As this was an afternoon session, it meant Martin and I had a nice lie in, getting up at around 11, before going for our run. I worked out last night that one lap of the park we run around is about 1km, and we managed 5 laps today in just under 25 minutes, which is really good, considering after our first week out here, we were struggling with just one lap in the heat. Seems like we're more used to the heat now.
After getting ourselves ready, we headed to the Learning Centre to meet Joe at around 1:30ish. Turns out we didn't have to leave the Learning Centre until around 3:30ish, so we had plenty of time to chill out and relax before leaving.
After around 45 minutes of travelling, and a quick stop for Joe to pick up a new hat, we met up with Fiona, who organised our visit, and followed her into the ground. It was a gorgeous ground, with an amazing view of Table Mountain overlooking it. When wifi decides to work on my laptop I'll upload photos of it, but it was amazing.
We had a quick chat with one of the head coaches, and were told we'd be coaching the under 10's, 9's and 8's mixed, as it was their second session of the season, so not many turned up. We split the group into 2, Martin took the younger lot, I took the older lot. Well, I say I took them. I WISH I took them. The coach of the Under 10's, who I was meant to coach, pretty much took control and started his session, which was pretty much completely fitness and conditioning based, which i felt was wrong considering they're just 10 years old. The plan was for him to do his warm up that he always does, and then I'd take over for the hour. Once he'd finished doing his thing I had about 20 minutes to do my bit. Which I was a bit annoyed about but had to live with it, so I did a circle passing exercise, similar to one we did at Waterfront, but a bit adjusted so that there's 2 players in the middle, playing one-twos with the outside players of a circle, going round to each player before swapping when he's passed to every player. It worked quite well, just i had to rush it a bit as obviously I didn't get much time. Martin on the other hand was having a good, hour long session with his younger lot, with the coach happily watching on, taking notes.
First Densel at the Ruterwacht Circle opening, now this Antonio guy here. I seem to be cursed when partnered up wit coaches. Oh well, have to just go with the flow I guess.
After what felt to me like a wasted day, we headed home. As we were driving, we noticed that there were loads and loads of kids playing football on small patches of grass next to the motorway. Joe explained to us that the township kids used this area to have a kick around, and to train too. Which was crazy to see because there was literally hundreds of kids playing different games down a long stretch of grass. Makes me grateful for having decent parks and pitches back home in England. Imagine playing barefoot next to a motorway? Crazy.
Got home quite late, at around 8 (hey, that rhymes), and just chilled out in front of the TV, Spurs and Liverpool both crashed out of the Europa League. Bad week for English teams in Europe all round then I guess.
Tomorrow we have our session with the Drommedaris girls team, ahead of the Communicare Action Soccer League, that starts on Saturday, which they're taking part in. Last week Luke and Jeff took a team each and coached them throughout their time here. Hopefully Martin and I have the same. He's beating me 2-1 on matches, so I need to pull it back somehow. Easy stuff though, I'm practically a ginger Guardiola, or a young David Moyes.......
Harry
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you have any comments/feedback, leave it here! You can do it anonymously if you want to, but we'd prefer to know who's commenting so we can get back to you!