Nobody knows more about flaky opponents than East Kilbride. The Pirates ply their trade north of the border which for those of you who haven’t ever made the trip, is a massive pain in the backside to do. The travel takes it out of you and then you step on the field against guys like Ryan Hunter. It’s not great. This hurts EKP though. The Pirates haven’t had a completed regular season of 10 games which go their full length since 2006. None of which were their fault in my opinion. The only debatable one was Doncaster last year but that was still down to Donny not having the coaches registered for the start of the year. So what is going wrong? I feel it’s down to 4 main things. I’m not saying this is a definitive list but this is mainly what I can see.
Recruitment
I follow a lot of teams on Facebook and Twitter. Quite often I see teams put up a poster on their timeline recruiting players. Problem is often that is the only recruitment and the only people that see it are the players and friend of players who like the page. How many teams get out into the community and recruit? The most effective way of recruiting and increasing the overall participants in the sport is through youth programs. I love the fact more and more teams are starting to see this. You get the chance to recruit early and get them coached up and interested. It’s no coincidence that the best youth teams often result in the best adult teams and visa versa. This is not a quick solution however. You won’t see a dozen guys a season graduate into the adult squad after one or two seasons. It may only be 4-5 guys a year. Training only on Sundays will not help the team gel. Those new recruits need as much training as they can get. Most BUAFL teams train twice midweek to get the rookies up to speed (and if you ask most head coaches, this still isn’t enough time). You can get by training on Sundays and it may eventually get the rookies up to scratch, But to see remarkable improvement in both player and team play it needs more than just a weekend training session. If it’s a case of people don’t want to train at all and just turn up on game day then maybe we need a special Sunday drinkers league. We’ll call it the ‘Smiths Paint & Varnish American Football Sunday League’. To be able to play you are not allowed to train more than 3 hours a week on non-gameday Sunday, and no more than a 1 hour walk through on game days. Along with this it is mandatory for all players under 12 stone to have as much gear on as possible. All over 18 stone must have ‘big’ in front of their name (Big Steve, Big Dave). War stories must be told at half-time and plays that probably only exist in their heads to be recounted.
Program
The above point leads into this one. Don’t be a Sunday league team, be a program. If you train and act like a bunch of guys trying not to lose then when it gets tough you will fall apart. The most successful teams recruit through youth teams, word of mouth, local unis, flyers, gyms, social media, schools etc. Not phoning up Dave Bignuts who hasn’t played for 7 years and telling him you are a few guys short this season so can he grab his pads out the loft. To get to your destination you need a plan. Winning the championship, getting a ring, being covered in Gatorade and hopefully getting it on with that cheerleader you like doesn’t just happen. When I became a head coach I spoke to Jon Wyse and he asked me what my plans were. I didn’t know. He gave me a few pointers on setting up a blueprint. I also spoke to other guys like Jason Scott about program targets. I drew up a 5 year plan for BNU with recruiting & coaching targets along with benchmarks for kit, facilities and funding. Only at the bottom was I concerned with wins. All the coaches told me that you will not win consistently without a support framework. With that framework the wins will come on their own. Right they were, in the first 5 years we hit every target, entering the league in year 3. What do you know at the end of year 5 we went 6-2 and made the postseason. put it down to the fact there was a lot of hard work on sustaining the team as a program, turning ex-players into coaches, securing funding every year, making sure everyone had kit, fighting to upgrade facilities every season. and most importantly coaches to teach them. It’s sounds simple but too many teams just focus on the plays.
