Player’s Perspective
By Matt Baker
Matt is a former professional soccer player who spent 12 years in the English game.
After suffering a potentially career threatening injury, when he was only 18, he spent nearly 2 years battling back to pursue the career he loved.
As a goalkeeper, he has a unique perspective of the mental side of professional sport as it is widely acknowledged to be the loneliest and most mentally challenging position on the pitch.
After injury forced him to retire at just 27, he has gone on to work for BBC radio and also writes regularly for Britain’s Sun newspaper.
We’ve all been stood on the sidelines, in the pouring rain or driving wind, supporting our children, little brothers, sisters, nieces or nephews. Wishing them well and encouraging them on to reach their potential. It’s a wonderful sight to behold. Parents and relatives packing up their cars and driving them here, there and everywhere for a variety of sports.
Basketball, baseball, football (a.k.a soccer), or even American football, (that last term probably gives away the fact that I’m a Brit and not an American) the over riding will of parents and relatives wanting their children to do well is a given.
‘Come on Jonny – keep going’. ‘You can do it Chelsea’. ‘Great goal Josh’.
Those are the types of things we hear all of the time, up and down the touchlines of sporting matches, week in and week out.
But, I’m not alone in saying, they’re not the only things we hear at sporting events or practices. It’s becoming increasingly common to see parents of children, as young as 6 & 7, dropping language you’d probably expect to find at an NFL play off match or a Stanley Cup game. Language, as my mum would say, that you wouldn’t want your grandma to hear!
I’m all for supporting young children to play as many sport as possible but when that support transcends in to playing out your own hopes, through your children, that’s when the problem starts.
The worrying thing is parents are harming their children and they don’t even realise.
I played professional football (soccer) for 12 years and know what it’s like to be on the sharp end of a dressing down and an expletive ridden review of your performance. It’s not pleasant, however you understand and accept that it comes with the territory.
I played in front of big crowds of 40,000 people but it was always the smaller ones that would actually have more of an affect on your performance. When thousands of people were stood behind the goal (I was a goalkeeper) baying for my blood it never really affected me. Actually, I used to revel in it. You could never really pick out any individual comment through all of the noise. It was at the matches with much smaller crowds that you’d hear that one comment that stood out. Now, I used to use that comment and joke about it with the supporters behind me. I never let that kind of stuff affect me – having a laugh on the pitch was one of my tricks to relieve any pressure or tension in the game and help me relax, so that I could perform at my best.
I learnt how to deal with that kind of abuse but played with plenty of people who couldn’t and would crumble.
You might be thinking well that’s all well and good but what’s that got to do with my 7 year old playing soccer or 10 year old playing basketball.
Well, everything as it happens.
If some athletes can’t deal with that kind of criticism then what chance has a young child got of processing that kind of negative feedback you’re giving them?
If you’re relaxed and enjoying what you’re doing then you’re going to learn more and do better at it, whether you’re a professional trying to win a championship or a kid in little league.
Children are sponges for information – they have a thirst for knowledge. They learn so fast. They pick up on what you’re saying as well as the way you are saying it. This stuff really matters. It stays with them.
I used to watch my little brother play soccer on a Sunday morning. He loved playing but I had to stop going. The kids were having a ball on the pitch but the nutters on the sidelines were the parents. Shouting and screaming at the players and then snarling across the pitch at each other – it was ridiculous and embarassing.
I’d stand there and bite my tongue but eventually I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I had to say to these people, bluntly, that they didn’t have the first clue of the harm they were doing with what they were saying. Now telling a parent they’re harming their children doesn’t go down too well. But I’m a Yorkshireman and we are known for saying it like it is.
Shouting because they made a mistake is going to do the exact opposite of what you hope it will achieve. It’s not their fault you never fulfilled your own sporting dreams or The Jones’s kid is being scouted by this or that team. Who the hell cares?
In fact, shouting at them at all should be banned. Any coach worth their salt should sit parents down and tell them, in no uncertain terms, that shouting anything negative at yours or other children is not acceptable in any form – it’s that simple.
My favourite coach used to say,
‘if you cant say anything constructive then don’t say anything at all’.
Stopping going to those rain soaked Sunday morning games made me sit down and think about why people behaved in such a manner. And it boiled down to this:
The children were there to have a good time; the parents were there to win.
The ultimate reason why we play sports is because they’re fun, we should never forget that.
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