Kids’ football: Auckland club Eastern Suburbs warns parents about interfering in children’s games

An Auckland football club has had to remind its adult members of what they’re trying to achieve with Saturday morning children’s games. Photo / 123rf

An Auckland football club has had to remind its adult members of what it is trying to achieve with Saturday morning children’s games after finding some parents have been getting too involved in the run of play.

Adults taking to the field to make up numbers, leaning against goalposts and blocking shots with their feet, and taking the ball off a child and giving it to the other team were among some of the examples that prompted Eastern Suburbs chairman Simon Hilton to send a memo around the club this week to remind people of how they were expected to behave around the children’s game.

“I got an email from a parent this year saying that (their team) has played a game and a parent of the other team was actively tackling kids, passing the ball forward to his team and stopping goals,” Hilton said.

“It’s mainly the parent-coaches; it’s not got a lot to do with the parents on the sidelines ... but there’s a couple of parents who think they’re football coaches or think they want to be players and try to play in a 5 or 6-year-olds’ game.

“You might get one or two of them a year, but I’m sure if there’s one or two there might be three or four.”

As will be the case with many clubs around the country, the purpose of the in-house competition for young players aged from 5 to 14 is to get them involved in and enjoying the game. At Eastern Suburbs, there are no points tables in these age grades and everyone plays – if one team is outnumbered, the opposition is expected to offer to lend them a player.

Parents getting too involved in youth sport is a common issue.

Eastern Suburbs’ target for its in-house youth season is in line with the 2020 Keep Up With The Play campaign launched by Sport New Zealand in 2020 and co-signed by leaders of several top sporting codes to tackle declining numbers in youth sport.

When the campaign was established, then Sport NZ boss Peter Miskimmin told NZME it was about parents rethinking youth sport. It was intended to create an environment that supports the need for change, taking the messages to everyone involved in delivering youth sport, specifically parents, coaches and administrators.

In his memo, Hilton highlighted that no parent should be actively playing or tackling children – a seemingly obvious point – as well as the need to discuss any concerns a coach might have “as rational adults”.

He said it was important that children simply got out and enjoyed playing the game, and parents bringing an unwanted competitive element into this environment did not help in achieving that.

“It’s ongoing education of parents, really. You’re always going to get some super-competitive parents who just want to win.

“We just have to generally remind people that actually it’s not for you, it’s for the kids. We don’t have a lot of issues – there’s one or two people we have to keep an eye on, but I find if you send out something quite blunt toward the start of the season that it doesn’t escalate.

“I say to parents that it doesn’t matter how much you want your kid to be a good footballer, or how much you want your kid to win, just be a parent.

“Support them and let them play, and they can decide how competitive they want to be. You can’t force your kid to do stuff, and that’s like any sport.”