Day 20

Today has been our longest day so far. An early start this morning, we were up and out and off to Goodwood primary school again for our 3rd visit. Again we had 4 sessions here, on arrival we were told we would me inside today, not a bad size area but lots of tables and chairs and potential safety risks. However when our first group came out their teacher told us outdoors would be fine which was a relief as it was a much bigger area. This group was the older more advanced group we've previously mentioned in our blogs. They manage all three of our planned activities, firstly we played huddles, this is where all the kids run around, we call out a number and they have to get in groups of that number. Next we tried an activity out where half the group were on the outside of the area while the other half had a ball in the inside, they could bounce, kick, roll or do whatever they wanted with the ball and then when the whistle sounded they swapped with those on the outside. It went ok, it needs work but I'm pleased we gave it a go. We then went inside and sat in a circle and we had about 10 balls that they were rolling to each other. The second group did the huddles game, and the rolling, and so did the third, we left out the swapping over activity as these groups weren't as advanced as the first group. We were really pleased with the first 3 groups and went into the last session with high hopes, this is our youngest, least English speaking class, least advanced group, to put it simply it was our most challenging group. We cut out huddles and went with a start stop sort of game, we didn't give up but it just wasn't happening, we then tried the rolling a ball in a circle, again we tried and tried but they weren't having it at all. We later found out that they'd had sweets and chocolate before coming out, would like to thank the teachers for this, not being rude but in all honesty we could have done without them being high on sugar. The session finished like all of our sessions with lots of high fives and claps and of course shouts of Arsenal. All kids seemed to enjoy themselves and even though disappointed with the final group the first 3 gave us a lot of positives to think about. We then were given a nice lunch from the school and Lourens wanted us to film a short clip for a video he is putting together for the school. 10 takes later it was spot on, not all our fault, lots of noise from the traffic ruining our Oscar winning performances.

After leaving the crèche we were off to our 5th session of the day. We set off to another futbol five venue like the 1 at the waterfront. This time we only had 5 kids, but it was a special session, an organisation called Reach for a Dream, organise days out and special events for terminally ill children, a bit like the make a wish foundation back home. We sat down with the boys and some of their parents and spoke about ourselves, Arsenal, England and snow for a bit before getting on the pitch. This wasn't a normal session and was more about making these kids feel special for a few hours so we had a penalty shootout, keeps uppy competition, some passing and finished with a match. The kids and parents seemed to really enjoy our time with them, 1 of the boys we were told spends most of his time resting because his body doesn't allow him to do much and has led to him spending a lot of time in hospital, even he got involved and into which we were pleased to see. I'm pleased the parents got involved as well and for 1 hour these kids acted like kids and played around, it didn't matter what conditions they had they were a part of our session.

Our 6th and final session was at the Italian club with the Atlantic team, we were told we would get 16 kids max and planned a session around that number. Unfortunately by the time they all finished turning up and because we now had 2 different age groups we ended up with 26 kids. We couldn't quite do the session we wanted but we adjusted and it was nice after 3 weeks to put on a proper football session. The kids took to us really well and put up with the chaos that occurred with the adaptions of the session, chaos is good though, any of the guys on this programme will tell you that.

After chatting with a few coaches and parents we finished up and headed back to Berghof, shower, food, Skype and then was time to watch the Arsenal game. A 2-1 win but a poor performance, and poor refereeing but a wins a win, long day over with and early start but easier day to look forward to tomorrow.