Day 27

Day 27

No confusion this morning. We were told to be in Ruyterwacht at 9. No problems!

Our first appointment was with a crèche called Maja crèche (pronounced My-ya.) They were all a funny bunch of kids however I wouldn't say there were the best that we've had in terms of excitement screaming and generally understanding the drills. They were good don't get me wrong but the standard set by other crèches has maybe heightened my expectations. But nevertheless it allows Jeff and I to do our job of coaching with them even more! So no complaints there! We just did fun races with a couple target games at the end because the session was longer..approximately about 45 minutes compared to our usual 30 minute slots!

Our second event of the day was when we had a meeting with Bob Holt who has relationships with Arsenal in England and Ireland. He owns the biggest social housing company in the UK called Mears and they maintain 750,000 houses per day. He was in Johannesburg before he came to Cape Town with his partner Angela, he said that the boys are really doing well! It was a great meeting where he told us many stories of his previous trips to African countries and he also provided us with loads of Arsenal kit which Jeff and I were unable to take over! After our meeting we headed to Burger King for the first time since we got to Cape Town and that was really delicious! As you can tell we're such healthy coaches and we set a great example in terms of dietary patterns.

Our second appointment to do with Coaching was at Goodwood College . We were running a bit late so Laurence Jeff and I asked Joe to talk to the boys for a while and set up. Joe went beyond the call of duty and had started a defending drill with them after doing a warm up. He used my arsenal spurs warm up which I tend to use a lot and then Jeff's side on defending drill. It was good to see he has been watching and taking on board some tips. The communicare team definitely need some defending drills done, including me and jeff! Especially after our shambolic performance against the coaches at the Communicare action soccer league kick off. We carried on Joe's defending drill and went into a 3 attackers vs 2 defenders situation using 11 a side goals which we was lucky to have! After that we progressed to a similar drill using half a pitch where we had an attacking drill using 3 attackers and 4 defenders! We had teams of attackers rotating.. Trying to attempt to score! If they succeeded they got 1 point (which we tallied up at the end to see how many times each attacking team was successful.) and then we had defenders trying to retain the ball and pass it into either jeff or me In a permitted square, if they were successful then the defending team would get a point! Overall the defenders won on points showing that our defending tips had worked which was nice to see. We really stressed the importance of communication and teamwork in our session and I believe that was the key to their success! To finish off.. We did a match. We were lucky that we had enough players today to do an 11 aside game and to really utilise the fantastic facilities Goodwood have! A few boys out of our 30 went home after a couple drills as they were being picked up at school or they had to be home at a specific time! I think we had 22 including me and jeff maybe a little less but that was no worries! Jeff and I filled in the numbers and we both played in defence for one team. We played a lovely high line with an offside trap and I was definitely wearing the captains armband, Bombarding my defence with instructions. Jeff played the Nacho Monreal Role of left back and I played the Carl Jenkinson role of right back. To cut a long story short.. The game finished 0-0. So we went to penalties. Each team were to nominate 5 players to come forwards and take their penalties! I was first up for my team. There was a river behind the large fence surrounding the school and a shotput type net aswell, nice and high so that no balls could be kicked in the river etcetera. I took a deep breath, approached the ball with confidence, struck it with venom with my ice white mizunos boots... STRAIGHT OVER IN TO THE RIVER! Unbelievable scene of events. That ladies and gentleman is why I never take penalties. If if was a set of rugby posts it was top bins (top corner). That shot not only went down as one of the worst penalties ever seen it also ended the session as we had to work out how to get the ball back! No one really bothered with me after that and quite rightly! Jeff was definitely seen as the better player!

We did a couple stop offs on our way back to Berghof. Joe had to see a couple people but he had kindly offered to take us back in the car as there was protests on the trains. He showed us his innovative idea of his 'ponjoe'.. A poncho which covers children's school bags so the rain doesn't ruin their books and also to cover African babies when they're tied to their mothers back. It's a really cool idea and he has had great feedback so hopefully that works out for him! I really like it. Jeff and I got some breakfast items from checkers courtesy of communicare and then headed home. Tired!

We May watch titanic tonight like a pair of old women. We had borrowed it from the ship society we visited with george a few days ago! Don't judge us! It a very historic film.

All the best


Luke.