Kids safety on the pitch - your input

Discussion in 'Parenting & Family' started by cstore, Jul 15, 2010.

  1. cstore

    cstore New Member

    Jun 19, 2010
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Fellow soccer parents,
    I am thinking of starting a brand of soccer gear designed to protect kids from injuries on the pitch....probably just like you, I have a lot of experience playing the game and very strong views on what's good for kids, but I realize I need to ask a few more parents before coming up with a "go" or "no go" decision....

    To that end, I would love to pick your brain. I put together a super quick survey. I tried to made it fun and interesting, and your input would be much appreciated.
    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D76LFZS

    Thanks in advance for your help,
    peace!
    Claudio
     
  2. bostonsoccermdl

    bostonsoccermdl Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 3, 2002
    Denver, CO
    I do know that similar shorts are already designed for goalkeepers (basically compression shorts with removable slide in inserts), but I havent seen them used on the field.

    Best of luck.
     
  3. cstore

    cstore New Member

    Jun 19, 2010
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Thanks for the tip! I will look into that!
    Would you be so kind to fill out the survey? That way I can track your views alongside all the others. Thanks!!!
     
  4. 'appy Addick

    'appy Addick New Member

    Dec 23, 2009
    Portsmouth
    Club:
    Charlton Athletic FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England


    Why not just wrap them in cotton wool, put them in a soft, padded box, give them a titty bottle to suck and send them home to mummy marked "Fragile".

    OK, that may sound bad, but think about it.... Don't we mollycoddle children too much..? Football is supposed to be an athletic, physical contact sport. This means that people will get kicked, tripped, knocked about and occasionally, hurt.

    Boys will be boys and a hard game of footy teaches a lad how to look after himself and his mates. It stimulates his natural male competitive instincts and it teaches him stoicism. More than once, as a kid, I'd get kicked whilst playing and it would HURT. But I wasn't going to let the a-hole who kicked me see that. I'd eyeball him back as if to say "Is that all you've got, mate"..? Never let an opponent see that he's hurt you..!!

    Sadly, a lot of the healthy male aggression has gone out of the game. Too many players wimp out and are inclined to go to ground, rolling around clutching their faces whenever a gentle breeze passes them by. There should be more manliness about the game..... a willingness to accept knocks, but also the ability to dish them out. Give as good as you get, and take as good as you give. Compete hard but fair..... but above all... compete.

    It disappoints me to see the game go soft. Even in my late 50's, I regularly play in inter-departmental matches between instructors and students, where I work, and this basically boils down to a bunch of middle-aged f*rts (instructors) against the much younger and fitter students..... and yet, we still beat them as often as not. By rights, they should run our legs off, but they haven't got the bottle for a scrap. We don't set out to hurt anyone, but we play according to the way we were brought up.... when football was a man's game...!! And too many youngsters can't handle that.

    Young males should be encouraged to take part in healthy, active, manly pursuits that, ok, may be likely to get them bumps and bruises.... Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Let them take a few knocks and they'll soon learn how to look after themselves, but smothering youngsters in Nancy-boy bubblewrap so the fragile sweethearts won't get grazes on their legs only serves to heighten the attitude that they are too precious to get their knees skinned...... You've only got to look at Christiano Ronaldo to see where that leads <shudders>


    .
     
  5. TimmyHoward

    TimmyHoward Member

    Jun 18, 2009
    St. Louis
    Club:
    AC St. Louis
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm not a parent but I was just screwing around and clicked on this thread. I play goal keeper and the difference the sliding shorts make is remarkable. I wore pants up until my freshman year of high school, so I didn't have the shorts. My sophomore year I went and brought my first sliding shorts and they were amazing. I can be unconventional at the goal keeper position sometimes and the shorts have saved me a lot of strawberry's and bruises on my upper legs. The only complaint I would have is when I slide out they ride up sometimes but all I have to do is pull them back down and there just fine.
     
