First half last night we got a free kick, Patterson stood over it, ref told him to retreat, he only retreated about a yard so Dabo plays the free kick backwards.
Odds on that if he kicks it against Patterson the ref books him. We are so lacking in that sort of nouse its incredible.
I remember that incident now and totally agree. It turned an attacking play into a defensive one. I recall last year when we were struggling and losing even though we played well, I thought that we lacked the answers to the “dark arts” that other teams have. The time wasting, yard stealing, injury feigning, Ref bullying, grabbing.
I’ve mentioned mentoring, specialist coaching etc. before and been met with “where’s the money come from?”
Fair enough.
There are a lot of ex. players out there who have the ambition to stay in the game but don’t get the opportunity. Players have (say) 15 years playing then 30 years missing playing before they claim their pension. They miss the banter, the dressing room, the being part of something.
What I’m getting to is that I imagine that there are an awful lot of ex pros out there who would love to get involved with a bit of shithousery teaching / mentoring / specialist coaching. There are loads of ex players who do the stat recording at matches. Such ex. pros will be commanding “normal Joe” wages not footballer wages.
My point is that for a fraction of that which Jobello, Hilssner, Dacosta etc cost we could get more depth into our coaching and back room.
Now for the laughing emoji bait:
I took up martial arts with my 10 year old a couple of years back. He does the kids classes but I do the adult so we can practice together. Great thing for kids to do. The stretching, fitness, mind balance, physical balance that it teaches is really quite shocking. (As an aside Houchen mentioned in his book that he was a black belt (in Karate I think)).
I’d advocate getting all our players on to it. As long as there’s no impact contact spar sessions then injuries should not occur.
Kicking bags and stretching aren’t bad additional training regimens for players and it’ll do their confidence no end of good.
I think the amount of bullying that our players would endure would reduce too.
Players like Hamer need the discipline that martial arts brings.
Laugh away.