2 Parental Support
In the next two chapters Michael and his brother Graeme discuss their formative football experience, providing an insight into how appropriate parental and family support is crucial for a secure start in the game.
Michael: When I was a kid I remember seeing boys that were scared stiff of playing a game on a Sunday morning at Wallsend in case they made a mistake and their Dad would have a go at them.
After a game, Dad would get me and Graeme in the car and say something else to us, he wouldn’t have a go at us but he’d give bits of tips or advice, ‘that was good, that wasn’t so good’. He wasn’t trying to coach us or anything, he was just trying to help us and that’s what I enjoyed.
But then there were the lads and their Dads who would shout and scream on the line. The lads were scared on the pitch. I think if you’ve got a parent who is on that route you haven’t got a chance of improving as a kid. Where’s the enjoyment in that? To improve you need the enjoyment, if you haven’t got the freedom to enjoy yourself the experience of football is totally different.
Some of the lads were really petrified. If you’re playing a Sunday morning game and you’re 4-0 up you should just be having fun and having a kick around, not listening to the parents screaming at the ref or the players. Don’t get me wrong there were probably times when my Dad has had a few shouts here and there but nowhere near what you see. I never felt any pressure from my Mum and Dad ever to do certain things or to play a certain way or anything like that.
I never felt any pressure from my Mum and Dad ever to do certain things or to play a certain way or anything like that
Graeme: I can remember one kid getting taken off during a game when we were winning 6-0 at home. He was crying as he came off the pitch because he didn’t want to go and face his Dad because he had been taken off.
In my current role as a FA Skills Coach working with players between 5-11, I’ve seen some equally horrifying stuff. A 7 year old kid playing in goal let a goal in and was crying and then wouldn’t take part in the game because of the reaction of the adults. So you get used to that, that’s the horrific side to it because of the amount of pressure, stress and anxiety caused.
7
Michael: I don’t know if the parents genuinely think that’s the way to make their child succeed: trying to help them by being hard on them and making them better. Some parents might just think that’s the way to help them do the best thing, I suppose all parents think they’re doing the best thing. Then there’s the other side to it where the parents are just totally living their dream through the kid. When I was at West Ham when I was 14, 15, 16 you might not have had the extreme sort of shouting from the side-lines but there was still parents who would tell their son ‘do this, do that.’ Even when I was in the West Ham youth team, certain parents would act and put pressure on their kids in different ways, so it still happens in that environment.
We still got shouts off parents to do certain things and even if it was against what the manager and coach were saying, the parents would still be shouting and you’d be thinking the lads are 17-18 years old now, take a step back and let him get on with it.
Graeme: The other interesting one is how the parents deal with their kid’s success. No matter how well Michael played Dad would never be going around saying, ‘Michael did great.’ And if he really had a bad game Dad wouldn’t be saying, ‘Oh my…’
Graeme: Some people have said, ‘Oh your Dad he’s quite hard on Michael,’ but he’s actually not he’s just not over the top…
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