By Ciarán Kelly
I started writing this article way back in October, but with work etc. it fell by the wayside until now! So as some of you might know, I was lucky enough to spend 14 months travelling. My travels took me to India, S.E. Asia, New Zealand and Australia.
Eventually of course, the time finally came to get back to reality and I flew back to Scotland in Oct to start a PhD in Dundee in Dec 2009. But I just couldn’t resist coming back to play for NK again and in fact, just two hours after landing back in Glasgow I was back running around the theatre of dreams that are the NK pitches!
One of the stops on my travels was Melbourne, where I lived for 5 months and was lucky enough to coach an Under-14s team (Brighton Soccer Club: http://www.brightonsc.org.au//index.html) for a season. Coming from coaching various different age groups at North Kelvin for relatively short periods of time, it was a great challenge to take charge of the team for the entire season.
It was also really interesting to see the differences between the two clubs in terms of facilities & equipment, management set up for each team, as well as fundraising and coaching standards.
Soccer in Australia is now the highest participatory sport for under-18 year olds. Its popularity is such that Brighton S.C., based in a very affluent area in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne have grown to become the largest soccer club in Victoria, with over 1000 players and waiting lists for many of their age groups. This growth has been rapid and fundraising-wise, they still lag very much behind the initiatives we have in place, with no weekly lottery, no race nights etc.
It highlighted to me how important the fundraising effort really is. Brighton are reorganising this year to try and rectify this problem, as up until now, their main sources of funding has been a large player registration fee payable up front at the start of the season, as well as shirt sponsorship.
Unfortunately at times, this lower level of funding per player was reflected in a shortage of training equipment (cones, poles, goalposts, quality footballs etc) at certain times during the season. I’m sure this will be rectified with the shake up, but it’s a credit to NK that the club has grown consistently over the years and insisted that the standard of equipment is high.
On a different note, one thing that is massively apparent all over Australia is the vast amount of playing fields and sports grounds around the country. I think this is partly a cultural thing, with a real emphasis (backed up with real financial support) on a healthy outdoor lifestyle in education and upbringing (no doubt helped by the fact that the weather is so much better there!).
A big upshot of this for me was the ability to have all training sessions (twice a week) and home matches on grass, all season long at the same complex. The club have sole use of the grounds and changing rooms for the season and even operate a canteen shop and BBQ on match days. This central base for the club is so important in my opinion, for many reasons. It boosts the club’s image in the community, it attracts potential players (and their parents) to the club, it allows coaches to interact and observe other training sessions. It makes it easier for parents to drop their kids off at one location on training days and makes it easier for families and friends to come along and support the teams. And most importantly it helps to create a real community-club atmosphere, where coaches, players, friends and families come together in the name of football (or soccer as the case may be!).
So it was very noticeable and disappointing for me to come back from my travels, to see that the NK red-ash pitches hadn’t changed a jot from before I left. The plans for the development to an amazing 21st century sports complex, with 3G 11- & 7-a-side pitches, with permanent changing rooms and a car park, seemingly abandoned by Glasgow City Council in the financial crisis.
The initial agreement to go ahead with this vital sporting facility for the North Glasgow area, followed an awful lot of hard work by local councillors and members of the NGFDG committee, to name a few. I hope that this is not forgotten as public finances improve over the next few years, as I genuinely believe it could play a huge role in the local community.
It’s a credit to the club that they are well organised and manage to secure lets for the course of the season for all teams, however a central base for the club is what’s needed and no more than the community deserves.
Finally I wanted to comment on the management structure of the children’s teams at Brighton S.C. The club has a Coach’s Coordinator who organises coaching requirements for the season.
Then each team has a manager and a coach. The manager is usually a parent of one of the players on the team, who doesn’t need to have any experience in playing or coaching football. He/She organise all of the team lines for the referees, makes sure everyone is registered, communicates all training schedules and match info etc. to the players and/or parents by email/text/phone. And they also serve as a line of communication between the parents and the coach.
All of this leaves the coach free to concentrate on planning training sessions, picking his/her team and organising the team from the sidelines during a match. I really enjoyed coaching under this structure and although I know something similar happens with the coaching arrangements for our teams, I think it’s something that could be looked at as the club continues to grow.

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