The Sideline Is Not the Technical Area
With junior football pausing for school holidays, it feels like a good time to say something about the people who put themselves out there every week.
The coaches.
I always remember parents questioning Ken about his team selection or how he was coaching their son or daughter.
It happened often enough.
Ken had a stock response.
What do you do for a living?
“I’m a builder.”
Do I tell you how to build?
Why do you think you can tell me how to coach?
Let me get on with it.
Blunt.
But fair.
Because too many people confuse watching football with understanding coaching.
They are not the same thing.
There is always a complaint
Play your strongest team? Someone objects.
Rotate players? Someone objects.
Push standards? Too hard.
Keep it fun? Too soft.
Give one player responsibility? Favouritism.
Share responsibility? No leadership.
Play them in one role? Too rigid.
Move them around? Too confusing.
There is always noise.
Often, people do not want better decisions.
They want decisions that suit them.
Or more honestly -
they want their child centred.
Sometimes this isn’t about football
This may be the uncomfortable part.
Sometimes criticism of coaches is not really about coaching.
It is about adult ambition.
Adult insecurity.
Adult ego.
Sometimes it is parents trying to coach through their children.
Sometimes it is disappointment dressed up as “feedback”.
Sometimes it is living vicariously through a Saturday morning.
That happens.
Pretending it doesn’t helps no one.
Equal game time is not the issue
At junior level, children should get equal game time.
That is a principle.
But once that is honoured, much of the noise has nothing to do with fairness.
It is often about preference.
And preference is not a coaching philosophy.
Development is a right.
Entitlement is not.
The sideline is not the technical area
A respectful question after a game is one thing.
Running commentary from the touchline is another.
That is not involvement.
That is interference.
Support does not sound like tactical instructions shouted over the coach.
And children hear it.
Every word.
The loudest voice on the touchline is rarely the most qualified.
Everyone thinks they can coach
Football suffers from accessibility.
Because you need grass and a ball, people think expertise is optional.
Would you interrupt a piano lesson?
Correct a driving instructor?
Walk onto a building site and offer structural advice?
Yet people do the football equivalent every weekend.
Because the game looks simple.
It isn’t.
Many coaches have done courses, hold licences, spend nights planning sessions and weekends giving up family time.
Coaching is judgement.
Timing.
Psychology.
Development.
It is far more than where a child is played in the first half.
Of course coaches get things wrong.
They do.
They’re human.
But disagreement is not a licence to undermine.
Good coaches do much more than coach
This is what critics often miss.
A good junior coach is not just organising a team.
They are building confidence.
Teaching resilience.
Helping children recover from mistakes.
Creating belonging.
Sometimes protecting a child from themselves.
Sometimes asking more of them than they thought possible.
That matters more than the result.
Much more.
Good coaches do not just develop players.
They help shape people.
That deserves trust.
And here is the danger
Keep chipping away at volunteer coaches and they stop volunteering.
It’s that simple.
Good people walk.
Others stop making brave decisions and just manage complaints.
And then people ask why there aren’t enough coaches.
As if it’s a mystery.
It isn’t.
We drove some of them away.
A thought for the sideline
Trust more.
Comment less.
Support publicly.
Question privately.
And maybe ask yourself one hard question before criticising a coach:
Is this really about my child’s development…
or my own expectations?
That answer might explain more than any tactic board.
Children do not need perfect coaches.
They need committed coaches we don’t drive away.
Ken was right.
Let the coach get on with it.