Preventing spectator incidents at Junior Football
The overriding objective of the AFL’s Next Generation Australian Football Match Policy for the conduct of the game for players aged 5-18 years is to provide an environment where young players can play the game and inexperienced umpires can sequentially develop their skills through activities, games, match rules and conditions commensurate with their stage of learning and ability. This junior policy aims to provide clear direction for the provision of appropriate pathways for boys and girls in a safe, enjoyable and accountable environment.
Recently, there has been some publicity of incidents at junior football matches involving supporters and fans.
As coaches it is important to understand the role you play in guiding the members within your team to act appropriately. Garry Lyon provided the following article in The Age in response to the problems of parent behaviour at junior football. How can you make a difference and ensure that your club environment deals appropriately with this area?
By Garry Lyon
If alcohol is seen as one of the major sources of street violence in our city, then an unhealthy focus on winning is a similar problem at junior-level football.
Just as enjoying a beer or a glass of wine is fine, so too is hoping, and barracking, for your kids' team to win each time they play. But when that beer - or quest for victory - becomes the single-most important thing and it starts to impact negatively on your behaviour, you need to reassess your attitude to it.
The growing and abhorrent trend of violence at junior football matches needs to be acknowledged, addressed and urgently eradicated. The mindless, ignorant and anti-social behaviour of a minority group of people - chiefly associated with the 11-15-year-old players - has overridden the philosophy that should underpin all junior sport, not just football.
Coaching kids isn't easy. You are confronted with players whose skill levels vary greatly, but therein lies the great challenge for us all who have taken on the role. We need to re-define winning for everyone concerned, kids and adults alike, and reinforce, from the very first training session, that it doesn't always equate to what is happening on the scoreboard.
And this is, in my opinion, where the heart of the problem lies. Not all coaches, and parents, are able to equate victory with anything other than who is in front at the end of the game, and as a result their behaviour is inextricably linked to that.
Their frustrations are then directed to umpires, players, opposition supporters and coaches, and in the most extreme cases, that frustration and inability to control emotion leads to violence.
I have coached junior football for the past three years and some of our greatest victories have had nothing to do with the scoreboard.
One of my proudest moments in that time involved one of my players whose knowledge of the game and physical ability was very low. He started the year not knowing where to stand on the ground and, through his inexperience, was unable to get near the ball. In the last game of the year, with the support of team mates and coaches, he was standing in the goal square and managed to take a mark. The place erupted, his mates went crazy and all the parents cheered as if it were their own son. Without going overboard, it was as emotional a feeling as I have had in footy.
If we all take the emphasis off the end result, to even a small degree, there will be an immediate improvement in coach, player and crowd behaviour.
I would like to see junior football clubs officially graded on their clubs' policies, their behavioural history and their willingness to deal, positively but unerringly, with those that don't comply. Where practical, those A-graded clubs need to be rewarded for their efforts by way of resources or AFL player visits.
The future prosperity and strength of the AFL is inextricably linked to junior football. Without it, our game would wither and die. This is by no means a lost cause, and we can, and will, reverse recent trends. I watched games of junior football last weekend at Bulleen and Frankston, and went out to listen to the coaches at the quarter-time huddles.
The messages given were positive and instructional, the win was important, as you would expect in finals, but not overriding, and the crowds were impeccably behaved. That is the standard we should aspire to. We will not tolerate thuggish behaviour, nor do we want to see grand finals called off in the middle of the game due to fears for the safety of its players.
This article is reprinted courtesy of The Age and Garry Lyon.
Last Modified on 13/12/2010 15:22