A truly global game

I am Dhaka for work and so missed the US v Spain game in South Africa, shown live locally at 1:00 AM. I had planned to watch it but got the time difference from South Africa wrong and woke up after the game had finished!

What a fabulous result and arguably the most impressive in the US national men's team history. I personally think it is bigger than that 1-0 win against England in Brazil in 1950 but I am biased.

As some great pictures from a UNHCR web site show, soccer, or football as it is called locally, is played in Bangladesh. The picture shown top left is courtesy of New Age sports in Dhaka, you have to scroll half way down the link page to see the coverage of Woman's national league after all the cricket news! You will see children kicking a ball around on any open land although sadly there is not a lot of that in this overcrowded city.

Now I have my game time right I will wake up to watch the final against Brazil on Sunday. Just check on how global that statement is. An Englishman in Bangladesh will watch, courtesy of an Indian TV channel, a live game from South Africa between the USA and Brazil.

Where ever I travel or have lived in the World, there has always been one language I could speak locally that people would understand, it's name changes - futbol, football, calcio, soccer- and it definitely played differently, but once the whistle blows its the same game planet wide.

Given how Brazil struggled against a very determined and tenacious South Africa, I think it will be very close and the USA has a real chance to lift its first international trophy.

Water water everywhere......

As this soggy spring soccer season slowly slides to a squelchy stop, the incessant rain looks like it will continue to plague our early summer. We certainly have had more rain than usual, with more games and practices canceled and fields unplayable even with the sun has come out. The heavy downpours have meant that the quality and capacity of our available fields has

been severely tested--and in most cases found wanting. Meadowbrook tops the list as the worst affected field, with local ducks getting more access than our own U-6 ducklings. Trench foot has now been added to the list of soccer-related injuries coaches need to look out for.

Joking aside, fields remain a very serious problem. Many thanks to the thousands of you who completed the different parent survey forms we shared. As we sift through the 17 pages of feedback from the recreational survey, it is clear that fields is the Number One issue on everyone's mind. This is what we plan to do about it over the summer:

• We will prepare a fields plan defining our current and likely expanded field needs as our programs continue to grow. We had a larger High School Division than in many years and could have added more teams from different parts of the city if we had had better field access. The plan will look at a mix of rental and lease options from public and private sources in DC and Maryland, including both grass and artificial turf. We will then identify new possible locations to serve our existing and potentially newcommunities.
  
• We will work with the very energetic new leadership at DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DCDPR) as they change the way fields are permitted and maintained. We are asking them for help in getting access to more District of Columbia Public Schoolsartificial turf fields at elementary, middle and high schools. We only had regular access to one high school field this last season, and given the nearly dozen fields the city has installed recently, that is not good enough. The lack of transparency in accessing DCPS fields is an impediment.
  
• We will review our DCDPR Premier Partnership agreement to see if the $120,000 we plan to invest in public field is being put to best use. DCDPR is considering increasing field use fees we will discuss their plans and try to ensure that this does not represent an additional burden to the club and you as parents, but rather relates to what we already spend in voluntary donations.
  
• We need to advocate for better access to fields in Montgomery County, given that a third of our families are from Maryland. Meadowbrook really should be left for the ducks with other alternatives identified.

I see fields as our main priority and we will work with DCDPR and the Maryland-*National Capital Park and Planning *Commission (M-NCPPC) to identify options for the Fall season.

We will also share on the web site analysis of the feedback we got from you.

Many thanks for your input and enjoy what I hope will be a dryer summer.

Field Dreams

Growing up in east London I was able to play "football" morning, noon and night. There were plenty of parks to play pick up games on but organized games were played on Wanstead Flats, two miles from where I lived. Created as a public park in 1878 the park is a large open area in the middle of inner city London and, to the south of the park at least, home to some of the most economically deprived urban communities in England.

As you can see from the aerial photo on we had access to 36 publically owned fields that charged teams the equivalent of  around $150 a season to play games on. These fields were as good as, if not better than, the Germantown SoccerPlex but a walk or bus ride for tens of thousands of players - mostly boys as girls soccer was non existent in those days.  One local boys club Senrab FC had 20 or 30 players go on to play professional and in many cases international soccer. 

For all sorts of reasons, DC lacks a public park area like Wanstead flats. Partly this is a function of space, partly a land development issue, and partly it is a cultural issue with other competing demands from other more established "National" sports.

The lack of adequate urban soccer fields represents the single biggest constraint to the development of the sport in the US and perhaps to the US becoming a World Cup Champion. 

With the possible exception of Brazil, the US has more youth soccer players than any other top soccer nation. We have some of the best youth coaches and an improving youth soccer set up but without urban soccer fields we have large soccer playing populations who can not play at the highest levels because they do not have access to fields in their neighborhoods and can't afford to travel to suburban complexes like the Soccerplex.

While establishing a field complex like Wanstead flats in DC is unrealistic, we must continue to work with DCDPR and other partners to develop one field at a time so that our kids can play and develop and so that those players in Columbia Heights, and NE, SE and NW that can't afford to go to the SoccerPlex get their chance. If we can do that then I believe the US can be a World Cup contender.     

 

Wet Wet Wet

Last week's hot temperatures are a distant memory as the wet weather is forecast to continue through next week. At least we managed to get most recreational games in on soggy but playable fields. The boys High School Rec Division game I saw at Ft Stevens featured a skillful Muffins team of Wilson HS players take on a team made up of the IDEA PCS students many of whom are relatively new to soccer. The athletic IDEA players, though out passed by the Muffins, kept their shape and discipline and scored the best goal of a six goal game direct from a kick off. Both teams looked like they were having a lot of fun.

