The Grassroots Sports Thread

Pitchside - Football Forum
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Place to put all info about grassroots sports, especially sports/teams that people on here are involved with - as suggested by @redfanman

For me I’m entering my third season as Head Coach of a girls’ high school team here in Maine.

When I took the job in 2024 the school hadn’t made the playoffs since 2013 and hadn’t recorded more than 2 wins in a season since that year either. We had been relegated from Class A (the top division in Maine) to Class B in 2019 and continued to lose in Class B.

The players were used to losing and losing heavily, including several games by over 20 goals. They were just poorly coached and unmotivated.

I came in for the 2024 season and decided tonfocus on developing young players. We started with 5 freshmen regularly and the majority of the team were either thise freshman or juniors. We lost 13 of 14 games, drawing the other 0-0. We conceded 50 goals, scoring 7. This was an improvement over the previous season (conceded 86, scored 6). However it included a few poundings especially by rivals - our historic rival beat us 7-0. It was the first season we had not been “mercied” (game ends if losing by 8 or more goals after 60 minutes).

That first season we weren’t really focused on results or tactics we were just trying to make kids enjoy playing again.

Second year we changed to a 442 and really started to focus in on being solid and hard to beat. We also got moved to the significantly harder Southern region of our league, rather than the North which we had been. We ended the year with 3 wins, 4 draws and 7 losses. We qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2013 (as the 12th seed out of 12). We scored 15 goals, conceded 24 and kept 3 clean sheets. In the playoffs we played the #1 seed and lost 3-0 away. It was the best season the school had in over a decade so we were very happy but we also graduated 8 seniors from the team (6 starters) and we were very reliant on one girls for our attack - she scored 9 of our 15 goals. One of our graduates was recruited to play DIII soccer, which is the first time we’ve developed a college player in longer than anyone can remember. Our main goalscorer was named to the division’s Team of the Year and we had a couple of girls place in the 2nd XI too. I was awarded Class B Coach of the Year, which really just highlights how bad the school has been in previous years that everyone was shocked we were even competitive!

Now year three and we’re a very small squad. We have 18 total players with 14 named to varsity (first team). However we have a much better understanding of how to play now. We’ve gone back to a 433 and we’ve developed a 4-part philosophy to our play (Hunt the Ball, Stay Compact, Play Forward First, Finish with Purpose). Pre-season went well - we played a tournament in the summer and were visibly more aggressive camped out in the opposition half but struggling to finish chances. We lost our first game 1-0 with the other team scoring on their only shot. Second game we won 2-0 and our final game was a 0-0 draw. Two clean sheets in a day was great for us. Then we played a team from a lower division who had won every game last season and we beat them 3-2.

I had to let my assistant coach one game as I couldn’t be available and we lost that 4-2. I watched back the film and was disappointed with the defending so wehave made some tweaks to personnel and how we coach it. Then last weekend we entered a final three game tournament and surprised ourselves with how good we were - we won our first game 4-0 (against a side that had beaten us 6-0, 3-0 and 2-0 in the last two years) and we actually brought our starters off after 20 minutes just to avoid embarrassing the opposition.
Our second game we played one of the best teams in the state - they haven’t lost a regular season game in 2 years - and we beat them 2-0 without even allowing them a shot on our goal. Third game we didn’t play our main starters and drew it 0-0. Across the entire day we allowed 1 shot on goal, and it wasn’t even on target.

So its been a good pre-season. We kick off our regular season tonight against a rival school who are expected to be very good this year. They’ve beaten us 1-0, 3-0, 2-1 and 4-0 in the last two seasons. I’m confident of giving them a good game but super hard to know at the start of a new season.

If you want to follow our season I have an instagram page that I keep updated Instagram

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I’m not involved myself now, but my kids were all involved in local Sportsverein (sports club). My eldest was more into the tennis.

The younger two seem to have dropped out. The youngest did go along with a friend to their local team who play in 1. Kreisklasse Emsland Süd (9th level of the German football league pyramid - effectively a county league) but the friend has started DFB training as a referee. I think that was more of a guaranteed way of getting a game.

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Played and managed at Sunday League level for years. Also managed a girls team with some success. I found the ladies easier to deal with. No whining or bitching about being on the bench. Always up for training and always on time with fees.
Managing men was a fucking nightmare by comparison

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I agree about coaching girls. For the most part they are great so much more attentive than boys and they don’t get bored as easily so you can really hammer in on some technical aspects and see fast improvement, where boys would be complaining instead. I also feel like you form deeper connections with the girls - some of them have become almost family to me and I haven’t experienced that with male players before. I have three boys so my plan is to switch onto the boys team in a few years but if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t leave coaching the girls to take the boys job.

