Quote: Barrie's Glass Eye "Both Wakefield and Leeds run these on a regular-ish basis. I've attended at both clubs and found them great for supplying ideas and a chance to discuss etc.
From my experience, a lot of the coaching at youth level revolves around winning, when it shouldn't, leads to the usual, give It to the big kid, best player/coaches boy at 6 even if the ball never goes any further, over aggressive, couple of player lead defence rather than good technique and decision making. That's not everyone, there are some people doing great work, but to an extent I think coaching age group ruby often attracts the wrong type of people.
On the point of there not being enough clubs it is really strange. At the younger age groups s (up to about 12s) there seems to be loads, almost too many, to the point where a lot of teams have smaller numbers, then for whatever reason there seems to be a lot of drop off. Some teams disappear completely meaning some teams are left with big squads from taking on others in their area.'"
Its great that Leeds and Wakefield are doing some of this (Wakefield are the local SL club to Upton and we've not seen them there recently), but my point is all teams should be doing it. The standard of coaching at amateur clubs is usually woeful, mainly around the points you raised, and here is where we need to see improvements. Personally, at the younger end, I think it's all about team ethics, skill education and development, and making it fun, however even at this age the coaching seems to be as you describe with the big kid skittling the little ones and eventually they lose interest. Parents don't help sometimes either, as the kids can hear them from the touchlines, complaining about this kid or that kid "being crap", its so disheartening.
Forgive the pun, but the amateur game needs to professionalize sooner rather than later to keep kids interested and provide them with the skills necessary to develop. The professional game has a responsibility to make sure that the "production line" is in good health.