Diary of a One-Team Club – Training?? What’s Training??
Most of us now are beginning to start our clubs preseason preparations, but how does that work when you are at a club with no club house, no real coaching resources other than the internet and lacking in valuable training equipment. This is Racal Decca RFC’s story…
My name is Kerry and I play and am the Social Secretary for a small club in Surrey known as Racal Decca RFC, We face this issue year to year on top of the other major factor of getting numbers down to train, As we have no facilities it becomes harder to train over the preseason due to having to regularly find somewhere to do our training and this is why it’s the only time we train during an entire season. This season we are trying something new with almost a road show of training venues being used as the best way to recruit and keep players interested in training.
For us as a club preseason starts once our AGM has passed as it means we can work towards the upcoming goals discussed at the meeting and what the clubs hopes to achieve from its new fixture list.
The sessions are then player lead usually with the first few session emphasis on handling and fitness before moving later on to the more refined parts of the game, these sessions whilst fun are usually unstructured and chaotic which then translates itself onto the pitch during the season.
The other major factor for a club like ourselves is the time commitment aspect and while many of the club have partners and families it is a lot to ask them to come down midweek and train after a hard day at work on top of taking them away from their families for a few hours during what is essentially the off season after they make such a big time sacrifice during the months from September to April.
However it’s not all doom and gloom as the player that do turn up to the session feel they get something out of it even if it is just the chance to run about with ball in hand and try audacious passes it’s still something better than nothing at all and at our club alone the last two seasons most improved players have taken part in these sessions, so all I can say is get down to preseason and make the most of your training sessions whether they be player lead or coached.
If you have read this and do live in the Surrey area why not look us up and get in touch who knows it could be the thing that’s missing in your life.
by Kerry O’Sullivan
