In the midst of the worst global pandemic in 100 years, which has decimated lives, families, and the economy, in particular, entertainment, and the leisure industry, I have decided to do what any rational, normal, immigrant would do in Los Angeles, back myself to “make it big” and build my own sports program. Southern California Youth Sports Solutions… And this is my blog to kick it all off!
(Left To Right), Sarah (sister-in-Law), Dylan (Nephew), Richard (Brother), Laura (Wife), In Front Margaret (Mother), Me
In the beginning…
1991 was a great year, filled with memorable events, the Hubble Telescope launched, my 3rd favorite Canadian, Brian Adams, dominated the charts with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”, my 27th favorite American, Kevin Costner, was a hit in the box office with Robin Hood Prince of Thieves – the film the song was written for – and of course I was born.
I call home the small conurbation of Great Barr, Birmingham. Home to 12,500 people, the birthplace of Aston Villa manager Dean Smith and England Cricketer Chris Woakes. It is where I spent the first 25 years of my life, give or take a break in the west of Wales for university. This is the place where my love affair for sport began and grew into an obsession that dominates nearly every waking moment of my life, sorry Laura.
I love to read. As a young coach and with no driver’s license, buses and trains where my mode of transportation across Birmingham. This gave me ample time to read. I loved autobiographies, sports ones were regulars on the menu. In many of the sports person’s autobiographies i have read and then further fact finding with the aid of Google, I read and watched more interviews about their childhoods. People like Serena Williams and Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, the Neville brothers, Wayne Rooney and Dennis Bergkamp, all very different people but have a number of consistent themes.
They all started humble beginnings, playing for passion, had an innocent joy and love of their sports. Most notable were the hours they spent outside of “practice”, in the street or with their favorite wall, obsessed with playing. Starting at home, in the street, the school playground, and the park were the foundations for these people and millions of others, including myself. This begins my story of how sport, my sporting paradises and the people I would encounter would forge my views on the world.
Sport Starts At Home – Paradise #1
In a semi-detached home living with my mom and brother my back garden was a paradise, especially in the winter when my mom put away her patio furniture. I had 2 walls to bounce a ball against, two bushes to “fly in on” like my favorite Swede and former Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg. A goal squeezed between a garage with one window, a single pane of glass, which has survived an onslaught of missed cued shots from soccer balls, tennis balls, and the occasional golf ball. The other side of the goal was our next-door neighbor Madge’s shed, the shed was not so lucky, in my defense it was Rich not me, and who doesn’t have a 6ft fence anyway?!?. It was the perfect corridor to sculpt my left foot after another Villa legend Gareth Barry. What a wand he had!
Our goal was a trap for hedgehogs, less so the balls for which it was intended for. This was to the annoyance of my neighbors and sometimes my mom as missing the goal came with the ominous crashing sound of a small fence, Madge’s shed, that window, or the screech of “Oh for god sake it’s gone over again!”. In that same back garden as a 4-year-old to about the age of 8 my brother and his best friend Sean used to throw me in goal, played a game called “Transfers”, which now looking back was a real-life version of FIFA Dream Team, and smash the ball as hard as they could trying to repeat Tony Yeboah’s thunderbolts and Danny Mills’s free-kick against Villa for Charlton Athletic (both below). As I said, paradise.
Sport Also Starts At School – Paradise #2
At Holy Name Roman Catholic Primary (elementary) School the education continued, classes as well, but on the days I felt like I wanted to go to school, I wanted to go early. Days I didn’t want to go usually lead to a hysterical paddy at mom and crying to go to nans. But going in early had its advantages, it bought more time to go play before the first bell. As a group of boys, we used to leap out of the classroom to grab our favorite spot to play every first break, lunchtime, and last break. Often joined by a couple of girls, who’d go on to play on top-level women’s soccer teams, if memory and Wikipedia serve me right.
With a large fence and two trees situated perfectly to be goalposts for soccer and opposite a lone tree with enough space to squeeze a bunch of bags as the second goalpost, this was our school’s playground paradise.
There were secondary and third options too. Some were used by force of the older kids dominating the space, some used as a happy alternative when I didn’t fancy playing in the “3 academy kids” vs the rest soccer games, being bulldozed by a fully grown man and 10-year-old Sean Kiernan didn’t always appeal to me and my slender form. But the offerings felt endless and countless hours enjoyed… until the soccer rota came in. To us this was treasonous! 10 plus hours of soccer a week on the playground to 1 hour. A day that will live in infamy nearly forced a Les Mis style civil revolt from the 8-11-year-old boys outraged by sharing the playground… the revolt didn’t last long, the rota did so other games were played, which was fine. Still paradise!
Parks Do Sport Too! – Paradise #3
Red House Park. What a paradise that was! When school wasn’t in session there was my football club. Aptly named after our school and parish Holy Name Football Club was the home to my brother and me for 11 and 14 years respectively. The football club had a soccer school which in its heyday hosted 50-60 children, maybe more, felt like more. It was where I began aged 4 on Saturday mornings, it was lead by young lads and dads with an interest, which included my brother and me at one point many years apart. My first coaches were Mike Jones, who owned the school before he moved down to Devon, and Holy Name FC took it over, and Matt McMahon. There were many more I had the pleasure to be coached by and coach with. All great people and loved soccer, probably why I remember them well (Foreshadowing). I had many great mornings at Red House Park wrecking the bowling green with multiple groups of friends or for 3 hours on Saturday at the soccer school. A lot of playing, hundreds of games and tournaments, great memories. The soccer school a great $3 a week investment for mom. Peace and quiet for her. Another paradise for me.
