Field of Dreams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU3a1PDtTYk&feature=related

La Rasante Health Club is one of the more exclusive in Brussels with an annual Membership floating around the €1500 mark. On the last couple of Monday nights, Belgian G.A.A. has being going about its business there, flanked at either end by towering apartment blocks and at either side by a hockey pitch and tennis courts. It is essentially just a grassy field with no lines and no goalposts.

Last Monday there were 30 men’s footballers kicking, hand-passing, sprinting, skipping, straining to do more press-ups, tossing medicine balls and even throwing rugby balls out there. When people tag along for a night now, they more often than not want to stay. James Murphy is a Cork lad who trains with us sometimes during the week but returns home to play with Bishopstown at the weekend. We were in one of our local watering holes, The Old Oak, a couple of weeks ago with a lad who just arrived over. James commented that the club was great because it was inclusive and encouraging of all standard of player. Sometimes I’m not sure if we go to enough lengths but so it’s good to hear a neutral voice say so. It has been a delicate balance; building a competitive but inclusive club.

We had a great session on Monday and the willingness of everyone to put it in is great. Last year, lads would have been trying to stay under my radar and skip trainings or not put it in when they were there. To a man though, lads have upped it considerably, even if some still have a bit left in the tank.

Such numbers and application eases my dislike of the full pitch training game. If such games have certain conditions attached to them than I can see their benefit but a lot of lads just want to go out and play freely. Last year, I pretty much flatly refused to have the games because they should not be a carrot to get lads out. If lads do the hard work, than they can have there luxuries.

I bowed to their requests on Saturday and we had our best in-house game yet. Even at 10h30 in the morning, the temperature soared into the 20’s but we had three competitive 20 minute segments. With the first two split between the Reds and the Greens, it came down to the third ‘half’. Conor Mescall hit three points on the trot in the closing minutes to give the Greens a three point cushion but with the last act of the game, Johnny Phelan popped up to fist a high delivery to the net for a draw.

I refereed the game and it was good to be a bit detached and try and grasp things we need to work on at training. We’ll have one last physical training tomorrow and then attention will switch fully to this weekend’s hurling tournament in Den Hague before we have a week to prepare for our home football tournament on May 8.