I have just received the latest letter from our club, off our Club Welfare Officer. If you havn't yet read it, it concerns numbers and names on the back of young players shirts. Namely Carlisle City FC shirts. In the letter it says "The Club is currently considering the most practical method to phase out this practice" Apparently The FA recommends "that children are not easily identifiable during matches". Have you ever heard as much tosh as this? This is the same FA who sell kids England kits with hero printing on from 0 to 3 months, including all junior sizes right up to adult sizes, all with anything you want printed on the back. When I was looking after our under 11s last season we got all the lads surnames & numbers printed on the back of their tops. We spoke to the main welfare officer for the FA when they were still in Soho Square. She advised us that they did not have a problem with what we were planning as long as the parents were happy for their kids to display their name on their shirts. The parents were fine and the boys loved it. When our junior teams are playing matches they are probably more looked after during the game than any other time of the week. They have parents / relatives, coaches to name a few watching the game. When they get home and play out unsupervised they will wear their own footy kits with their name or hero printing on the back of it. As for being "not easily identifiable during matches" I have been over to Guantanamo Bay and got loads of orange boiler suits, I will bring them down to the Sheepmount for all our juniors to wear during matches, that and all their hair clipped off should make it quite difficult to identify any of them. Job sorted. Coz if we back this stupid idea the names in papers will be next. Please keep non football minded people out of football. Rant over
Thats the idea Brian, although they all need their hair clipped too much individuality going on in that pic. Second thoughts the orange looks like Newlaithes or Yewdale Pegasus. So i've been down to Bradford and got some Sky Blue Burkas. Carlisle City under 10s team photo season 2010/11
not sure it matters a jot.... isnt it about the football!!!
You are right, it is about the football. Thats the point, the more the PC brigade mess about with the game the worse off football will be. On a junior level, if we just let the FA or whoever keep on making needless rules or regulations regarding players identities etc the next thing to disapear will be the names and photos in the local press on a Wednesday Evening. Something the boys and girls love and look forward to reading. Even the great work Brian carries out for this website, if they were to put a block on names and numbers or photos the junior section of this site would suffer significantly, as it is now its a fantastic facility to read up on all our teams along with the match reports and photo's it sets this site as the no1 grassroots football site i've ever looked at.
