Its been three years now that Perry and I have been delivering our vision of football youth development to the boys at ESCA TSFA.
When we started, extremely enthusiastic and dedicated but actually un-prepared for what was in store, we thought attracting enough passionate and ambitious boys to believe in our dream would be easy. In our eyes, what boy wouldn't want to go to school to play and learn football every day!
Well, it took a couple of years to get to where we can now say we have a wonderful small but dedicated group of passionate, ambitious football-loving boys.
I cannot express how proud we are of these boys that have been with us for most of that journey not only the level of players they have developed into but the genuinely wonderful people they have become.
We consider ourselves the fortunate ones that get to watch these boys grow, mature and develop on a daily basis.
In 2022 we plan to go to the next level and start to develop teams for the boys to perform in, something I was against initially, simply because I believed I could do more for the boys by reinforcing technical fundamentals and offering a football-specific conditioning program, while they get their game time learning from their respective club sides.
Though the success in that plan is very evident, it's clear I need to incorporate games into the program to complete the lesson.
I suppose the true measure of the Coach and the player is the game and how it's played
.......so bring it on!