If you could play a little bit in the soccer school the football club would come calling. I was lucky to get one of the nicest people you could meet in Bert Chambers as my coach. He and his twin sons Adam and James would coach the three teams at our age. Adam and James became the first twins to represent England at any level when they played for the Under-20s side in 1999. Very down to earth people. Great People. Some mornings years later when I used to coach, I would be on my way to the park, thinking about what I would do this week, and as if from nowhere Bert used to hang out the first-floor window, give me a shout of “Matty!”, call me over and check-in, always interested in how I was, how my mom was, even 10 years and working with hundreds of kids later. Great Person. I had a couple of coaches in my time there as I moved through the age groups who helped out, tried their best, and made sure we played. Most of the training was a mix of lots of time on the ball, games, the odd lap or two of the pitch, which we all hated, and lots of finishing sessions, I used to love the hockey goals at Alexander Stadium’s astroturf in the winter, boxed nets, like Villa Park. Catching a volley sent in by Tom Payne like we were Beckham and Scholes never lost its joy and splendor (See Below).
For our poor mom, it was nearly a quarter of a century spent on cold Saturday and Sunday mornings, trudging through bogs across the West Midlands. For those of you to not feel a cold, frosty Sunday morning in the UK… Just, don’t! For those that have, these words should send a cold shudder down your spine. Freezing morning… Mitre Calcio…Top of the thigh… Bare skin. Still paradise!
If mom had to work I always had a lift to training and games. My coach by that time Martin Rose, he was brilliant to me for many years. It did come with a price though, some Villa and Blues chat. Blues or Birmingham City are and will always be Villa’s main rival. In our trips to games and training, there’s normally time for a conversation about the rivalry. In a time when Villa’s fortunes were not great and Blues were enjoying relative success for a small club especially against us, former European champions, Martin being a big Blues fan, debates could get heated, normally ended up with me in a huff or large bursts of bellowing laughter from Martin and his bluenose son Antony. But was all good fun. I always got to play and got home safe with Martin. Great Person.
There were a lot of great players and people at the club and athletes in the area in general, an Olympian in Tim Jones a swimmer, one of my brother’s teammates, with a scary resemblance to Thierry Henry, went on to play professionally in the lower leagues and was a one-time million-pound footballer. A couple of other boys from the age groups around me went into the academies at West Brom and Walsall. Some going on to coach in the academies later in life.
Between coaching and many other roles, a good number of people around me stayed in sport. My friend Callum is the in-house commentator for Minnesota United as well as the periods with the BBC. Callum has been good to offer support recently, having made the trip across to the US like myself. Great Person. A couple of other friends from the soccer school days are now academy coaches at West Brom. A good friend from high school, another Rich, is a major part of the success with the West Bromwich Albion Foundation. Rich was an incredible help at the start of my coaching days, a fantastic role model and I owe a lot to him. Great Person.
Sports have been good for us all. Careers, family, friendships, etc. This is my point to the story. In the culture we shared, the people around me were soaked in sport. Not just as observers, but facilitators and enablers. It is not an uncommon story, but its importance I think is underappreciated. There were always 2 consistencies in our lives when it came to sports and our experiences.
- Paradise could be anywhere, as long as I was playing.
- We all benefitted massively from Great People around sports.
In The End…
This is my mission with Southern California Youth Sports Solutions:
Playing Paradises & Great People
Every day we strive to do the following for the communities we serve:
We want to ensure sport is available and accessible, more for your child and every child. More paradises regardless of background and ability. It should not cost the world nor should it be just for the talented elite. Never social symbol. More of the $3 weekly sessions and less of the $2000 programs for participation. Sport should be enjoyed and engaged with by every child, any child, any sport.
Sport is a wonderful vehicle to support children and build character. We want to help characters grow on the journey, characters grow when we give them the right environment for them.
Sport is drenched in creative and critical thinking, curiosity, and reflection. Core elements of learning and fun and our program.
Sports requires courage, like leaving mom’s side to go to the odd-sounding man with the ginger hair or to keep trying and accept failure in the games we choose to play. This failure is a good thing. It’s real, it’s safe, it quickly allows me to repeat and try again once more after that, failure is the path to success.
It allows us to find role models to build our behavior on, whether it is the guy on tv with the mini shin pads, gliding gracefully, or that tall coach with the cockney London accent, who loves to call the kids “donut” and always makes time for more fun.
Sport should be able to give every child the positive memories and experiences I have just shared with you.
Success to me and this program is not winning the state cup nor is it piggybacking the success of others to toot our own horn. We hope we helped somewhere on their journey.
We want to help create great people and create paradises for every child. That’s our success.
This is me, this is us. Until the next time.
Matt.
Love this Matt. Brings back vivid memories of our sporting childhood. Proud of you as a brother. Respect you as a coach. American sport is lucky to have you.