ok, here's a good one to test the stw collective wisdom....
my 8yr old has started playing in a little u9 6 a side league with his mates, all very light hearted and led by a good guy who does his best for the little guys and really encourages them without pushing them too hard and taking the fun out.
so this morning they played a team in the league. the other team has two uber-seriuos coaches screaming at them the whole time totally drowning out any instructions our coach gave, the ref was a dad in the other team and it was so biased it was ridiculous (1st half was a good 5mins longer when they had the wind to their advantage, fouls ignored, game would be stopped for an undone boot when our chaps were attacking goal - not too mention a hugely dubious 'on the line' goal that was given), also elbows and studs were frequently used against our team and the oddest thing when i finally got fed up i called one of our guys to mark their attacker and within 30secs another of their coaches/dads came up and stood right beside me barking out instructions - making it 3 people telling them exactly what to do and where to stand.
i've never really done team sports so i don't know if this is the norm, but it all seems a bit over the top. i'm quite happy to go bark instructions as well but then i'm taking my boy down a road i don't like myself. i even considered having a whinge to the local FA rep but then i don't want to do something that our coach was not happy with.
right now i'm planning on taking air horns to the rematch and standing right next to the blokes and everytime they open their mouth... BAAAARRRRRRPPPPPP!!!!!
my dad used to drop me off at rugby on a Sunday and would always be upwards of an hour late picking me up. I loved it and used the time to really become a great rugby player until a fairly distressing run of injuries.
