Christmas Blog, where to start? Hope you all had great Christmas and best wishes for New Year is an essential wish to you all.

England captain Ben Mortlock (white shirt) in action.

England captain Ben Mortlock (white shirt) in action.

Can’t believe I managed to get involved in couple coaching sessions over break. Clee Town from Wednesday League have been helping Franklin College prepare for the teams January FA Futsal Cup encounter with Salisbury FC. Teams have been playing indoors at YMCA and I can report some outstanding futsal from both teams. Both teams have handled small indoor court with ease thanks to talent of individual players. Franklin, at this point, is better prepared than previous Grimsby teams at same stage of competition and with time to improve further.

Keep mentioning that Ben Mortlock is Grimsby’s most capped futsal player, now I can talk of him as most capped and ‘captain.’ Click here to read more.

Had first ever call from a team asking was I going to organise an under 8’s futsal league and would it play twice a week as they wanted to ‘pull out’ of playing grass mini soccer as it was hampering player development. Want mention team name, but suffice to add that team manager is more qualified than most advising children.

I love reading properly contacted sport case studies TeachersWhoCoach.co.uk is a great source of same. This one surprised:

A Sport England survey last year revealed that there was a drop in sporting activity by youngsters aged between 16 and 25 compared to 2012 and also the NSPCC reported that during the London 2012 Olympics, one-in-four children who took part in sport suffered physical harm and three-out-of-four experienced emotional harm.

Do we ever think we might be causing emotional harm? Click here to read more.

Another that surprised me was that nearly a third of 10-year-olds in Canterbury are overweight. If they are overweight in Canterbury they are overweight in Grimsby. Click here to read more.

On a positive there are not too many overweight players in futsal league, speed and energy levels needed to play game demand maximum fitness. Keeping on same theme, what a future Grimsby futsal has to look forward to, I have already praised senior teams that have pushed Franklin and Valiant teams to new levels, behind them are junior teams playing serious futsal, the under fifteens look as they will take senior futsal to new level, the under tens look as though they will have superseded the under fifteens by the time they get to same age.  Paul Goodhand and I have some under six players that you have to keep pinching yourself that they are only six.

First challenge for 2015 is to get senior teams back on Second Avenue, I have been told court has been repaired. This will allow expansion of junior play at Novartis. I have several junior futsal players that have taken their referee course and are waiting to do the futsal ‘add on,’ I need to get these referees games to officiate.

2015 will be some futsal year; standard across board is so high there will be few easy games. The more teams that league can recruit should help everyone as leagues can be split into divisions, a great help to lower ability teams that play for ‘fun’ and not just for the adrenalin of victory.

My immediate job is to update all teams’ affiliation to the Lincolnshire FA, without affiliation team cannot play. I will be asking teams for their manager’s current address, contact details etc. Please respond as soon as request is received – makes my job a lot easier.

Happy New Year

Kevin Bryant