Day 54

Day 54.

Today we arrived at the learning centre at 9:30. We didn't have a session to attend but just a nice send off from Maja Crèche which is down the road! Maja Crèche was definitely one of my favourite crèches (starting to realise that I say that quite alot). They have such nice teachers who had no problem of travelling 10 minutes down the road to the learning centres hall.

We travelled to Maja crèche which is close to Joe's house and where Yonick and Jayden attended as little Boyki's(Small boys). We were welcomed with open arms by the principal and the teachers, literally! They obviously missed us! We took a little tour of the crèche and visited all the classrooms and spent some time in each one! They range from babies in cots to 5 years old. Eventually we got to the class which we had been coaching over the last few weeks. We were presented with a set of personalised bath towels with our name and a big Arsenal badge on with Maja Educare on it. What a surprise! I was just saying to Jeff that despite being an Arsenal fan I don't have a towel with Luke and an Arsenal badge on it. So thankful! A great present to represent a great time spent with Maja.

We had quite a big gap from 10:30-2:30 to fill up. So Jeff updated the league table and fixtures for the communicare league and I uploaded the weeks photos to sky drive! Obviously we had a bit of free time which we used to check emails, university stuff and general social networking sites! We played some football in the car park which has 1 car every hour pass through it. Jeff and I often work on our long balls and first touches which is quite a laugh. Many scuffed passes, slices and touches that just ping off our foot. Passing public don't need to be reminded that we are coaches and not football players. Slacking!!!

2:30 soon came around fast and it was time to visit Bridgetown High in Athlone.

The school let out boys at 2:00 if they wanted to play with jeff and I. The boys waited for us until 2:45. However we were under the agreement with the office that we could only get the car at 2:30 therefore we would only be able to get to Athlone at 3. By the time we arrived at 3, there was only 16 boys left out of 29. Oh well, still a manageable number. It's a shame that the boys didn't wait for longer but that was neither of our faults I guess! A bit of miscommunication.

Jeff took the Arsenal Kaizer Chiefs warm up and then we split the 16 up into 2 teams. The captains being the last two left in the Arsenal Kaizer chiefs warm up competition. They were allowed to pick one player each. The remaining 12 players were given a number from 1-12. The captains would then pick a number. If the captain said "3".. The person who was given the number 3 would go to that team and so on and so on.  We did a mini 5 minute match based session with many progressions and restrictions. For example first time finish, two touches maximum, 1 touch-3touch-1touch-3touch, header to finish, Mario kart gates, 5 passes before shot and then normal. It was a really good session and the boys understood the importance of being able to change game strategy and the way they play. Nice way to finish the day.

We took the train from Vasco to Cape Town. It was cardio day! Time to run ourselves ragged. We ran uphill for a good 15 minutes at a moderate pace in the sweltering Heat. Stopped at our local park. Did some fartlek training and then ten 20 metre sprints with 20 second rests in between each one. Jeff is working both of us hard! We power walked up the huge uphill gradient on Hof Street which leads to our apartment. So tired!!! And sweaty.

I realised yesterday that the England match is today! Oops. It's Bafana Bafana (S.Africa) vs Brazil today! So were gonna stream the England game and then watch the Bafana game on the TV in the dining room. Night sorted!!!

All the best.

Luke