In this page:
Getting into soccer - Info for new members - How the club and the game works, the gear you will need etc.
Parents roles in the club - Soccer doesn't happen by itself.
The Barbie - those snags don't cook themselves
Reminder of some basics - For all you returning to the club, game lengths, squad sizes, season details
Code of conduct - Please read this section as, by joining the club, you are agreeing to uphold the club's code of conduct.
Being your childs greatest supporter - Supporting you child to success is harder than it seems.
Sports photography - A few tips.
Click here to open a printable version of the Junior Football rules and regs. It is worth familising yourself with things like the offside rules and the difference between direct and indirect free kicks. YOu'll also find thngs like field and squad sizes here.
Here is a list of the grade co-ordiantors - to find your child's grade, scroll down to the table
#Getting into soccer - a new member's guide.
Congratulations on introducing your child to football. It is a great game for kids as it encourages fitness, improves balance and coordination, encourages courage and tenacity, introduces them to strategic and tactical thinking and teaches them to be part of a cohesive team. We hope that you will enjoy watching your child grow in skill and confidence over their association with the club.
We are a club, not a service, so you are encouraged to take a more active role than simply spectator. Each team needs coaches, managers and referees from the team's pool of parents - someone has to fill these roles, why not you? The club needs people to both administer the grades and run the club, and hands on helpers for tournaments etc. It's all volunteer work and very rewarding. You become a part of making a wonderful experience happen for your child. You will get all the support and training you need so please, if you want to know more about what is involved get in touch with the Garry (the President).
Your child plays in the grade that matches their age they will finish this year on. Girls have the option of playing down a grade. Find their grade by using this table.
| birthyear |
boy's grade
|
girl's grade
|
2005
|
5
|
5
|
| 2004 |
6 |
5 or 6
|
2003
|
7 |
6 or 7
|
| 2002 |
8 |
7 or 8
|
2001
|
9
|
8 or 9
|
| 2000 |
10 |
9 or 10
|
| 1999 |
11 |
10 or 11
|
| 1998 |
12 |
11 or 12
|
1997
|
13 |
12 or 13
|
The Club will provide team strip (shirts). You will need to get royal blue shorts, socks that have a blue base and white turnover, shin-pads and (grade 7 and above) football boots. The club prefers you to buy “Lotto Approach” Shorts & “Fenix” Socks to ensure the team looks as uniform as possible. These brands can be purchased from Wright Sports in Willow St. Wright Sports have a good association with the club and know what gear you need. It is most important that you get shin-pads. Children are not allowed to play without them - you will understand why when you watch your first game! A mouthguard is not a bad idea either. Jewellery should not be worn, especially chains which can be grabbed in the heat of the moment.
While the club provide a ball per player to use during training it is a good idea to purhase a ball for your player to practice with at home. Please make sure you get the right size.
Grades 5-8: size 3
Grades 9-13: size 4
Grades 5, 6 & 7 are called mini football. They play at 8:30am on Saturday mornings - while there is no training for them some mini football coaches do run midweek (after school) training. All their games are at Morland Fox park and are internal (BR vs BR) with the occasional game against Bethlem College teams. Grades 5 & 6 players wear trainers rather than soccer boots. We encourage wearing of club shorts and socks but it is not compulsory. However players must wear knee high socks to cover their shin-pads.
Once your player reaches grade 8 they will have midweek training and games will be against other clubs as well as other BR teams. There is an even mix of home games and away games, ranging from Waihi to Te Puke. You'll find both draw and grade locations on the Western Bay website.
Blue Rovers is both inclusive and ambitious, which means we want all kids to have the best experience possible. For some this means that football will be about having a fun time and for others it will be WINNING IS EVERYTHING! From grade 8 your child can to attend pre-season trials from which a "premier" and a "reserve" team will be formed. The will play in leagues of those names. The main league is known as "social". Please note that trials happen every year. Children's skills and aptitudes advance at different rates so while your child may be prem level one year, the next year they may be social. While your child may be in a social team that does not mean we expect them to cruise along - we play to win every match!
