NG5 SHERWOOD JUNE/JULY 2021

Football in a time of Covid
For many years I have had a long standing love of
football. Despite only watching the odd game on TV
in my formative years (back when you were lucky if
there was one game a month on the telly and the
FA Cup final really was the biggest football event of
the year) I blundered into a sport which still holds me
in its thrall. And in the last few years it has become
even more important to me as my son is absolutely
obsessed with the game.
It started a few years ago when one of our local teams
was looking for a goalkeeper. Apparently at that age
goalkeepers are hard to find as kids just want to belt
the ball into the net. Fortunately my lad enjoyed the
idea of flinging himself around in muddy goalmouths
so he got the gig. Over time he decided he wanted to
have a bit more involvement in games as the team he
played for were pretty good and there’s only so many
wet Sundays that you want to be shivering in goal. So
he became a defender, and then a midfielder. Now
he plays for two teams so our Saturday and Sunday
mornings are completely accounted for, as well as
two evenings a week training. So you’d think there
was no more time for football right? Well, you’d be
quite wrong there...
Rewind back to March last year and his Sunday team
needed a coach. As parents, we wanted the team
to continue and I was asked to take on the team.
In hindsight I think this was mostly due to the fact
that I loved a bit of admin and appeared organised,
but to be honest I was really looking forward to the
challenge.
Running a Sunday League team was a complete
mystery to me, as a parent I normally just paid the
subs and turned up to watch the games. Now I was
responsible for getting the team organised, running
training, liaising with other teams, getting the players
registered, making sure subs were paid, pumping up
the footballs and understanding how to work with the
club that my team were part of.
And then there was Covid.
If you ever wanted to pick a time to start running a
football team, doing it as a global pandemic ripped
through youth sports may not have been the ideal
scenario. As well as working out how to run a team I
now had to understand all of the various paperwork
and rules that accompanied Covid. No doubt the
same as every other youth coach in the country this
meant a huge change in how teams and leagues
would be run. Everything changed, games were
postponed, we had no idea when we were able to
play again, and the kids went months without seeing
each other. I can only speak for my club, but the
support that Arnold Town FC offered was fantastic.
They bent over backwards to help all of us navigate
the new rules and keep us going when we didn’t
know what was happening next.
And then we got the news that we could start training
again. Everyone was delighted to be back, we’d
all had different experiences of lockdown but once
the first football was kicked we got our own bit of
normality back.
We’ve been really lucky that most of our kids have
played together for a few years, and the new ones
that have come in have settled really quickly. And this
goes for the parents too. It’s common to only hear the
negative side of overly competitive parents in Sunday
League but my experience has been one of total
support. They’ve all helped out with training, running
the line, or even refereeing the odd game.
And the team are doing okay on the pitch too. I’m
no tactical mastermind but we win our fair share and
compete even when we lose. More importantly we all
enjoy it together. The kids are all learning and seeing
them develop is amazing and the parents are all on
board with the philosophy that everyone gets to play,
no matter their ability.
So, in hindsight I couldn’t have picked a worse time to
start coaching a football team. But on the other hand
it’s been a phenomenal experience and probably
stopped me from going insane in the last year or so.
Edging into my forties, I’m a wrangler of two young children who are either going to keep me
eternally young or drive me to an early grave. I’ll be sharing some of my experiences of parenthood
and my terrible attempts at staying relevant!
noonelikessubtitles@gmail.com Dominic Murray