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Ohope Junior Soccer Club
Making the most of a
good thing
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| Presidents page | Soccer is a great
activity for our children and our families. It
teaches life skills that will carry them through all sorts of
challenges . We hope you have a great time being involved with your
club and urge you to make the most of it – the more you put in....the
more you get out. Are you new
to the club? scroll to the bottom to find out how it all works. If you want to buy or sell or exchange
second hand gear click here To make the most of any sport, you should try to involve yourself in the team. Children respond to a higher level of parental participation. Coaching If you have the time consider coaching. Teams can't function without a coach so at the end of the day, someone has to do it – why not you? It seems like a tough one but most parents who coach find that they get a huge amount of satisfaction out of it. There is a lot of training and resources for coaches. It's something that you should try to pick up when your child begins in a sport so your coaching develops with their level of play. Much harder to start your coaching with a team of teenagers than a team of 6 year olds. Managing This requires less time and you can fit it around work. Teams that have managers do better. Having someone arrange the laundry and oranges roster, do the phoning around and knowing who should be where when, takes a load off the coach who can then focus on the kids, which is what they should be doing. Reffing Want the best seat in the house? How often do you get frustrated with bad reffing? How bad does it look to see a coach out there reffing a game while giving advice and encouragement to their own team? Coaches shouldn't ref but often have to because other parents won't step forward. During the game the coaches job is on the sideline watching the kids and their play, not looking for fouls. Teams should aim to have two refs on call. If your team hasn't, why aren't you stepping forward? The club will support you with information and training and if you have read the 17 rules of the game you are well ahead of most of the other spectators, coaches and players. Reffing is very rewarding, and at the end of the game you can pat yourself on the back, look at the other parents and know that none of them had the guts to get out there. Spectating kids sport - harder than it looks Whether you want to admit to yourself or not, watching your child put on the uniform and engage in sports is pretty exciting? You need to carefully consider if your excitment leads to sideline behaviour that helps them or gets in the way. It's pretty well known now that negative support, yelling instructions and the like drags whole teams down, no matter how much you think you are helping. If you find yourself yelling instructions to the players then you need to ask yourself why you didn't put up your hand to coach, because that's what you are trying to do...badly. Playing soccer takes your child's whole concentration. If you constantly break their concentration by yelling things that may, in all liklihood, contradict what their coach has told them, you may put them off sport altogether - they will feel like they are letting you down and a failure and associate playing sport with feeling inadequate. Celebrate the good stuff and let them make their own mistakes. Lots of noise, chanting the team name or "Go Ohope!" is great... think carefully about anything more you feel you need to say. Ohope Soccer Club supports fair play and will not tolerate parents who lower our standards by abusing other teams, other parents or refs. At the end of the day we want our kids to have fun and try hard. Aggressive parents are the biggest barrier to that. If the other team is over the top let it slide – if you respond, it escalates. We take sideline abuse seriously and coaches are expected to report incidents - whoever intitiates it. A note on training Coaches are not babysitters. It is every parent's responsibility to have to the player to the field on time, properly equipped (boots, shinpads, non uniform clothing, water, warm gear), and to arrive before training is finished to pick them up. Please don't let your child load up on sugary drinks or sweets before training (or games) - it simply makes them hyper and unmanageable and the training goes sour for the whole team. New Parents: General: Welcome to the club. If you are unsure of anything please get in touch with someone on the committee to find out more. You are welcome to attend committee meetings, request to join the committee, and are positively encouraged to take an active role in the club through becoming a team offical (coach, manager, or ref), the administration of the club or helping out on our annual event, the McMecking Memorial Tournament. If you are new to the area you will find the club a great way to meet a bunch of local families. Soccer involves both games and training and players are families to committ to both. Kit: The club provides shirts. You need to kit your child out in blue shorts, white football socks, boots and shinpads. Players arre not allowed on the field without shinpads. Mouthguards are optional but advised. You might also like to get a short sleeved polypropylene vest for your player. Whilst expensive they greately improve comfort on cold and wet days. The best place to get all this is SportsWorld on the strand. They offer a 15% discount to club members but more importantly have all the gear under one roof. Games: Your child will be involved in games against other clubs on Saturday mornings throughout winter, so this means travel from Kawerau to Opotiki. Bluett Park is our home ground and roughly 50% of your games will take place there. Pleasse ensure your players have warm clothing to put over uniforms when on the sideline and water. Training: Your child will be required to train once a week during the season. While they will need boots and shinpads, please don't let them wear uniform to training. Please also ensure they have water with them and are feed a light nutrious snack before training. training usually happens on thursdays at 4:30 but some teams have selected other times |
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