Greater access to DC's excellent turf fields would be a big plus as the DC wet season continues. We pay for access to Roosevelt HS, Maret and Georgetownday schools as well as the permitted access to Palisades. With over 50% of our rec players coming from DC and MCPS we need to get a better balance in our field use, with more access to those DC public school turf fields.

Although most travel games were rained out, the wet weekend was capped by good comeback games for DCU and Washington Freedom . The Germantown SoccerPlex looked wetter than a moist Monday in Morecambe but that did not deter the largest home crowd of over 5,000 from enjoying a passionate Freedom rally late in the game led by French international Sonia Bompastor. Pregame, the City FC girls team got to meet the US Women's National coach Pia Sundhage who generously took time to chat to the girls and parents. (Picture to follow)

Hot Hot Hot

Rockets on a cooler March day - Picture by Glenn Thomas

My son's travel NCSL game at the Germantown Soccerplex was played in 90 degree heat this afternoon. The DC Stoddert Rockets did well against their top of the league opponents to draw 1-1 - check out their league status here - but with a short roster we wilted a little in the heat.

Proper hydration is crucial and can make a big difference on game day. Check out the following links on proper hydration:

Sports medicine

US Youth Soccer 

Remember, smaller kids tend to dehydrate quicker so be sure to have players drink water before during and after games.

Also be sure to avoid sharing water bottles with the current flu alerts.

Coach Parents Too

This is a tricky area. It's been discussed in many forums at many coaches' meetings, among commissioners and at the board level. A coach's job does not end with instructing and guiding his or her players. We need to educate parents on a number of fronts, including how to be better observers of the game and not participants (or assistant coaches).

There was an article recently in the Washington Post about a group of parents who managed to get themselves a restraining order of sorts, ordered to not come within 100 yards of their kids' games because they berated a referee in the previous season. This is an extreme example of parents simply getting too involved emotionally and venting their frustration (arguably) inappropriately.

On the other side of the coin are parents who don't participate at all. They barely watch the game, take no interest in what's happening on the field. They stand, sip coffee and chat amiably with one another. Then, after the final whistle blows, they say to their children, "So how was the game?"

Without laying judgment on either of these two types of parents, it seems fairly apparent that coaches have at least a minimal role to play in giving parents some guidelines on appropriate and acceptable behavior on the soccer field.

Without appearing pedantic, how do we, as coaches, get parents more (or less) involved on the sidelines? What should our role be in this area? How far should (or can) we go?

The best start is to be enthusiastic yourself. Show how much pride you have in your team and how eager you are to see them have fun and succeed (without coaching from the sidelines). In other words, set an example.

You might also want to think about getting parents involved at their kids' level. Include them in the pre-game and half time pep talk. Maybe even have them help out withe pre-game practices (for U8 and under).

There are obviously many ways to get parents to show their best face at game time. Feel free to post your thoughts.

The Bald Soccer Chairman's Blog

Jim, an old school friend from England, recently tracked me down through the power of a Google search and his first two comments were "You've gone completely bald" and "I can't believe you are the Chairman of a Football Club". I'm not sure what was the biggest shock to him! The last time I saw him I still had some of the curly hair seen in this picture of me as a U12 player for our school St Bonaventures R.C. in Forest Gate in London. That picture was taken during the warm up session of a school match and as you can see there was not a lot of warming up going on with only one boy, Brosnan, chasing the ball off camera with the rest of us standing around looking a bit the worse for wear. 

In those days a Football Club Chairman looked like the character played by Jim Broadbent in the excellent Damned United. Coincidentally the film depicts events at Leeds United happening around the same time the photo of me was taken. Presumably my mate Jim sees me as a bald version of the ruddy faced, cigar smoking, pin stripe suited, whiskey drinking Jim Broadbent, conducting nefarious Football club Chariman's business behind closed doors in a smoke filled room.

Well fortunately there is not a lot in common between the Chairman of DC Stoddert Soccer in 2009 and Derby County in the early 1970s. Aside the smoking ban at our Jellef offices the biggest difference is transparency. The way we conduct club business is very different now than was the norm back then.

At DC Stoddert we are using this blog, an overhauled club web site and Google Groups to increase communication and allow greater discussion and exchange between club volunteers and parents and staff. All club Board meetings are open to club members and minutes are posted on the club web site (note to self, check that they are up to date). We are just about to launch some parent surveys to gather feedback on issues important to parents of our recreational and travel players. Those surveys will provide input to a planned strategic retreat as we seek to align our club programs with identified priority needs. Earlier feedback from recreational coaches and commissioners identified fields and the reach of coach education and support as two key issues. Our recent Premier Partnership Agreement with DC Department of Parks and Recreation is a start on the fields issue. But we have a lot more work to do there to improve field quality and support DC DPR in expanding their programmtic reach.

One pending action item is for the club to undertake a strategic assessment of our field needs for both our rec and travel programs and then work out the different options for meeting those. This includes the DC DPR partnership and investing $180,000 a year in fields and equipment. We are also purchasing time on DC public school fields and private school fields as well as continuing our relationship with the Maryland Soccerplex in Germantown for our "home" travel games.

In the coming weeks I'll look to share something on what the DC Stoddert Board is doing and will look for comments and feedback from club members on what we are doing well, and what we need to do better. If you really want to confirm that we are not making decisions behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms, join us at Jellef on May 6 at 7:00 PM for the next fun packed Board meeting.