Last season at U12 was the year it really kicked in for me. Finally a league table. On the FA Full-Time page, refreshable every Sunday afternoon. Standings. Goal difference. Proper competitive football. Same lads I'd been coaching for years, squad and fixtures still in Trac, but the question I was asking myself on a Saturday morning was different.

The question went from how do I get this lot to enjoy a game of football to how do we win this league? And right behind it, immediately, the question that's been there the whole time: how can every lad still be involved?

The reality

Twelve-year-olds are not born equal. They're not all going to have equal billing in any team. You don't have to like that, it's just true.

You're going to have lads who are bigger. You're going to have lads with better mentality. You're going to have lads who give you everything every single minute. You're going to have lads who are quiet. You're going to have lads who are lively. You're going to have lads who mess about. You're going to have lads who are deadly serious. They all deserve to be involved. But the difference in what they can contribute on a Sunday morning is impossible to ignore once the league table starts mattering.

A drill that looks like favouritism (but isn't)

One of the things I do in training. My best four or five lads go on one side. The other seven or eight go on the other. The job for the four or five: don't concede. Just manage the game. Hold them off.

To a parent on the touchline, that looks like favouritism. Like I've picked my favourites and given them the easier job. I get that. It looks like the same lads always getting the praise.

It isn't, though. Because I'm also watching the other seven or eight. Can they break down the better lads? If they can't, why can't they? That's the question. The drill is as much a test for them as it is a session for the ones holding out. And the answer to why can't they is where next week's training comes from.

Brandesburton, the cup, and a centre mid who got punched in the face

Cup game. Brandesburton AFC. Two leagues above us. A proper test.

We were 1-0 up. My centre midfielder gets punched in the face off the ball. Doesn't go down, doesn't even break stride. Plays on. Forty minutes in, still on the pitch.

Does another kid want to come on into that? Of course. Is his dad over there asking the other parents where his minutes are? Probably. Doesn't matter. We're winning 1-0 against a team two leagues above us, the lad on the pitch is the one holding it together, he's not coming off. No way.

And we won. 1-0. Getting smacked in the chops, holding our shape, scraping it. It was immense. That was the second group-one side we dispatched that season. Into the quarter-finals.

Why those lads got the 60 minutes

One word. Character. They have it, they deserve to play, they deserve to win.

  1. Earned in training

    The lads holding off seven-or-eight in midweek are the lads I trust to hold off a side two leagues above us on a Sunday. That's not coincidence. That's the whole point of the drill.

  2. Composure under pressure

    Getting punched in the face off the ball and staying on it. Not retaliating, not lying down, not looking to the bench. That's the kind of head you want on the pitch when you're 1-0 up against a better side.

  3. They love winning

    Twelve-year-olds know what they've done. The lads who got us through that cup tie talked about it for weeks. That's what football's for at this age.

So how does every lad still get involved?

Honestly — they get the minutes their effort and ability has earned them, on a sliding scale, week by week.

If a lad's most useful contribution is twenty quality minutes, he plays twenty. That's not a punishment. That's a recognition of where his ceiling is right now, and a chance for him to show what's beyond it.

If a lad can give me sixty and influence the game throughout, he plays sixty. Asking him to sit so it's fair doesn't help anyone — not him, not the team, not the lad he'd be coming off for.

And the bar for next week is what you did in the last one. Easy for the lads to track. Easy for parents to see, if they're honest about it. Easy for me to explain.

I owe it to them to take it seriously

This is the bit I had to sit with. It's gone competitive. The lads are taking it seriously. They've just gone to high school. They're growing up. They care about the score on a Sunday morning more than they used to, even the quiet ones.

If they're taking it seriously, I owe it to them to manage it seriously. We're not just there to make up the numbers. Nobody wants to take a kicking. Nobody wants to play against the best teams in the league and lose 6-0 because we picked the side on rotation rather than on form.

Sometimes they'll play against teams they won't beat. There's nothing wrong with that. The job is to give them a fair go at it — to put the team out that has the best chance, and to back the lads in it. Not to apologise for trying.

Loyalty to the lads who built the team

Half of these fifteen lads have been with me since they were eight. The Springhead Spartans I started in 2021. Four years. Four seasons. Sundays in the rain, training on weeknights, the parents who turned out anyway. That's the team. That's the loyalty.

If I can manage that in the right way for them — pick the right team, give the right minutes, demand the right standards — then I owe it to them to do it. Regardless of what parents say.

I'm not taking it loosely. I'm taking it seriously. That's the whole point.