#Parents roles in the team:
For your child to play football the team needs to provide a coach, a ref or 2 and, if possible, a manager from the parenting pool. We urge you to give consideration to taking on one of these roles. Not only is it good for your child to see you being an active part of their sport but it is very rewarding and avoids burnout of others. Unfortunately many teams are left with one parent trying courageously to do it all and the kids miss out. Coaches shouldn't ref. It is bad for the team as the coach can't focus on the team's performance when they are focused on enforcing the rules. Similarly a coach who is focused on player rotation and keeping times can't coach to their best. A winning team has all the parents working together to make it happen for their kids.
Here are the roles and what they involve:
|
Coach |
Prime role: giving the kids skills and knowledge to play well and
enjoy the game.
Time: 1 hour midweek training plus Saturday game time.
Heaps of enthusiasm, patience & sense of humour.
Ability to learn skills as needed.
Genuine desire to improve own and the children’s skills.
Willing to attend Blue Rovers sponsored Coaching Courses.
|
|
Manager
|
Prime role: team administration and communication.
Time: flexible but needs to attend game.
Assist coach with communication to parents and children .
Organise day-to-day matters so coach can concentrate on his/her objective.
Assist coach on gameday with things like player rotation.
Keep team stats.
|
|
Referee |
Prime role: impartially referee games.
Time: need to be available for games.
Attend Blue Rovers sponsored Referee Course.
Referee half a game each Saturday.
note: this role could be shared between two parents.
|
The Barbeque
The club puts on a barbie at Morland Fox most weekends. It is a great fundraiser as well as being much looked forward to by the players. We have changed things a bit this year.
Teams can request to operate the barbie as a "Team Fund Raiser". They can use all the net profits (50% of the take/gross profits) for any team related activity, be it uniforms, tournament travel expenses or end of season get together. If your team wants to do that please contact Salena to book the week. Your team will be responsible for the barbie for all of that morning.
If the barbeque is not booked here's what happens.
- Everything will be there and ready to go.
- Your team will be rostered on barbeque duty. This will happen probably twice in the season. If a team requests the barbeque for fundraising, unfortunately you will miss your time on the tongs
- Mini Football teams will operate the barby from the start of their games (8:30) until the rostered junior team arrives to take over (9:00). This will ensure a good load of sangs for the mini players
- G8-10 team will take over at 9:00. They will operate the barbie till the last game and then clean up and put it away.
#Reminder of the basics
Grade 8 Playing Time 2 x 20 minutes each way
Players / Team 6 v 6 (including keeper)
Throw in, corner kicks & offside will apply
Grade 9 Playing Time 2 x 20 minutes each way
Players / Team 7 v 7 (including keeper)
Throw in, corner kicks & offside will apply
Grade 10 Playing Time 2 x 25 minutes each way
Players / Team 7 v 7 (including keeper)
Throw in, corner kicks & offside will apply
Grade 11 Playing Time 2 x 30 minutes each way
Players / Team 9 v 9 (including keeper)
Grades 12 & 13 Playing Time 2 x 35 minutes each way
Players / Team 11 v 11 COMMENCEMENT OF SEASON: SATURDAY 24TH APRIL 2010
FINISH OF SEASON: SATURDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER 2010 School Holidays: No Play on 10th and 17th July 2010
#Code of Conduct for Parents/Guardians
Be your child's best fan and support them unconditionally.
When you take your child home after a match or training session, please be supportive and always focus on the positive aspects of their game.
Develop a responsibility in your child to pack their own kit, clean their boots and take a drinks bottle (water is best) to practice and games.
Respect the facilities at our opponents’ grounds.
Do not criticise your child’s coach to your child or other parents. If you are not happy with the coach you should raise the issue with the coach.
Encourage your child to speak with the coach. If your child is having difficulties in training or games, or can’t attend training etc, encourage them to speak directly to the coach. This responsibility taking is a big part of becoming a mature person. By handling off the field tasks your child is claiming ownership of all aspects of the game.
Help your child to focus on the performance and not the result. Remember, winning is not as important as the performance.
Support all the players in your child's squad. Do not criticise anyone. Children don’t mean to make mistakes.
Do not criticise the opponents, their parents or their officials.
Never audibly dispute a referee’s decision. They will make mistakes occasionally just like we all do. If you abuse or shout at the referee you are breaking the rules of the game and risk generating a fine for the club. In extreme circumstances we could even be expelled from the League.
Parents/Guardians must not coach from the touchline during matches or training. Leave this to the Manager/Coach or you may cause confusion and erode your child’s confidence.
