Nearly there now.  After a few weeks without footie things are almost back to normal.

The SFL kicked off on Saturday with new kids on the block Annan Athletic catching Cowdenbeath cold and inflicting an embarrassing defeat on them.  The SPL kicks off this weekend, by which time Rangers’ European campaign may already be history…

It is still a few weeks before the juvenile football gets underway for the new season but things are definitely starting to ratchet up a gear.  Here are just some of the things on the current ToDo list :

• Complete kit audit and order up new shorts/socks etc as required
• Check on players’ availability for upcoming gala tournament (rearranged from earlier this year when a monsoon struck on the original date).  Tournament is only 2 weeks away now.  Might be worth trying to get the boys together beforehand for a quick training session to knock the cobwebs off.
• Arrange some pre-season friendly games.  One set up at the moment, could do with a couple more.
• Sort out squads for coming season.  Any players moving on ? Room to take on new players from waiting list?
• Training nights.  Agree format.  Agree themes and devise drills accordingly.
• Personal training kit.  Order up new training tops etc.
• Coaching resources.  Transcribe scribbled notes from coaching conference into proper session plans (should have done this ages ago…), read new coaching books that have just ordered.
• Forward planning.  The season after the impending one sees us move to the 11-a-side game, need to agree how we are going to transition from two 7-a-side teams to (presumably) one 11-a-side squad.
• Prepare the paperwork for the new season: membership forms, consent forms, etc.

I still have a feeling that I am going to be a couple of players down when we resume training, we shall have to see…

I was really sickened to read the following story on the BBC news site the other day.

Two charged with football racism

Two people have been charged over the alleged racial abuse of youths at Aberdeen’s International Football Festival, BBC Scotland has learned.

Police were called to Seaton Park on Tuesday following a complaint from officials of one of the teams.

A 41-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man are expected to appear at the city’s sheriff court on Wednesday, charged with breach of the peace.

The event has a zero tolerance approach to allegations of racial abuse.

Racism has no place in football and what makes this even more galling is the fact that the football festival is for 14 and 16 year old boys teams and girls teams and has attracted entrants from South Africa, France, Germany and The Faroe Isles.

I have been down to watch some of the games and some of the football on show has been magnificent.

In the U16’s competition the French team Clermond Ferrand have been an absolute joy to watch. Their players all have a good first touch, are comfortable on the ball and show good vision and quick decisive passing. They look to have a couple of outstanding talents in their ranks and have rightly made it through to Saturday’s final.

Let’s hope that the type of incident reported above does not spoil any player’s memories of what looks to have been a good, well contested, competition.

Just back from a nice relaxing mini break in Barcelona where I was struck by the public football facilities that were readily available there.

As we were staying quite far out from the city centre we did a lot of travelling on the fantastic tram and metro network. Whilst on the tram I noticed that we passed a number of publicly available astroturf football facilities which seemed to be well used. There was one such facility directly beside our tram stop and whilst waiting for our transport one morning I took the time to watch a busy session that a number of coaches were running for a gaggle of schoolkids.

When you compare this to some of the stories I have heard about the lack of decent facilities for juvenile football teams in this country it puts things into perspective. I recently heard one coach describe how his team are forced to train in an area used as a car park and how he even had to resort to doing circuit training inside a changing room when the training area was too rutted ! All the while he was being denied access to a proper playing surface by an over enthusiastic “parkie” who was concerned that the boys might churn up the surface. The parkie only felt empowered to do this as he was stopping an organised team, if they were just a bunch of lads going for a kick about he would let them play in peace. What a crazy mixed up world…

Without doubt a key factor in the use of these facilities is also the more predictable, and pleasant, climate in Spain. Knowing that the weather is likely to be good must encourage people to get out and use the pitches which being astro will be available year round. Contrast that will our own experiences of unpredictable overhead and underfoot conditions, with torrential rain, howling winds and pitches that are invariably either rock hard or mudbaths waiting to develop.

With all these facilities presenting opportunities to play and learn the beautiful game from a young age is it any wonder that Spain are producing such good young football stars at the moment?

However, the work at the grassroots end of Scottish football continues no matter what facilities and weather hurdles arise. There are plenty of good initiatives coming via the SFA and the SYFA and there look to be a number of good young players coming through the ranks, let’s hope this has a positive impact on the senior game in the fullness of time.

You may think that because the season is at an end it is a quiet time for us poor misguided souls involved in the beautiful game at grassroots level. Not so.

Last weekend was spent 180 miles from home on a 3 day residential coaching course during which we experienced every kind of weather. We got soaked on Friday, wind blown on Saturday, and finally sunburnt on the Sunday. Because the pitches were about half a mile downhill from the accommodation, and because the programme was so tight, you had to make your best guess at the start of the day as to the most appropriate clothing to wear. Needless to say yours truly got it wrong most days! The other highlight was reacquainting myself with a long lost friend, the good old west coast midgie - little bastards!!

On my return there was the small matter of the club AGM to attend. This was attended by the usual suspects, the guys willing to put the hours in to make sure that the club keeps going and keeps developing. Everyone else, including the players parents, lays low when AGM time comes around just in case they get voted on to the committee!

The meeting was a good one, if a bit on the long side at three and a half hours. The club appears to be in a reasonable position, people were happy to continue with their committee roles, and we appear to have enough interest to run a couple of extra teams next season : U8’s and a girl’s team.

U10’s looks as though it may be a problem as the parent who was originally going to take this team on seems to have finished his recent game of Yes / No / Maybe by landing on the No square.

In the meantime its back to kit audits, ordering up new socks and shorts, making up membership forms and information packs for the new season, fretting over who is coming back to play in August (this is a post just waiting to be written), thinking about the format of training nights, thinking about the strategy for transitioning from 7-a-side to 11-a-side the season after next, and thinking about how to convince the other guys involved in the team that we have to start planning for these things now… and that my ideas are right, of course!

Having written on a couple of other blogs over the past year or so I decided that the rich tapestry of the juvenile football world and my adventures within it might prove entertaining for a few folk who had nothing better to read.

I have been coaching a boys football team since Under 9’s level. The lads will be playing at U11’s when the new season gets under way in September. They are a great bunch who are full of character and should provide plenty of material for this blog.

The other elements that will no doubt feature will relate to coaching (in-service days, courses, qualifications) and the day to day running of a reasonable sized juvenile football club.

I will try to keep the posts lighthearted, entertaining, end to end stuff, and try and avoid it turning into a boring midfield tussle.