Weekend Round Up
Well hopefully everyone who did their fitness tests today had the outcome they deserve. Ray who I have been training with did 2720 which he was really pleased with as its 100 metres more than he had achieved in training. So I’m really pleased for him. Apparently from the 40 odd that were on his test there was no failures so that’s good.
I was intending to go over and watch these then go to the Grass Roots show, however was late getting up (had my cousins 21st last night, and another reason I’m doing my test in July).
The Grass Roots show was quite good although mainly aimed at Coaches there was some bits of interest for Referee’s. I met Jeff Petit and had a look at the new Umbro kit. I like it even more now i have seen it. It has a Velcro pocket which makes a nice change as to be hones the last two shirts have lost buttons really easy. It is made of a mesh type material at the back to help you keep cool. Also it looks as though the sizing is a bit small though as the Large didn’t seem to large. There is also a Umbro training range to go along with this which looks really modern. They are currently trying to get the FAMOA badge on this.
Jeff explained that they will be doing the contrib offer as in previous seasons but pricing is also to be sorted. He also has some other good marketing ideas but its not my place to reveal those.
I went along to a couple of the seminars as well. There was one on nutrition which was quite interesting although very stat heavy. One thing that stood out was when talking about recovery. For you to get the correct amount of Carb’s that you would require you would need to drink 4 litres of lucozade!
I then attended two of the FA FAMOA sessions. The first was talking about denying a goal scoring opportunity. This was held by Alan Wilkie and was a good fun session. Supported by video clips he talked about the factors you should consider when dealing with this situation. The second session was delivered by Ed Stone and dealt with playing advantage. This covered elements we should consider, the fact that possession doesn’t meant its an advantage. Also the fact that we have to consider the over all control of the game. This also was supported with video clips.
There was to be a later session where you got to Ask the Ref. However to be honest this meant sitting around for another 3 hours and there wasn’t that much to do.
The show will take place next year at the NEC, I will be going but to be honest I’m not sure if I’m willing to pay £7 for car parking.
