Chester-le-Street Athletics Club - a Parents View

After my experience yesterday with one of the coaches at Chester-le-Street Athletics Club, I thought I'd blog about my experiences as a parent, sort of athlete and recently qualified coaching assistant.

We've had an involvement with the club for a number of years as Dominic has trained there since he packed in football just over 4 years ago.  When he first joined he was getting info on competitions and competing, but he wasn't great and soon the mentions of competitions stopped.  However, it didn't put him off and he kept going, with a number of different coaches, some of whom didn't turn up regularly and he seemed to be passed from pillar to post until he settled in Brian's group.

Once she reached the right age, Philippa also joined and she did really well in her first few events at Quadkids at Gateshead.  She really enjoyed it and progressed even further in the second year at Quadkids, where she came 2nd.  Unfortunately though, she seemed to be overlooked as others (some of who finished below her in the rankings) moved groups to try and develop them further.  The group she was in was just getting bigger and bigger and at times she came out bored as too many had been messing about and she'd not learnt anything.  We did mention this to the coaches and it was suggested that things would improve as they wanted to get more volunteers to help.  We went to a meeting in January 2013 and despite giving lots of details on my experience and offering to volunteer, it was June before anything was done.  By that time Philippa had sickened so much that she'd moved clubs to Houghton Harriers.

During the past winter, I was asked if I wanted to join in training with Brian's group as I used to drop Dominic off and then disappear for a run on my own around Chester-le-Street.  I thought I'd give it a try as I thought some structured training would improve my running, which it has.  It's a small group and Brian is a character, but has the respect of the group, including the kids and he's really brought a lot of them on, despite them not realising their improvement, largely due to the gan canny motto !

Now, Brian isn't a young fella - even though he won't admit it, he's a canny age but I wont embarrass him with mentioning numbers !  To keep a bit of continuity and to have a bit of a succession plan, I was asked if I would do a coaching assistants course so that I could help out if Brian couldn't make it.  I thought this was a canny idea and it was agreed that I would do the course as an independent coach, just in case I ever wanted to help Philippa (& now Lexie) who both run for Houghton.

I did the course back in June and thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot over what was 2 days of quite intensive training, including plenty of physical activity.  The training hadn't been used in anger until last Thursday night when I did a little bit of sprint start training with a couple of the young lads who where competing at Gateshead today.  I quite enjoyed it and so did the kids - I even got a congratulatory comment from Brian as he'd been keeping an eye on what I was doing.

So, we get to today and Philippa and Lexie have been competing at Gateshead in the last of the minors meetings.  Unfortunately their coach (from Houghton) who usually looks after them was poorly and couldn't go, so I offered to help warm up the girls and some of their Houghton team mates.  Obviously, this is a massive problem for Chester-le-Street as one of the coaches commented on me helping "the enemy".  The enemy in this case included my 2 daughters, so not really an enemy for me !  It then transpires that a discussion took place (behind my back) with one of the other coaching assistants who work with our group to suggest that what I'd done wasn't on.  I was then approached by the coach with "the enemy" comment to see whether this was going to be a regular thing, which of course its going to be as I'm going to help my own kids (at the very least) to help them improve.

Needless to say, I'm not happy with the situation as it was suggested that I've got a conflict of interest and that I shouldn't be coaching at Chester-le-Street if I'm going to be doing anything with Houghton, especially after what's happened in the last few months.  In the last few months (in reality over the past couple of years) there's been quite a move of kids from Chester-le-Street to Houghton.  As I've said before, in our case Philippa was cheesed off with the huge group size and she wasn't learning anything, so she felt she had to go elsewhere if she wanted to improve.  I can't really comment on most of the other moves as I don't really know the real reasons why others have gone, but I know that its not just been to Houghton as some have gone to Gateshead as well.  For those that I do know the story on, its been for different reasons to ours and I won't go into them as it's their business.

Deep down, I think that yesterday's situation has been brewing for a while as I suspect that a couple of individuals (one in particular who can't look me in the eye at all) suspect that I'm some sort of secret squirrel who's infiltrated their club to pinch all the talent for Houghton - in reality, its a load of rubbish.  Whilst I'm very willing to share the experiences of my kids during their athletics development, I've never suggested that anyone should move their child - that's their decision.  I'm also aware of my comments on social media seemingly being screenshotted and discussed within the coaches at Chester-le-Street - it's all a bit pathetic really.

I've spoken to a few coaches from different clubs since yesterday and nobody else is seeing a problem with what I did yesterday and they've have suggested that quite a few coaches have connections with different clubs - the guy who did the coaching assistant course I was on has Heaton as his home club but does sessions with Gateshead.  There's also a bit of interchange with kids as well, with someone from Chester-le-Street currently doing a night of training a week with Houghton ! I expect that nowt's been said about that.  I'm also told that he's not the only one who trains with another club as well as Chester-le-Street, including one of the coaches' kids.

It all smacks of double standards to me.  I did the coaching assistants course to help Brian out and keep his group going when he wants to slow down a bit.  I've seen what happened when Dominic was passed from pillar to post and I wouldn't want the same for the kids in Brian's group, hence I volunteered to help.

I also take the opportunity to watch what goes on elsewhere and its noticeable that the group that Philippa was in hasn't changed - the UK Athletics guidelines recommend 1 coach to 10 U12 kids and whilst sometimes there's another volunteer, I've counted one coach (who I suspect is actually only a coaching assistant) with 25 kids.  Nowt's changed and I suspect it never will as they've got such an insular approach as I found out yesterday.

The decision on what happens from here is up to them - they can hoy me out if they want and I'll be back plodding around the park, but its a loss to them as I'm more than happy to help with coaching in Brian's group, but I won't be classing my own kids as "the enemy" under any circumstances and they'll get my help wherever and whenever they need it.

As I've said in social media posts before - I'm always willing to talk !