This week Mr Joe has done well, he has freshened up our schedule and we have had the best sessions to date. I think the fact we are close to leaving has also helped as we know we will soon be back which has taken away our bit of a downer. I spoke yesterday of Silvertree crèche, by far our favourite, Mondale high I think it was called on Tuesday saw some of the most talented boys we've worked with, and then today we had Trafalgar high which was great and I'll tell you all about it in a bit and then we had All Stars which was our best session out of all 8 weeks to date, we end the coaching week tomorrow with the Ruyterwacht girls which are always good to train. A win on Saturday and a good performance will make it even better. I'm definitely enjoying myself a lot more again.
We started today at the learning centre with our 2nd of our computer workshops, we start at 9 and at 9:05 we had 2 of the expected 8 people, not a great start and had me thinking surely last week couldn't have been that bad. Luckily 5 more turned up, you have to understand that out here people go on African time, it basically means 10minutes late is in fact early and half an hour late can still be classed as on time. Frustrating but you get used to the laid back attitude, 1 of my closest friends back home is African so I've had many years to get use to it, you tell him to get somewhere an hour before everyone else just to make sure he is there on time, and he still strolls up like he has all the time in the world. Today we were teaching them how to use Microsoft Word. We had 1 girl that flew through everything and I'm not too sure why she is on the course, and then we had an older lady that was really struggling with the basics, it's difficult to do a class like that, I understand it can be difficult if you've never been in front of a computer before but we simplified everything and it was frustrating. Not that she couldn't do it but because we were running out of ideas to make it even easier, even typing her own name was a challenge. But she stuck with it and left the class with a smile on her face because she had achieved something, it was quite rewarding actually, I'd be lying if I said she had done exactly what we had set her but she managed to do something and she was pleased with her achievements and pleased that we were pleased with her.
After a quick stop off at the shop for a koeksisters and some lunch we were off to Joe's old school. He took us on a history tour of where he used to live, where he played with his friends, where he met Vinolia and also took us to see district six, an area that was bulldozed to the ground around 30years ago when the government made their forced evictions. Hardly anything has been built on this area since. Joe quickly showed us where we would be coaching later on and then took us to Trafalgar high, he had to get back for a meeting and left us to it. We met Theo who was a really friendly Everton fan, he helped with the running of a club down the road and it was his field we were using and he also helps with the school. I took 12 girls while Harry took a group of boys, you'll have to check Harry's blog to see how his went but mine was great. Helped by seeing a familiar face, 1 of the Drommedaris girls was at the school and training with us. These girls were really good and a few of them had some real talent, it's surprising because girls football isn't big out here at all but most of these girls are at a club in a good level league. I did a passing and moving drill to start with, I had 4 girls in a diamond shape, with the rest lined up waiting to join in, 1 girl from the line would pass to another on a cone and follow the pass, the girl on the cone would pass to another and follow her pass, same with the third and then the 4th would pass back to the front of the line and the move would start again. The better girls moved the ball really well and the less talented girls seemed to up their game in order to keep up with them. I then got them doing a end zone type game and finished with a match. Pleased with our sessions we headed into the club house where Theo gave us drinks and buffet type food with hot dogs, samosas, bahjees and some other stuff. We sat talking for a while and he has even offered to take us to an Ajax game if he can get hold of some tickets, fingers crossed.
We finished our day with a short drive down to Woodstock where we met some of the All Star coaches. We talked football, Cape Town and London, then loaded the car with balls, bibs and cones. Yes you read that right, balls, bibs and cones and lots of each. We had been asked by 1 of the coaches to put on a session for the under 15s, they had asked if we could do some sessions that their coaches could use and help improve their boys. It's quite a common request some coaches watch and take notes, some ask lots of questions and some chose to walk away and it felt quite pointless. With All Stars we had 4 or 5 coaches watching and would ask some good questions as well. Today was the first session we had loads of equipment and felt we could do a good quality session for the coaches. We had 90 minutes and were asked to do a pressing drill, both Harry and myself had a drill in mind so we decided to do 45 minutes of each. Harry is a very attack minded player and his drill was an overload drill where the focus was on winning the ball back by pressing and going on to attack. I'm a defensive player so mine was focusing on winning the ball back after losing it and just generally on winning the ball back. I did mine first and it was quite and advanced drill, the boys got stuck in and it went really well. Harry took over the coaching of mine whilst I spoke and explained it to the coaches. While we were talking they asked if we could add in a 3rd session based around transitional play which I agreed to. Harry had a simpler layout to his activity but with the same intensity and difficulty, again the boys got stuck in and it went well. The coaches were impressed and we were really enjoying our coaching. The last drill was 1 the Dean had done with us, I've never used it on a group as it is quite complicated and I've never had a group I felt would cope. It fitted with what they wanted though, so I explained that it might not work but if they worked with it then it would be really useful. After a slow and confusing start it took shape and looked somewhat like it was supposed to. I'll try and explain it but this might get confusing....working on a square, 1 team stands on each side, each team send a player to go in goal to the side on the right. Still with me, 4 teams, 4 goals, 4 keepers. Working on 1 v 1s to start with, a player comes out and attacks the goal in front of them, after he has shot he becomes a defender for his goalkeeper, the team opposite his goalkeeper send a player out as soon as the last player has made a shot, they take their shot and then become defender for their goalkeeper and so on. The coaches really liked it and agreed that given time it would do exactly what they were looking for. 1 coach said he would introduce all 3 drills to his team which was confidence boosting in itself.
I was really pleased with how today went, it's a shame we are only coaching these places now as it would have been great to get them extra sessions but we are simply running out of time. We look forward to returning though. We both walked away happy and saying this was our best session to date.
It has been a long and tiring day and I've done an extra long blog to make up for a few quiet days now. I can't see tomorrow being as busy which is fine by me, late start as well which means we can catch up on some much needed sleep.
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