Day 59 - Communicare Action Soccer League

The less said about today the better. We had a shocker. It was another chance for us to get a win for Ruyterwacht, but it was a hopeless effort.

The day started off very badly. When going to bed last night, I was fairly tired, as it was a late one, so i wanted to get into bed and asleep ASAP. Martin and I have one key for the 2 of us, as there's no need for 2 as we're together pretty much all the time. So I took the key, and headed up stairs, got in, put the key in the door, brushed my teeth and got into bed.

3am, I woke up and was busting for a wee, so I headed for the toilet. Half asleep, walked past Martins room and into the loo. On the walk back to my room, I found it odd how his door was open, as we close our doors when we're sleeping. Had a quick peek inside, and I couldn't see him. Looked beside his bed incase he'd fallen off it, not there either. He couldn't be in the toilet because I was just there, and would've seen him. He must've fallen asleep downstairs.

I decided to go get him, as the chairs are proper uncomfortable, and I was sure he would've much rather sleep in bed than get a dodgy neck from sleeping down there.

Got to the door. It was locked. Oh no. Please no. During my sleepy state last night, I'd managed to lock the door, meaning he had no way of getting in. Decided to go downstairs to grab him. It was too dark, I couldn't find him anywhere. So I headed back up. I left the door unlocked so that if he woke up, he could get back him, and I went back to sleep.

Woke up at 9ish, and heard footsteps outside my door. It was Martin. Assuming he wouldn't be in the best of moods after my mess up, I decided best to avoid him for a lil bit. So I stayed in bed and watched a bit of a Harry Potter movie, until I plucked up the courage to face the man who I had locked out. An hour later, I managed to do it.

His face. As soon as we caught eye contact I feared for my life. The man looked evil. Thankfully he laughed it off, and I avoided a potential beating. We got ready to head to Brooklyn for our game against Woodstock B, the B team of the team we played last week.

Joe messaged us just before we left saying they had transport problems, and asked if we could pick up some of the boys. We agreed and headed off.

Long story short, we lost about 12-3. For starters, we got there about 5 minutes late, and Woodstock B were clever enough to organise a friendly, which started literally as soon as we arrived. So when we played them, they mixed in their A team too, who were far better than the B's. Secondly, Martin and I were the only senior players on our team. The rest of the players were members of the Junior team who had been called up for numbers sake, as the senior players were focused on exams which were happening next week.

I scored 2, and Martin assisted the 3rd. The rest of the game was just a disaster. Terrible. That's all I have to say.

We headed back, and watched the Arsenal game, which ended 2-1. Unbelievably nervewracking though, and I was worried we'd lose our lead after how we started in the second half. Thankfully we held on though, and got another vital 3 points.

We then headed to Mixas, where Martin wanted to watch the six nations game. England needed to win against France by 26 to win the six nations. They were so close, and were 1 try off winning, but missed out by 6 points. Meaning Ireland won.

Shark cage diving tomorrow, absolutely pumped. Keep posted to find out how it goes!

Harry

Day 58 - Ruyterwacht Girls

First and foremost, I want to apologise for today's post. It will be unbelievably boring and short. Not much happened today at all.

We were scheduled to coach the Ruyterwacht girls team in the afternoon, so we had the morning to have a nice lie in, and relax. We then had lunch at Berghof, where we were treated to a beaut fish and chip meal, which didn't taste the same as back home, but was very nice nonetheless. 

Joe asked us to meet him at the Learning Centre at 1:30, before we started with the Ruyterwacht girls at 3. When we got to the Learning Centre, we had a nice, chilled meeting with Joe and Lourens, talking about various things and future trips. At around 3 we headed to the Ruyterwacht circle to get ready for the girls.

15 minutes later, not one girl turned up. We decided to have a quick drive around to see if they went to the wrong place. We managed to find 3 girls walking to the circle, but other than that, nothing. I assume it's because of exams over the next couple of weeks that the older girls didn't come, but to have 3 out of the possible 15 attendees was just disappointing. So we played a match with the girls until they got tired, before Joe came, met us and let us go home. He said that for next weeks session we'll have Drommedaris girls instead, as they're much better to coach, much more fun to coach, and it's been really nice seeing the improvement. 

So today felt like a really wasted day, which is a bit gutting. But we've got a pretty decent weekend lined up, with the Action Soccer League tomorrow, before I go Shark Cage Diving on Sunday, and hopefully Robben Island Monday. So I'm looking forward to that!

Like I said not much to say about today. This weekend should be different though, so keep posted!

Harry

Day 57 - Computer Workshop, Trafalgar High School & All Stars Football Club

Today we had a very full day, with our 4 day computer workshop taking up the whole morning, followed by an after school session with Trafalgar High School, before ending on an evening session with All Stars Football Club, who were Yonicks old team.

