It must have been the intense English summer heat that made me think that running a summer camp for kids at the Villas was a good idea as I’ve never ever taken LSD.
In truth we’d got some funding to help and it seemed a good idea to try to get the Aussie out of bed and detach him from Pokemon Go.
For the first time this summer he’s seen daylight before midday two days running unless you count watching the sun come up sat in a bar.
There we were, far too early for both of us on a Monday morning, laying out multi-coloured cones with sod all idea how we were going to cope with almost forty kids about to come tearing down the drive.
God forbid it pissed it down.
Fortunately, we had enlisted professional help through our partners Pro Skills and boy would we need it.
Unfortunately, the Pro Skills coach turned out to be the comely Chloe and so it was that the last sliver of “focus” from our Antipodean drifted away into the ether; he was toast, looking all ga-ga and talking bollocks.
Meanwhile, I was doing “meet and greet” with a bunch of mums who clearly could not believe their luck that they could dump their treasures here for the next two days as they skipped off to Costa and the nail bar.
One mum confided that her cherub might cry a while when she was gone; trust me I felt the same. Did they suspect I was allergic to kids?
Several little girls clearly could not give a stuff if this was supposed to be a sports camp and promptly declared they were happy to sit on the grass all day.
By now I was wishing I had some to smoke.
Fortunately the sun was shining so we rounded them up with a shrill blast of the whistle as the Aussie and Chloe avidly discussed Pokemon Go and where to go in Leeds at the weekend.
The last mums vanished with a hop, skip and a jump up the driveway or rather the squeal of tyres and so we began.
It soon became clear that the sight of a cricket bat was as rare as a Polar Bear at the Villas so our lesson “plans” were hastily rearranged using the reliable “On the Hoof” method.
Very quickly I learnt that all you needed to run a summer camp was a big field, a locked gate – or preferably an electric fence – and the magic words “tuck shop is open”.
As soon as they heard those magic words they were queuing at the door like the Next Christmas sale, clutching sweaty pound coins, looking as if they would kill us if we ran out.
I felt like Stanley Baxter must have done in Zulu.
Being a slow learner it was only on the second day that I discovered that a guaranteed way to gain attention and effort was good old fashioned bribery. If it cost the club a stack of cans of Coke then so be it.
Small wonder the dental profession pays so well.
And, as with life, amongst them all were some delightful kids if not the next Joe Root. Unfortunately my approach to kid’s “discipline” appeared to shock even the Aussie.
One youngster came up to me booing and bawling as I tried to feign interest in what was wrong.
“He kicked me!” wailed the victim, coming in at twice the size as the angelic looking accused.
“Kick him back then…only harder” I offered and wandered off contented I could still get that UN Diplomatic role.
As I sat with my faithful old Nokia and a soothing cup of tea, several Paracetamols crushed in masquerading as sugar, one young girl came up with a demanding stare.
“What’s that” she demanded with authority way above her eleven years.
“It’s a phone Dumbo” I replied not yet fully conversant in Kid Speak.
“Ha ha” she scoffed “oh my God you’re an ET!” And with that she buggered off leaving me contemplating being called an ET for the first time in my life.
We survived, largely down to Chloe although our planned dodgeball sessions had to be tweaked as our friends at PC Sports had supplied us with cannonballs. Fine to quieten a few down I thought.
On a reflective note, much of what we relied on to maintain order was not the basics of teaching kids a sporting skill more a series of banal and sanitised games. Small wonder competitive sport is dying on it’s arse.
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