  6. 'appy Addick

    'appy Addick New Member

    Dec 23, 2009
    Portsmouth
    Club:
    Charlton Athletic FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England

    But Tim..... Would you chicken out of coming for a cross when a thumping great centre forward is barrelling in for the same ball, and is likely to clatter you, the ball, and your nancy-boy shorts into the back of the onion bag..?

    Back in the 1970's my club side Charlton Athletic had a striker by the name of Derek Hales. A big, burly man with a wild mane of black hair, and a dark, swarthy beard that gave him a distinctly piratical appearance. The fans nicknamed him "Killer"....... and with good reason.

    Killer didn't take prisoners. He would make it his business to ensure that, on the first occasion the oppositions goalkeeper went anywhere near the ball in a game, Killer would be there to thump him as hard as he could. It wasn't mindless thuggery, it was making a statement to the effect of "You've got 90 minutes of this coming, mate. Are you up for it..?"

    Sliding shorts wouldn't have given you much protection from a pummelling by Killer Hales. You needed something more. You needed some balls. Oh, many goalkeepers took up the challenge. They'd dish the physical stuff back to him. He didn't mind... he was going mano vs mano with the goalkeeper and there were times when it literally did come down to The Last Man Standing.

    It must have worked....... He ended his career as Charlton's record top scorer in their history, and has not been overtaken yet.

    It was quite gladatorial in its way and I'd be the first to agree that it did reduce the skill factor of the game to a certain extent. But he could play a bit too. In 1978 he won the goal of the season award for one strike against Hull City an he also scored as many goals from outside the penalty area as in it. Not just a brute.... a brute with a plan and a fair amount of talent.

    But it was great to watch and seeing Killer freak the opponents goalkeeper out to such a degree that he was always looking warily around him for Hales to come charging in, and therefore not concentrating fully on the ball, gave the crowd some blood to scent....... and the crowd liked it.

    Of course, a Derek Hales could never flourish in the modern game. He'd never finish a match.... probably never finish the first half of a match.... on the pitch. He'd be "carded" out of the game. Sad... very sad.

    The game has lost something, I fear, when players with personality, individualism and sheer determination are eradicated out in favour of stereotypical, factory-coached robots. Football is slowly but surely becoming a non-contact sport and perhaps that's fine for Americans, but I'd just like to take you back to a quote made by one of the original lawmakers of the game, back in the 1860's.

    When the laws were being written, the founders of the Football Association outlawed the practice of "hacking", that is, being allowed to hack an opponents legs away from under him. The representative from Blackheath FC complained that it was making the game soft and he said

    "If we outlaw such a fine, manly practice as hacking, then I fear the game will go so soft that I could produce a team of Frenchmen who, with but a week's practice, would beat you without raising a sweat".

    I wonder what HE would think of the game as it is now..?

    .
     
  7. AnxietyCoachJohn

    AnxietyCoachJohn Red Card

    Nov 23, 2010
    Santa Monica,CA
    if you pursue this it a lot of help for our children.. so that they be protected and be safe:)
     
  8. bostonsoccermdl

    bostonsoccermdl Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 3, 2002
    Denver, CO
    I was just re-reading this, and one point ot make is that the speed and intensity of the players has increased much since decades prior. You see this also with American Football. The hits are much more brutal, and people are traveling with much more velocity (human missiles in some cases)..
    Be it increased muscle mass or developments in diet practices, the result is the game and the player has changed.
    In short, players can get more seriously hurt easier than back then.
    So I dont think the points that guy makes are totally valid in todays context.

    However I dont think wearinbg helmets is the answer by any stretch..
     
  9. Auriaprottu

    Auriaprottu Member+

    Atlanta Damn United
    Apr 1, 2002
    The back of the bus
    Club:
    Atlanta
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    The representative from Blackheath FC didn't have much confidence in English skill, speed or, for that matter, brains, did he? He was wrong. I don't know if you are or not.
     

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