your kids your say - Alan Clarke
I wrote about Alan Clarke, who was at the your kids your say meeting... Here are some of the questions he wanted to ask and points he wanted to make.
AGE RELATED CHANGE TO 1ST JANUARY
What is the purpose of this change?
How will it make better footballers?
What has a change in age banding to do with ‘Raising our Game?’
The reasons give are inconsequential – ‘social interaction’ & that the September to December players are ‘privileged’ and have the advantage at school football.
Why don’t the FA come clean and admit they are pandering to the wishes of academies & European Youth Football.
School football only provides for one group of players – weekend youth football provides for ALL players of ALL abilities who will never get into a school team.
Many school teams, more especially in less populated areas, also make up the local club team – players playing with their school team during the week will be prohibited from playing with their club team at weekends.
By taking the ‘cut off’ date to January this will require players September to December to play up a school year. The year above will only accept the exceptional younger players – ‘social interaction’ between age groups rarely exists.
The gap between the years is huge and September to December players will struggle to find a place in an older year, causing even more of the alleged inequality now being suggested by the FA.
This will especially be true in the year the September to December players will be in junior school.
You are in danger of disenfranchising up to a third of your footballers from their weekend football.
From my own experience of having two sons in consecutive years & the younger playing a year up was derided by both the older age group, who wanted themselves to play in a successful team, & from his peers who resented him playing up a year.
Unless the 2 year age banding will now be tampered with I am aware that a number of teams will not change their age related practice and play the January to August players up a year.
If this rule goes through I shall encourage this practice.
This is an FA ‘knee jerk’ reaction to England’s dismal world cup and international team. They can’t touch academies or schools so to show they are doing something they pick on ‘grass roots’ and players who will never ever see the inside of an academy or Centre of Excellence.
In a few years or even months the authors of this idea will move on and upwards to better places and leave the 99% of volunteers to sort out the mess afterwards.
Alan Clarke