Before any of this was an app, it was a Sunday morning problem.
The Springhead Spartans, 2021
My journey started with the Springhead Spartans. Under-8s. Springhead FC had too many kids wanting to play — enough for two teams at that age (5-a-side back then). My lad Joseph was quite new to football, but he was desperate to start playing. He'd been to training a couple of times and loved it. We needed two teams.
I took all the new kids, added a couple more, and that became the Springhead Spartans U8.
I'd played football all my life. Saturdays and Sundays — my youth basically revolved around it. But I hadn't started this young. Eight years old. How on earth were these muppets going to play a game of football?
I watched them in training. A couple of them were OK, could strike a ball. One could dribble. My lad took a shine to being in goal.
I tried ball-skills sessions, drills, rondos pulled off YouTube. None of it was making them better on a match day — and that's what it's all about.
"It shouldn't be about the result"
People say results shouldn't matter at this age. I agree, and for me it isn't about the result either. But these are little boys. Competition is built into most of their DNA, and when you get ten eight-year-olds together playing a game of football, they know if they've been beaten. They feel it.
Scores don't matter. The feeling of being beaten does. It affects their confidence. It affects their bond with each other as mates. Losing every week takes a toll.
Five principles. They've worked at every age I've coached.
U8. U12. U13. Probably grown men. The whole philosophy in five lines.
Enjoy it
The only reason any of them came back next Saturday.
Play to your strengths
I'm not trying to turn a tackler into a winger. Build on what they're already good at.
Work hard for each other
Their bond as mates is the team. Protect it.
Be brave
On the ball, off the ball, against a bigger lad. Brave doesn't mean reckless.
Never give in
Down 3-0. Last minute. Doesn't matter. We keep going.
Training changed shape
After that, training became less about teaching them things they didn't know, and less about drilling skills they already had.
It became about letting them play, me watching, taking notes, working out what they were naturally good at — and then building on that foundation.
Example: we had a player who loved a tackle. Defender, right? Wrong. Not necessarily. I wanted him tackling their defenders.
Then I wanted my defenders to be the lads with a good touch who play with their heads up.
Training became about teamwork, respecting each other's strong and weak points. If someone's struggling to take a touch, don't force them — you just ping it down the line, son. The winger will chase it. We play to our strengths.
The one rule that picks the team
Out of all of that, one rule does most of the work week to week.
The more you train, the more you play.
It's the cleanest rule there is. It rewards effort. It removes politics. It explains itself to parents in one sentence. And it's the kind of thing Trac was built to actually make easy — because if you don't track attendance properly, you can't pick the team on it.
It also tells me who to put on whose team at training. Same logic, smaller scale.
What's in the rest of the playbook
Everything else on this page comes back to those five principles and that one rule. Training-method posts on holding a lead, working together, making something happen, taking risks. Operational posts on importing fixtures, getting set up, running a season properly.
None of it's theory. It's what's worked with the Spartans across four seasons and what works now at U13. If a post in here doesn't pass the "would I actually do this on a Sunday morning?" test, it shouldn't be in the playbook.