Coaching
This is a no brainer but the coaches need to know what’s up. Every year at the BAFCA convention I see the same faces and they aren’t from losing teams. There is a lot of learning to do and I have never come away thinking it’s a waste of time. Now I know there are some who genuinely can’t make it but the date is known well in advance that unless there is a major event you should be there! I can hear people now saying they can’t be bothered but then maybe you shouldn’t be coaching. I am tipping the DC Presidents to do big things in the next 2-3 years because the coaches they have there are students of the game. From memory they had 10 coaches there this year who made the 6 hour round trip. You just look at the improvements they’ve made already since taking over. As a coach you have the hopes and safety of your players on your shoulders. You are doing a disservice to your players if you turn down the FREE (yes free) opportunity to learn more about your craft. This year there were 750 members of BAFCA yet less than 20% of them turned up for the convention. That baffles me, it was the best convention yet and even had a current NFL coach there. That aside, coach the new players to compete with the vets. Always compete even in training. That doesn’t mean going hell to leather and smashing each other into the floor and getting injured. There are many ways to compete internally. Keeping that high level of competition even in training raises the bar for the whole team.
Roster Management
Sometimes having a small roster is unavoidable, especially with the current league having multiple small teams in local areas. When forfeits are declared and player safety cited it often falls down to one area, the Offensive Line. It is not for everyone. Especially in the Premiership where the Defensive Lineman can be freakishly large. It requires a certain amount of skill and knowledge that can’t be learned on game day. One way around this is to make sure everyone who has the physical size to play line has training. It is all about roster management. Linebackers and Fullbacks are never going to make a top, top level offensive or defensive linemen, but in a pinch they can fill a roll. They have the general game and rule knowledge, but require confidence and reps. This is something that should be planned for months in advance. It is for the benefit of the team and I’ve been in places when a guy doesn’t want to play line but does for the good of the team. Because that’s just it, it’s a team sport. We all want to have 2 platoons and a separate offensive and Defensive linemen but having them all learn both may reduce the amount of forfeits. It takes time and effort but it is worth it. We’ll have more on training players for multiple positions in a future article in our Coaches Corner.
Attitude
And finally…… have a bit of damn pride. I know winning isn’t everything, going home safe is better. If I had the choice to win and have a guy end up in hospital overnight with a serious injury or lose and go home safe, I’m getting on the bus with all my guys. But that isn’t to say you can’t fight tooth and nail for every game. I’m sure most players and coaches can think of a situation they didn’t give up in despite knowing they were going to lose. I was going to give you an example from my personal experience, but I’m sure you have your own you can reflect on. Sport should be fun, competing to me is fun. Where is the fun in turning down games because you think you will lose? I’ve been involved in games where the opposition have had less than 18 players on gameday. Those guys gave it their all and earned a lot of respect from our team. This year we played a new team in the league, the Oxford Lancers. It resulted in an 82-0 score line but I came away very impressed. Mentally, they defended the wing better than anyone that year but lacked in experience and size. They only have 2 coaches (Carl Marshall & Andrew McKenzie), but both of those guys were at the BAFCA convention. While one was filming a talk in room A, the other was taking notes in room B. Their players are new to the sport, but not once did their heads drop taking in 82 points and fought the small battles like winning first downs and stopping us at the line of scrimmage. The attitude was great and this is reflected from their coaches. They may be struggling now but if they can keep the students interested and secure funding, they’ll be a great program.
Taking a beating happens sometimes despite your best efforts. Forfeiting games harms everybody involved. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but avoidable or not it looks unprofessional to the casual viewer and stunts the growth of new players as it denies them game time to learn and progress. It can be avoided through proper recruitment, coaching and organisation. New organisations have it tough, I have been there and sometimes situations leave you with no choice but teams who have been around years have no excuse. Especially those who are meant to be Premiership calibre, or at least claim to be of a decent level. Until there is legitimate ways of proving and punishing teams that forfeit with poor reasons it will continue. Fines need to be paid by the teams responsible, not swept under the carpet by good Samaritans or committees that can’t be asked to chase. Teams need to be accountable for their actions and situations where whole seasons are forfeited should not just be shrugged off by the footballing community. If you can’t run a football team without forfeiting games, coaches walking away mid-season and players not getting the proper coaching, then there shouldn’t be a football team. I’d rather have 50 programs that get their fixtures played every week with youth structures in place than 80 teams of mates who turn up on Sundays.