Anyone who is thinking of getting into coaching I can’t recommend women’s football high enough. Sure the physical level isn’t as good as the men’s game but it’s rapidly improving and it forces you to think about the game and strategy as there are different strengths and limitations.

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Love this thread!

Currently playing in a Veterans Semi-Competitive Division (40+) here in Virginia. It’s 9v9 on a full-size field, so there’s still plenty of space to cover, and slide tackles aren’t allowed. I’ve been playing in the same adult recreational league for about 20 years now. I was also a Regional Referee, working mostly grassroots Men’s league matches but also some NCAA matches along with some NPSL games. I eventually stepped away from refereeing as my kids got older and became involved in sport themselves.

I also volunteer coach two grassroots teams: a U10 boys team and a U14 girls team. I’ve had the U10 boys since they were U8s, and for the last couple of years my focus has been simple: get them as many touches as possible and encourage plenty of dribbling and 1v1 play. This season is the first time we’re starting to introduce more positional concepts since offside and build-out lines have now come into play.

This is my second season with the U14 girls. They’re a fantastic group. It’s grassroots rec football, so we’re not really keeping score, but if we were, they’d have gone unbeaten last season. More importantly, they genuinely enjoy playing together and look forward to training every week, which as a coach is about all I can ask for.

@Sweeting, where abouts in Maine are you? My brother-in-law lives in Augusta and works in Portland (which is one heck of a commute), and my family and I spend a couple of weeks up there every summer visiting them and exploring the state. We’ve done plenty of hiking, kayaking, and general wandering around, and it’s a lovely place. We’ve even kicked around the idea of moving there someday.

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It sounds like I am very similar to your BIL. I am also in Augusta and my office is in South Portland, although I work from home most of the time so I only go there once or twice a week.

I love living here, beautiful state. As someone who now lives in Maine though I have to tell you what all Mainers (jokingly… sort of) tell all outsiders who want to move to Maine… “Go away” :laughing:

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I’m not and have never really been into martial arts but my older two daughters are part of a BJJ club in Sydney, Australia and enjoy it a lot. They have also started participating in regional tournaments, representing their club.

My youngest is into (and quite a natural at) rock climbing but not yet part of any clubs.

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Rock climbing is a great sport! My wife and I are members of a local climbing gym, although she’s admittedly there quite a bit more than I am. I love it, though, and I’ve been giving some thought to retiring from my Grassroots men’s team so I can spend more time climbing. As long as I’m doing rope climbing and not bouldering, it’s a lot easier on my joints, which is definitely a bonus these days.

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My youngest daughter is 12 and that’s exactly what she’s into, bouldering!

Unlike myself and my older two daughters, she really dislikes roller coasters or sudden acceleration but has no fear of heights…go figure! And climbs climbing walls like a mokey!! I was dumbfounded when I saw her do it first…more expert climbers had trouble on the walls she was gliding through on.

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@GratefulRed I have a lot of family in the US. One of my nieces is I think in some top 50 or top 100 list of young US Womens soccer players. She just won the NCAA womens soccer tournament with her uni team (FSU Seminoles). She’s also from Virginia (Falls Church). Her dad (my first cousin) went to Virginia Tech.

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Nothing humbles you quite like struggling your way up a wall and then watching a 10-year-old casually fly up the equally difficult route right next to you. I think that’s happened to every climber at every gym at least once. For me, it happens pretty much every time I go.

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Same experience with downhill skiing. You think you’re doing great then some 8 year old local kid comes flying past at a million miles an hour.

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And that reminds me, an old school friend’s sons are on the junior US skiing team. They live in SoCal but regularly go to the US team’s training venue. I think my friend rented a place near there so his boys would find it easier to train.

Yeah, zero fear of speed.

And I remember the first time I tried snowboarding…the instructor said never to use your hands to break a fall, which is exactly what I did. And my hand hurt so much that I thought I had broken it (thankfully it was just badly bruised)

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We lost our opener 2-1, they scored the winner in overtime (Maine high school soccer goes to a sudden death OT because Americans don’t understand draws).

We didn’t play great but were the better if the two teams so it was a real kick in the teeth to lose it.