We started the computer workshop at 9, and finally finished it at around 11. Today's focus was purely on Microsoft Word, and how to use the various functions of it, such as changing font, the text alignment, bold, italics and underlining text. It's not exactly football coaching, but it's technically another style of coaching that we're doing, which can only help us for our football work.

With the computer workshop, the people attending it have a vast range of abilities. We have some that are finding it easy, and to be honest, we're not sure if its worth them being here, as they seem completely comfortable with computers as it is. We then have the others who really struggle, and take a long time to understand what we find easy. There seems to be no middle ground. Either really advanced or really struggling. Makes it more challenging for us, though, which will help us.

After the workshop was over, we treated ourselves to Koeksisters. I've managed to convince the lady at the shop to give me the recipe on how to make them, so when I come home I can still have my beloved treats. We bought 8, Joe had 3, I had 3, and Martin had 2. He didn't fancy a third. We then headed back to the Learning Centre where we had a little break before going to Trafalgar.

When we arrived at Trafalgar, we met up with one of the main coaches, who took us to a football pitch nearby where they trained on. This pitch was nice. Very nice. It had just been cut, lines were just put on and it all looked nice and fresh. Plus it was right next to Table Mountain, which made it look even better.

We had 2 groups, a boys team and a girls team. Martin took the girls and I took the boys. Martin had Thakira, who was one of the girls from the Drommedaris lot that we've coached before, which was surprising as we had no idea that she went to this school, especially as it was so far away from Drommedaris.

I took the boys and tried out a session that I found off the FA Licenced Coaches Club website, that I was intending to use with All Stars. It was an attacking-focused exercise, which looked at teams on the counter attack, who have a man or 2 advantage over the defenders. It worked pretty well, was a bit slow at first but after a bit of extra coaching and encouragement it worked out and looked quite good. The lads enjoyed it too, and gave me some good feedback, which helped a lot so I could improve it for when I coach it again.

After wrapping the sessions up, we had a chat with a couple of the other coaches. One of which who's a big Everton fan. They were really nice and friendly, and might even be sorting us out with tickets for tomorrow's Ajax Cape Town game. Which would be awesome.

We then dropped Thakira and her friend off home, before heading to meet coach Dallas, who would take us to All Stars.

We met him on Tuesday, and he previously said that him and the other coaches wanted us to go through some attacking and high pressurised exercises with them. So we had 3 different ones in mind, which we spent half an hour on each to just show the coaches.

They all went really well. We started off with a 5v2 situation, where the attackers had to make 5 passes between them before playing the ball across to a 3rd team, who were then under pressure by the defneding team. We then went from that straight into the session I did with Trafalgar, which was improved slightly thanks to their feedback. That went really well. We then ended on a 1 on 1 game, where we had 4 goals and 4 teams, each team taking it in turn to go for the 1 on 1, shooting, then immediately defending against the next team. That went really well. Overall the All Stars session was brilliant. The kids were fun to coach and did everything we asked. The coaches were taking notes and asking loads of questions about our exercises. I was loving it. It's a shame that we came to them so late, otherwise I would've made Joe organise us a lot more sessions with them.

At around 7 it was time to go, though. But we both really enjoyed today, and are looking forward to the session we have with them in a couple of weeks time. Hopefully I can try some other new stuff out with them.

Harry

Day 56 - Silvertree Crèche & Drommedaris

Today we had an early start, as we had to meet Joe at the Learning Centre at 8, so he could take us to our crèche session for the morning. Today's destination, Silvertree Crèche.

We got there, and wow. We already knew that this would be the best crèche we've been too. It looked a lot better than the other Crèche's we'd coached at. They had a nice patch of grass, a good play area for the kids, and a really nice looking building too. We were impressed.

The kids were amazing too. We had 2 groups. A group of 4/5 year olds and a group of pre-primary school children, who were a bit older. Both were brilliant, a couple of disruptions but on the whole brilliant. We really enjoyed it. We did our standard crèche session of movements in the square to start with, followed by passing the ball around in a circle.

The second group, however, broke into song inbetween exercises. The just randomly burst into singing children's songs, which brought back memory's of the songs we sang back when I was at Primary school. It was amazing to watch. After the session was over we let them sing a couple more songs before saying goodbye. 

After that, we had about an hour to chill out at the Learning Centre, where we had a chat with Lourens, discussing trips we could make, and how quickly the time has gone by, before heading to the Drommedaris complex.

At Drommedaris, we normally run a life skills session, where we teach kids valuable life skills, such as brushing their teeth, washing their hands, and why they should be nice to eachother. However, Joe had got a big supply of books that he wanted to put in the complex, to turn it into a bit of a library, where the kids could us it to read and learn. We had to clear out the store cupboard, empty the room that was being turned into a library, and get it all cleaned up and looking nice. It didn't take long, about an hour or so, and it looked nice at the end, which was cool.

