A high bush to stop the ball (in most circumstances) going out onto the road behind it, markings that you could use for goals and enough space to fit at least a five a side, if not more! To me it seemed ideal. That was until I saw the dread sign: NO BALL GAMES and this brought back some memories of my own.
In the council estate that I lived in as a kid, there was a great open space (partly on the road) where we could play football. Specifically, we used to play 'four goals' in which the loser is knocked out and generally replaced by someone else. This space lent itself perfectly for that with bollards, railings and speed bumps marking the goals. In this game you had the perfect risk/reward dilemma. Sit back and defend your goal and you allowed the opposition to attack you, play offensively without fear and one mistake would mean your empty goal was badly exposed! You could play in doubles if the numbers demanded so, add restrictions to make sure the game doesn't get out of hand and change the size of the goal if needs be.
However, this area had the same 'no ball games' sign that I saw the other day in the car park. And we were reminded of it by people who were not even remotely impacted by us playing football there. But we began to grow tired of this, playing in the hope that someone wouldn't come and yell at us wasn't as fun.
Furthermore, if our ball went over the fence and into someone's garden it was not coming back. If we were lucky, on the right day it would be thrown back but we played carefully trying not to kick the ball too high knowing that if it went over the grumpy man who lived there would pop it. Bye bye 2006 World Cup Teamgeist ball.
It made me think, nevertheless, about the complaints of a lot of grassroots coaches these days. One of the main ones I hear is that kids do not play on the streets like 'we' used to do and that Generation Z are more concerned about playing on their consoles. But is this a rather simplistic excuse for those who do not want to take responsibility for a supposed lack of 'love of the game' from young children?
Do less and less children play on the street because of technology or because of the conditions of modern society, in which parents prefer to keep them where they can see them? And as highlighted, the restrictions on places nearby you can play? What if there is no local park and a parents doesn't feel comfortable sending a child on their own to play further away?
Someone I really respect said to me that in England, particularly in football, we are great at listing problems but not so keen to provide solutions. In this discussion, I think that is pertinent. How about we set our minds on how we can recreate these conditions that allow street football, which many great footballers have been born out of, rather than complaining that the youth of today aren't as interested?
How about we encourage our players to play football outside of sessions, which it feels like they do less and less? Those who do so will notice the difference, as will their peers. Creating unstructured play opportunities is becoming more and more popular. At Feyenoord, they leave footballs on their pitch for an hour before training for those who want to come early and play. Bristol Rovers recently developed a very interesting initiative where they gave ownership to their players and let them play on the street with various obstacles.
Hopefully we can begin to consider how we can engage young people and create conditions for them that replicate the classic street football games but also encourage them to go out and 'play' more!
On the same estate where I used to play, it slowly became deserted where once lots of kids would play football. I noticed recently when I went back there that more and more kids are back playing football (and various other games to include others who are not football fans) accompanied by parents who come down to watch and talk with other parents! Maybe that bodes well.
