best out of the keepers.
The coach’s lad was selected for all 5 of the games, my lad was selected for 1. Nothing between them…
I hope my lad continues to play well for the city schoolboys until the end of the season and I hope he gets the opportunity to turn out for them again next year. Not sure if he’d give the county trials a second thought after the way it panned out and the lack of class in the way he found out it had come to an end.
Either way, in my lad I will definitely keep the faith.
Keeper of the faith 