Day 53

Day 53

Tiring day.

Today we had to nip to the support office in town to collect 474 rand so that we could pay for our monthly train ticket that we get each month. Both Joe AND the two of us were slow on realising that it was the end of February and that we would be needing new train tickets. Just shows how fast time is going. I remember saying a few days ago that 'in a few days we will be saying one month left.'.. That seemed like yesterday honestly!! Crazy. We have exactly one month until we are home. Yesterday (3rd March) signified a month until we set sail back to England! Excited and sad at the same time to be honest.

We started our day off by visiting Riverton crèche in Bishop Lavis. They knew as soon as our car pulled that it was "AAAAARRRSEEEENAAAAL" time! We could even hear screams of Arsenal from outside the nursery when we were parked on the curb. They were obviously eagerly awaiting our arrival. So nice to hear!! We are always welcomed into the crèches by huge huddles of hugs and high 5's, all absolutely buzzing to see us! Without sounding big headed, I think we're the highlight of their week. Which is sad to say to be honest! Poor kids.

In our session today we did some fun soccer-based warm ups. For example, running around flicking our heels and running with high knees, screaming headers, big kicks and of course the goalkeeper roll. The kids were dropping to the floor like wrecking balls when we told them they could roll on the floor! It's such a fun way to get the kids warmed up and ready to play. Second of all, we wanted to try some dribbling. So we constructed an easy set up of cones and teams, dribbling to the cone and back. Firstly though, to get to grips with what we wanted them to do, we asked them to run with it in their hands, just so that they got use to the format of the session. To finish off, we did some ten pin bowling which we had never done with these kids so they were all excited to play! We had done quite a lot of kicking with this crèche but never to such a large extent. This was our last session at the crèche and it's definitely a crèche I will remember! Lovely boys, girls and teachers with such luscious grass! They're very lucky considering their crèche isn't in the best of areas, very lucky to have the care of their teachers to give them such a nice playing area!

Usually we have quite a large gap inbetween our afternoon session, which is usually filled up by some admin work and free time. However today, out of the blue, a parole officer came in (who knew we were most of the time based at the support office) asked could we speak to his parolees. The parolees were aged from 15-25 and had been released on parole from prison and had to do community service and attend certain courses etc. We sat them in the board room, spoke to them about life and sport in general, crime and just answered any questions they might have. In the end we managed to arrange a training session for them on the morning of the 18th of March, in a prison! It may seem daunting but that's what it's all about. Obviously the boys are all out of a prison but we will be using the prison facilities which they play matches on etc. A nice way to break our day up. (I posted some photos earlier).

The afternoon session was at De Waveren school where we had coached three or four times before! Today's session was quite frustrating to be honest. There was no doubt that the boys enjoyed it but as a coach I didn't feel fulfilled. The element of competition got the most of the boys a lot of the time and there was a lot of bickering and arguments. Which really slowed the session down. We did a chicken or hero warm up before doing match situations with restrictions. Such as going through a gate (which means the other team has to freeze), 3 touch, 5 passes before shot, 1 touch finish etc. Not a bad session but not a great session!

Home time!! We got a train back to Cape Town, topped up our myciti tickets and then took a walk home from Cape Town station. We've decided now that because jeff and I have one month left, we're gonna have a healthy last month! Were gonna walk half way home, run the other half and then do a work out before finally collapsing through our door. Jeff is a qualified personal trainer so he knows his stuff! We did press ups, leg pushes, planks, burpees, six inch leg raises and then ran home. CEEEEERREEEEAAAAM CRACKERED.

Might stream England tonight or watch it at mixa's. Healthy means no delicious nachos or pizzas from mixa's and no alcohol! We got this.

All the best

Luke