Parents/Guardians must not enter the field of play (unless in emergencies).
Please remember - the game is for the children. It is not for the glory of the coach, manager or parents.
Code of conduct for players
Players should:
Play according to the laws and spirit of the game.
Be on time and be prepared for matches and training sessions.
Arrive at least 10 minutes early for matches. (Or as required by your Coach).
Display self-control in all situations. Never use foul or abusive language - before, during or after a game or training session.
Train and play to the best of your ability, have a positive attitude and encourage others to do the same.
Respect your team mates and the opposition. Treat them as you would like them to treat you.
Respect the referee. Never dispute his or her decisions. They are only human and they make mistakes.
Turn up for training and matches in appropriate and clean clothing.
Wear the right sort of footwear (studded/bladed/pimpled shoes/boots).
Always wear shin guards.
Clean your own boots/sand shoes!
Code of Conduct for Coaches and Officials
A coach’s primary responsibility is to make sure that his/her players have fun, develop as footballers and to instill in them a passion for the game.
The performance of coaches is not measured in wins and losses, but rather in what players learn in terms of technique, sportsmanship, and fair play.
Coaches are charged with the responsibility of controlling their players and parents at all times during a match.
Coaches lead and teach by example; our players will be a reflection upon the manager and coach.
Coaches are to use positive reinforcement when dealing with players.
You may want to check out the club's constitution
#Being your child's greatest supporter
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 team 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.
Did you know that it takes a child an average of 7 repetitions of a new concept before the "get it"? If a child seems to be completely ignoring the coaches instructions don't think they weren't listening or not concentrating and please don't criticise them for it. It's not going to make anything happen faster.
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 Blue!" is great... think carefully about anything more you feel you need to say.
Blue Rovers values 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 (and win!). 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, water, warm gear), and to arrive before training is finished to pick them up - do not put your coach in the position of having to wait for you to arrive so they, themself, can leave. Please don't let your child load up on sugary drinks or sweets before training (or games) - it can make them hyper and unmanageable and the training goes sour for the whole team.
#Taking photos of your kids.
We'd love to put photos of your kids up on the website so granny in Britain can see. Here are a few tips to help you become sports photographer extrodinaire (I've assumed you have a digital camera).
- Beg steal or borrow an SLR (single lens reflex). It is very hard to get action shots with point and shoot cameras. They simply lack the speed and longer lenses. If you are keen on getting good photos you will get frustrated pretty quickly. If you can't get one, the pointers below still apply.
- Get into position. Photos of your child's back is...well...boring so you need to position yourself to where they are going to be running towards. Typically this is near the opposition goal mouth or right down the opposition end of the field. Be aware that the rules of soccer state that you are not allowed within 5 metres of either goal mouth.
- Sit or kneel down. Photos where the action seems to be falling out of the photo onto you are much more dramatic. You acheive this by being lower than the player's shoulders.
- Extend your lens as much as possible, and take shots from a long way off. By having a long lens (or zoom lens on its longest setting) you "compress the perspective". This means that eveything gets squeezed together making it feel much more intense - players that are some distance behind the action appear as if they are standing right behind it. To get good photos with a long lens you probably need to adjust the ISO setting up so that you shoot the photos at a faster speed and avoid camera shake.
- Shoot lots - but try to pick moments when all the elements have come togther - football shots without a ball lack "context". Shots with only one player in lack the drama of kids racing each other for a ball. Don't expect every shot to be a winner. As an ex-professional photographer, if I get 3 good shots out of a couple of hundred I take at a match I am wrapped - digital photography is great for that - you can just blast away and there is no cost to finding out which are good.
- Crop harshly. Use your photo imagining software to get rid of unwanted parts of the photo but make sure you leave some space
 for the action to "move into". Photos with the ball hard up against the edge feel awkward. The tighter you hone in on the action the more exciting the photo will be. Here is a cropped photo with its original. I could have left those 2 players on the left in, but it would lose impact as they aren't part of the action. Try to put important elements of the photo, like the ball, on lines that run 1/3rd of the way through the photo. I haven't done that with this photo so probably should have left more foreground so the ball falls on a horizontal 1/3.
Then send your photos to me to put on the website!
Cheers
Steve Gore
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