Football Coach Asks Parents To Chill Out On The Sidelines

My mam is a pretty chilled out human being, it takes a lot to get her feathers ruffled.

So when she IS annoyed about something, it’s so rare that you definitely take it seriously.

Over the years, she has ‘put an angry call in’ on behalf of her children for various reasons.

For me, it was to my secondary school when she found a letter in my schoolbag from a group of bullies who were targeting me (I genuinely don’t remember anything about it but my mum made her way to the principle’s office for a chat about it and it never happened again).

For my brothers, it was generally to the coaches of the gaelic and soccer teams that they were involved in.

If she thought the coaches were overlooking them, she put a call in. If the coaches were being too hard on them, she put a call in.

She was looking out for her kids but she was never rude. She would make her point, expect it to be heard, and that was that.

This coach from amateur football team St John Bosco FC in Drimnagh, Dublin (my former ‘hood), has had quite a different experience, in that he has been on the receiving end of abuse from the parents of the kids on the team he coaches.

He has penned an open letter which I think is great, and a reminder to all parents out there that most sports coaches are giving up their time voluntarily to facilitate kid’s enjoyment of a particular sport;