Youth Games

One thing everyone struggles with in sport is the jump from Junior/Youth competitions into Open Age. Athletes who have been the biggest or fastest throughout their career are all of a sudden chucked in against smarter and more capable opponents.

Some people work hard and get through, a lot however drop off, unable to adapt to a new more physical game. I never really had that problem personally, although I can see why some players struggle. I'd spent my entire junior years playing against "bigger boys." One of the biggest examples of this was the famous Greater Manchester Youth Games. This was a huge multi-sport competition that took place across loads of age groups across a weekend. My team put in three teams in the competition, Under 9's, Under 11's and Under 13's. I was 11 at the time and my brother was 14 (so technically he shouldnt have played for anyon but he played for the 13s).

The competition went as normal, after about 3 games our head coach game across to me and the captain of the under 11's. "Alright lads I need a favour, can you go and play in the Under 9's" Now at this point I thought he was taking the piss, both me and the Captain were both quite big for our age so were sometimes made to show our cards so we could play in our own age group. But we did as we were asked and turned up to the next game for the under 9's, the players on the opposition looked familiar. About 3 of them looked really familiar, that was because I'd see them playing against in the Under 13's squad a few weeks ago. Now there's cheating and then theres taking the piss, and this lot were well and truly taking the piss.

As with most memories of my matches they were hazy, the game was only 10 minutes long but it felt like an hour.We were getting destroyed and our only chance of us getting any points was with me taking a drive with them on their tryline. Rather than tackle me they decided to pick me up and dump me over their shoulders head first. I've no idea whether I put that ball down, I get the feeling the ref felt sorry for me and gave me a try. As I picked myself up feeling like my face had been shagged by a Land rover I walked back towards my team mates. Suddenly I felt the floor shaking. I thought that I'd knocked something loose in my head and my brains were gonna drop through my nose (or something else as dramatic). I turned to my right and saw a plume of smoke on the horizon, followed by a loud "BOOM"

That was the Manchester Bomb.

End of the game I limped off the pitch to find my entire Under 13 squad had come to watch us, they'd been kicked out because someone had found out that my brother was over-age.  But they did get one last game, they ended up convincing the team I had just been piledrivered by to play them in one game or else they would grass them up as well.

I then spent my the next twenty minutes literally pissing myself laughing as my brother and his demented mates took out their revenge on the lads who had battered me. In ten minutes they'd racked up 40 points, sent three lads off injured and generally managed to destroy any chance the cheating shits had of winning anything over the weekend.

Moral of the story, no matter how big you are, there's always someone bigger. So don't throw your weight around too much with the little ones, because you'll just make yourself a target.

Cheers for reading, the next one will be out on Monday!