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I got back into cricket a few years ago which coincided with my son starting to play cricket at school. Having been out the sport for a long time I was appalled at how much cricket they actually play at that age and when they actually start playing hardball cricket. Basically mini cricket until 9/10 and the first time they get exposed to hard ball is at u-11 and even then, they can only look forward to playing perhaps 5 games in term 1 and maybe 4 in term 2. Rainouts are common at that time of the year and games are not rescheduled. In my son’s u-11 year, they played all of 5 games, T20, the whole year. Practice is also a joke; from 14h00 - 15h00, kids milling around waiting for the coach and with 15 kids or more, that hour is almost useless. I’ve been around the schools and it’s the same everywhere even till now.

So shocked and armed with a refound passion for the game I set out creating a team for my son, no greater idea than that. I just wanted him to play and if a few other kids benefittes then happy days. I spoke to his school, they put out a letter I gave them and eventually got a team together that I coached for free on Saturdays. There were some Academies operating in the area but on a low scale, I would arrange games between them and us and eventually organised a Festival and got some teams from out of town to join in. I then took over on of those Academies after that first Festival as it was pretty much defunct by that time. At the same time I was becoming more active in the local Union which was also worse than useless when it came to supporting junior cricket.

By sheer force of will I created a program over time where the Union (which is for all intents and purposes, me) hosts festivals and games in age group cricket throughout the year and myself as an Academy owner grows my teams to play in them as well as find the opposition. Long story short, it has exploded and my kids in all age groups can expect to play at least 30 games a year at a bare minimum. My son played close to 50 last year and is already close to 40 for this and he is not the only one. The other local Academy plus the Union Development side have also benefitted from it by having enough cricket to advertise their services as well and Academies from other towns also have the same. There is actually a small ecosystem built around what I’ve done. Everyone benefits; the Union gets the plaudits for having such a program, the Academies benefit by having a platform to play thus a service to offer paying customers and the kids benefit by becoming thoroughly battle hardened.

The results are incredible. The two Academies, run by myself and by someone who has since become a friend, are all but unbeatable on the field in every age group. Teams come down from Joburg and Durban including top school and Academy teams and leave getting a walloping. My team has just won a u-13 tournament featuring two of the supposedly strongest Clubs from Durban and it was a walk in the park. The coaches there were gobsmacked at how easily their kids who they believe are a shoo in for getting KZN Dolphins honours were swept aside by a team from a regional backwater. My teams have won the Kearsney u-11 Festival and unbeaten at the Glenwood u-13, two prestigious tournaments that have seen professional cricketers come from.

Then there is the Southern Natal Regional team which in all age groups feature Academy players. There was one kid that made the 2nd round of trials who doesn’t attend either Academy. Just one. And as talented as he looked in the nets, he couldn’t handle the practice matches because of how little he got at his school. Anyways, if our Academy teams are beasts, our representative teams are monsters because they combine the best of both Academies and at KZN Trials, are unbeaten for two years (touch wood, the u-13’s which now includes my son are away at trials in two weeks :grimacing:). From the South Coast, over the past few years there are two South Coast lads who have come through this proving ground and are Dolphins u-16 and u-15 now and attending a powerhouse Durban school via scholarships while a few more have won acceptance into other powerhouse Durban boarding schools thanks to their prowess.

I started this years ago now because I just wanted my son to play cricket, I like to think everyone else has benefitted along the way

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After two tough losses to start the season (2-1 and 3-2) we got our first win last night with a 5-0 win. We did expect to beat this team (we won 3-0 and 1-0 against them last season) but nice to see it through so easily.

Two years ago we scored 8 goals all season. This year we have 8 goals after three games.

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Don’t they have draws/ties in the NHL?

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Funny comments about the girls being a more enjoyable experience than coaching the boys. Back when I was in uni the coach of the women’s team used to put on showcases for girls being recruited. They were structured like full games, but with players subbed in and out and even going back and forth between teams over the course of the 2-3 hours games so the result or score didnt matter at all. The only concern for everyone should be how well are you presenting yourself to the watching coaches, and that is best served by allowing as much football to be played as possible - if there is an advantage to be played we’ll play it, if the offside is tight we’ll let it go. I was roped into reffing several of them and I have never been so badly abused in my life :rofl:

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One time when playing in a co-ed game in college, in midfield after receiving the ball I saw one of the girls on the other team flying in for a challenge (peripheral vision).
Shifted the ball to the foot away from her, shielded it and braced for impact.
I did lean into her as she slammed into me to stay upright but not at all a sharp motion.
Next thing I know, she’s on the ground gasping for air, the collision knocked the wind out of her.
Since then when I played in a co-ed setting did’t go into any such challenges. I’ve noticed a lot of ladies going into challenges that guys would think twice about.

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Not a hockey expert but if it’s like their other leagues they’ll do everything possible to avoid a draw.

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