After that, we headed back to Ruyterwacht, where we went to meet up with Densel for our football training session, ahead of their match in the Communicare Action Soccer League on Saturday. After Densel was finished with the girls team, he was ready for us. There was about 8 of us, and he split us into 2 teams. Martin on one side, me on the other, and we played a match. Unfortunately for Martin, his team we awful, and we were all over them the whole game. Even with the addition of Densel in goal for them, we still managed to dominate. It was quality for me because it gave me freedom to play football and enjoy it, but Martin was doing all the running in his team, without much success. Hopefully, we should have a strong team for Saturday, and we can finally get a win for Ruyterwacht. Find out about it on Saturday.

Early night tonight, busy day tomorrow. Got our computer workshop tomorrow morning, before coaching at Trafalger Square high school, before All Stars FC, who are Yonicks old club. They've asked us to show them some attacking exercises, so hopefully we can give them a good session.

Harry

Day 55 - Greenland Crèche & Mondale High School

So, after an amazing weekend, we got straight back to work. This weeks schedule, whole new Crèche's, whole new schools and whole new clubs. This week was a whole new week.

We started off by meeting Joe at the Learning Centre at 8:30, before he took us on to Greendale crèche. It was a small crèche, which, to be fair, it had a decent bit of grass to play on. Much better than the concrete (along with broken bottles) that we had to coach on at Ysterplaat 1. We sorted out our cones, and the first of the 3 classes came along. We decided that for the 3 Crèche's, we'd do the same thing with them. Starting off with the movement game, where they stopped when Martin held up a red cone, followed by passing the ball around in a circle.

The first group we had were nice bunch, bit quiet, but nice. Eventually, we got them running about, shouting Arsenal, which we were pleased about. The teachers that we were with were telling us how most of the kids didn't speak a word of English, and mainly spoken French, or Xhosa (pronounced Korsa), which none of the teachers spoke. Many if the children were sent there for about a year or so before starting an English speaking school too, so the work was really cut out for the teachers, as they had to try and teach them English in about a year. This also meant that quite a few of the kids didn't fully understand us though, but we got by.

The second group, however, were silent. Now, they made us work hard. We were determined that by the end of the session, they'd be shouting "Arsenal" at us, after pretty much whispering it at the start. Thankfully, due to the fact most of our energy was poured into making them more lively, we got there in the end, and they were shouting at the end of it. Brilliant. Job done.

The third group came along, and they were similar to the first group, a bit shy, but got noisy towards the end. This group were a bit more disruptive however, and although most of our energy was pumped into the first group, we still found enough to make sure these kids had a good time. By the end of the session they had been running, hopping, skipping, jumping, shouting and having fun. So in my opinion, it was job done. As the crèche was right next to the airport, we constantly had planes going over our session, which disrupted us a bit, but we got through it though. If Arsenal have thought us anything, they've taught us that we have to deal with any circumstances that are thrown at us, and I think we did pretty well today.

We then had a few hours off in the Learning Centre, where we had these amazing sandwiches which Lena made us, before heading off to our afternoon session, Mondale High School.

We didn't know this before we started coaching, but we were actually coaching 3 guys who were playing for the Ajax Cape Town academy. So the ability of these lads was pretty good. After speaking to the main coach, he was saying that he was certain a couple of them would go professional, which is impressive, plus a nice feeling knowing we were coaching some good, young players.

We did a bit more of an intense possession session, and we were a lot more heavily involved to help the players, which felt amazing for me as it was the sort of level I wanted to coach at. Fortunately, one of the reasons Martin and I work well together is because we want o go down seperate ways in the future. He wants to focus more on getting kids into sport, and getting them interested and having fun at a young age, and I'm more interested in training players at an elite level, on the more serious part of football, where the aim is to develop players. The brilliance of this is, that we can both help eachother on the particular bits we want to improve on. We challenge eachother, and give eachother advice, which is what ultimately helps improve coaches and sports leaders in the long term.

The kids at Mondale were exceptional. In my opinion the best group of kids we've coached by far. They were exceptionally well behaved, had a decent level of banter (they've seen Harry Potter, I'll let you imagine what they mentioned), and did everything we asked them to. It was brilliant. A real pleasure to coach. We're back there next week so I'm going to come up with a bit more of an in depth session for them. They want to focus on 1 on 1's and counter attacks so I'm going to try and tailor the session for that. But overall I really enjoyed it.

We ended the session at around 4, as Joe he to be back and be at the Learning Centre by 5 to open it up for a business meeting that someone was planning to hold there. We were free to go though, so headed home to prepare ourselves for the Arsenal game.

2-0. Not good enough. We made it far too difficult for ourselves after the first leg, and ended up going out at the supposedly "easiest draw". Awful.

Need to be up early tomorrow so will end the post here, looking forward to tomorrow, should be a good day. Read about it tomorrow night.

Harry

Photos From Day 54 - Elephants

Photos From Day 54 - Aquila Rescue Centre

Photos From Day 54 - Zebras & Ostriches

Photos From Day 54 - Giraffes & Springbok