And all done in their free time. Their success has almost been the cause of their current demise. Grassroots football gives youngsters and adults a platform to play the game they love. It has a positive impact on health and fitness in what can be a sedentary life of gaming and TV watching. Football joins communities, gives a sense of belonging and friendship, as well as breeding talent. And this is why a thriving grassroots is imperative, Not just at lower league level, but everyone who is involved in football coaches, players, supporters should start supporting their local teams.
Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Feb 01, Matthew Gaughan rated it it was ok Shelves: sport. If you're going to criticise rightly what goes in football these days, don't look to the past for easy alternatives.
May 31, Gordon Wilson rated it really liked it. When I started reading this I thought it might turn out to be a sort of "Grumpy Old Men on Football" style book, reminiscing about how things were better " I was wrong, not completely, but this is not a Clarkson-esque tirade against modern football.
It is a very well thought out and reasoned discussion on how the game has been robbed of that magic that turned us all onto the game in the first place. Also quite clearly stating that this focus on money is not a new thing! I won't spoil any of the book as I found it very entertaining and don't want to spoil it for anyone else. The only thing missing was a section at the beginning "Dear FIFA and all others in any position of power in the game, Sep 03, Ralf Scrampton rated it did not like it.
Very disappointing. Though there is much to criticise about modern football this book is mostly just about how great football was when the writer 'were a lad'. Except he glosses over the fact that it actually mostly wasn't. Nov 16, Russell Taylor rated it it was ok Shelves: library , sport. This was pretty disappointing overall. The premise of the book looked very interesting, but it seems the authors couldn't quite make up their minds if they wanted a proper study into the failings of modern football, or, a humorous attempt to compare football today against football of yesteryear.
In the end they seemed to fall somewhere in between. The omens were not good when at the start of the book they put together a dream-team from the past that encompassed all they thought was good about foo This was pretty disappointing overall. The omens were not good when at the start of the book they put together a dream-team from the past that encompassed all they thought was good about football. This kind of thing usually strikes me as unnecessary padding.
I did laugh when they included Roy Keane in this list. I like Roy Keane. The book then proceeded to outline all that was wrong with modern football. The quality of discussion about each section varied from decent to little more than gossip. The book concludes with a few suggestions on how to make the game better. All the way through, the elephant in the room was that since this book was released, Leicester City, against all odds, smashed many of the arguments when they sensationally won the Premier League a couple of years back.
May 03, Jonny Brick rated it really liked it. Another book about the worst league in the world, with particular emphasis on society. Mar 11, Richard Gale rated it it was ok. Nov 19, Paul rated it really liked it Shelves: sports.
Jumpers for Goalposts — Some Interesting Points I always smile when I read books that complain that football has changed for the worse that it is not like the old days.
In the old days we had ramshakle stadia, crap food, violence on and off the pitch, deaths and people turning away from football.
You could rock up to a ground pay at the gate and gain entry some of those even turned up at Old Trafford but then they always had the glory hunting tourist fans well worth punching on derby day. I under Jumpers for Goalposts — Some Interesting Points I always smile when I read books that complain that football has changed for the worse that it is not like the old days. I understand a few headbutted a few City fans fists at that time while the Mancunian reds watched and applauded.
Believe me there was nothing fantastic about supporting your team at time back then at times, things have moved on times have changed. They examine whether football has sold its soul which with the influx of money today is an important question for all fans even those of debt ridden clubs. The chapters are well constructed that cover the money that has come in to football and where it is being spent now and there are some very interesting comparrisons when the authors talk about football players, and therefore False Idols is the most apt chapter title for them.
When they cover the amount players are paid on some you can understand the outrage for the mediocre and average players receiving so much but the world class players is a different matter. They boast of "enhancing skeletal and muscular development". Which I'm sure they do. But so does bouncing up and down in your cot.
The trouble is, these schemes are hugely popular with parents. Shane Bird, a coach with Academy Soccer, which takes children from the age of 18 months, explains: "More traffic on the roads means parents can rightly identify that the games we played in the street [as kids ourselves] are no longer a safe option. They are looking for a structure. The enjoyment the children experience and the progress they make ensure they keep coming. But Chris Green has dozens of horror stories of highly coached children pumped up and then rejected by the academy system.
There's the four-year-old who turned up for training with a nappy clearly visible beneath his shorts; the six-year-old who cried himself to sleep when he was dropped from the squad.
He'd say: 'It's OK. I'm enjoying it so much more now I'm just playing for fun. When I told one FA coach about my son's yellow-card incident, he said: "That sounds horrendous. That's too young to be playing a game which is properly refereed. That guy is crushing that child's self-esteem.
He should not be involved in looking after children. No one else at the party was shocked at a five-year-old being yellow-carded several other boys were, too. Instead they seemed pleased that the boys were "learning the rules properly". One coach suggests that I just need to move house. We are in Teddington, Middlesex. It's a fairly built-up area and no one plays in the street or on waste ground.
I don't think there is any waste ground. It would be snapped up by property developers. Jimmy Smith is chairman of a local Oxfordshire club, Hinksey Park, and his son plays for their under-nines team. He says "jumpers for goal posts" still exists in some communities. In his area a group of neighbours allow their children to play in the street. There are cars occasionally, but you instil some road sense in them and they can still play.
There is always a risk, but we won't stop them playing. But they're not professional footballers. They're having fun. Maybe I'm making too big a deal about something which is a normal male rite of passage. After all, every boy has to learn he's not as good at football as he'd like, says Danny Kelly: "In the past you'd discover you weren't good enough to be in the school team, but you still loved football.
You 'found your level' — that's what we called it. Boys like me would play on Hackney Marshes on a Sunday morning with a bunch of drunks from the local pub. And there was no great shame in it. Somebody has to be David Beckham and somebody else has to be a plumber who happens to like playing football. I need to find a bunch of drunks for my son to play with.
Any volunteers? The end of jumpers for goal posts. Will is seven years old, mad keen on football, but can't find a game to play in. Here, his mother investigates how children as young as 18 months are being coached like pros — and why this might result in less fun and more kung-fu kicks.
Writer Viv Groskop's son Will, aged seven, in Teddington.
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