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!