A night on the phone!!

What a busy night Mondays can be for a junior football manager. Just after 6pm I contact the referee to confirm his availability for next weekends game. This goes smoothly and within 2 minutes the task is complete. Next its a call to the opposition manager to confirm they are available. The phone just rings out so I'll need to try again later. On to the next set of phone calls, I need to speak to the parents of 3 of my players to confirm that they are available for Saturday afternoon. This takes another 30 minutes as we chat about the previous game and I get positive feedback as to how things are going. Once I have established that all my players are available I then need to phone the manager of Saturdays opponents to confirm the fixture. Again, we get chatting about the format of the game, start times, etc. Another 20 minutes pass before I finally get off the phone. Several more attempts to contact Sundays opponents prove fruitless. I'll need to try again the following day.

Best performance, same result

The days starts at 7am as I have to print out the parents player of the match voting slips as I forgot to do them the night before. Once this is out of the way I need to make sure I have all the official player documentation and our half of the referees fee. By 8.30 we, are ready for the off, drinks, training balls, player of the match trophy and our new recruits recently arrived waterprrof jacket are all packed into the car.

We arrive at just gone 9 to find the pitch, rather surprisingly in good condition. The players are put through their paces to get them warm and focused for the match ahead, this is going to be a tough one and each player needs to be on top of his game.

Last minute instructions are issued and its on with the game. The lads do not disappoint and come off 1-0 down at the interval. The second half is just as tight and a 3-0 defeat somewhat disguises the fact that we put in our best performance of the season so far. After the game, I score the referee, sign the official forms and give out our teams awards. Then its off home to reflect on another defeat, but more importantly a superb all round team performance. These players are getting better each week and I wouldnt swap any of them.

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Its 2.30pm and I am just settling down to watch TV and the phone rings. Its one of the coaches of a local team who is looking for a friendly fixture to give his squad players a run out. They are looking to play the game on Saturday afternoon which will mean us cancelling our Saturday morning training session to accommodate the fixture. I provisionally agree to the fixture subject to availability as I believe the more match practise we get the better we will become. The fixture will also allow me to give some of my regular players over the past few games a 15 minute appearance as I look to make sure my squad rotation system is fair.

Drinks ready, let the game begin

On the eve of the resumption of the Astro league, we are finally going to get some use out of our new water bottles which were kindly donated to the team before Christmas. In the interests of hygiene, I have carefully marked each players squad number on the bottle so they use the same one each week. I spent 15 minutes making sure the bottles were clean before making a total of 12 drinks for the squad and coaches, hopefully the players will be in need of a drink when they leave the pitch with something to show for their efforts.

If todays training session is anything to go by, we could cause the opposition some problems as both attackers and defenders looked sharp.

Training allowed to go ahead

We finally have good news about training. We have been given the all clear to train on grass this weekend. This will give the lads some much needed time on a soft surface in preparation for Sundays league game. I am only expecting a maximum of 7 players to turn up to the session as prior commitments and birthday parties have somewhat decimated us. The 7 that do turn up will be put through their paces in fitness, passing, moving as well as some set pieces which will hopefully lead us to the promised land of our first league goal.

Weekend game scheduled to go ahead

I received the call tonight from our next opponents to confirm that the weekends game was still scheduled to take place. With all the previous bad weather and the forecast of more to come I was slightly surprised to hear that their pitch is unaffected. We must now make sure Saturdays training session goes ahead to give the lads some much needed preparation as it has been almost 2 months since our last fixture.

Almost a Kitastrophe

Our new recruit finally received his kit at training on Saturday. It appeared all was well and everyone was happy. However it transpires that the kit was not the size that was was ordered and it is still too small. This would mean another phone call to the supplier to try and come up with some kind of agreement.

Looking through his order book, the supplier has ordered the size he wrote down, however I recall ordering the bigger size. A new kit has now been ordered which hopefully will arrive sooner rather than later.

Waterproofs all round

A quick call to our waterproofs supplier means that our new recruit will at long last have a jacket like the rest of the playing and coaching staff. I have been promised this jacket in a weeks time and, after my dealings with this supplier in the past, I know that timing will be accurate. As I am only ordering one jacket, I have to pay an extra £5 for delivery from the supplier. In hindsight, I would have been better off ordering an extra jacket when we only had 9 players.

Weather forces training move

As I look out of the window there is blue sky and white fluffy clouds. However, looking at the weather forecast for the coming week, these conditions will not last and Saturdays training session looks to be at risk for the second week running. I can't afford to miss another session as people are paying subs and will be getting nothing in return. Early this morning I have taken the decision to move training to a hard surfaced location. These sessions are like gold dust at this time of year as almost every team tries to make alternate arrangements. The first location I contacted had one session available starting at 8.45am which would not have been popular. The second location were more acommodating and we get booked in for an hours session at 11.15am. Although this is 30 minutes shorter than our normal sessions it will give the lads a runout and get them used to playing football again with the resumption of the season only 2 weeks away.

Once home from work, a quick email to all parents is required to inform them of the change in venue. A phone call will be made later in the week to all people who do not acknowledge the email.

New kit finally arrives

Well after 6 weeks of chasing our kit supplier for 2 shirts, we finally have a breakthrough. Both shirts will be available for collection on Saturday morning. Our latest recruit will, at last have a home and away shirt which fits him instead of having to borrow ones that are too small. All we need now is for the weather to improve so that he gets the chance to wear them.

Raring to go but the weather beats us

We resumed training after the Christmas break on January 6th in readiness for the final installent of matches. On a soggy school field, fitness work was the order of the day as the player brushed off the cobwebs. They soon got back into their routine and worked very hard in the first session of the year. Everyone was eager to get the season up and running again as we prepared to face our nearest rivals the following week. If we could somehow win this game, we would almost certainly avoid finishing bottom.

As the week progressed, the weather took a turn for the worse. Each day brought more rain, it was aparent that our fixture was in jeopardy. This left me with a big dilemma. Do we risk playing the fixture on a bog and run the risk of it being a lottery or do I bite the bullet, call the game off and disappoint the lads. These thoughts played on my mind for 2 to 3 nights and it really was a close call. However, a torrential downpour on Thursday morning made my mind up for me. I had little to choice but to call the game off. It was a decision that I wish I didnt have to make but in the end it was the right one. What it meant was that instead of running around a football pitch on Saturday and Sunday, I would now be decorating!!!

The season so far

Well its been an eventful season, with only a few weeks to the registration date, we only had 6 players. This was troublesome as the games we would play were 7 a side. Decisions needed to be taken, do we have one final push at recruiting players or do we pull out and risk shattering the dreams of 6 little superstars.

Word got around and by registration, miraculously we had 8 players, we had made it. Our dream would become reality. By the date of the first match we had signed another player and had the luxury of using 2 substitutes.

From this moment onwards results were not important, we were playing regular football and that was a major achievement for us, win lose or draw, it didnt seem to matter.

As Christmas arrived we were still searching for our first goal and our first point. This was not for the lack of effort but I am sure that both will be just around the corner.