I was probably more nervous than Del was himself on the day of his maiden match. For him, he just couldn’t wait.He virtually woke up every body, for fear that we may get him to the match late , or not at all. Who would do that honestly. Despite, the match times for his age group are at 8:00 am which is quiet a challenging time to wake up on a Saturday morning. The whole family was keen as ,to see how Del will play in his first supposedly competitive and formalised football match.
After being woken up by the overly eager boy, the mum as usual went about overdressing him as it was a foggy and chilly day. A sweat shirt inside and the team shirt outside and a rain jacket to go with it. We were off to Del’s first match. Unfortunately his little sister Rin, couldn’t join as she was a bit down with her usual incessant flues.
We arrived at the Waiuku Massey Park grounds just before they were being instructed to warm up for the match. Their first match was against the Blue Seals, a team I had nearly managed to get Del to play for as the team had a number of his close friends in it. As it turned out, the coach seems to have been quiet enthusiastic as well in taking up this role and eager to share whatever little knowledge he has of playing football. Unfortunately I was caught out during the team selection day and re-directed to the Red Robbins team he had been selected for.
And so the match started with the usual scrapping and chasing the ball. Due to my nervousness I chose not to closely watch, but simply let the match wore on. The match was set for two 20 minutes halves. Del was played for the first 5 minutes and substituted to make way for the other kids. The Blue Seals team was relatively quick to the ball, and had a few more players, mostly Del’s classmates who had a better idea of kicking the ball. They scored a couple of goals with no reply from the Red Robbins.
When Del was put in this time, he preety much notched a gear up, and started doing a couple of amaizing solo runs with the ball. He would dribble in all cases a minimum three players prior to unleashing some ferocious shots towards the goal.He made several attempts which he kept missing, as he was taking the ball and dribbling towards the wing and taking a shot from an angle. Given that in their age group they use the small goal posts with no goalie, he needed to improve his accuracy. I could see he was getting frustrated, puffing and chuffing like a steam engine.
I then advised him to try going through the centre than dribbling away from the players. He literally went through the whole team, dribbling past virtually anyone who wanted to take away the ball from him, even including some of his not so well versed team mates. Del placed a beautiful shot into the net which made all parents from both teams ecstatic. It was just plain beatiful football from my baby. I couldnt contain the excitement either, and shouted goal, releaving all the pressure I had, and started enjoying the play.
After Del’s first goal, the momentum of the game changed. Del, was just on fire, being able to throw some great tackles to recover the ball from the opposing team , and managed to notch 3 more goals.Since the other team was already on the lead, they couldnt catch up with them, but as the match ended, all the parents wished it could have kept going, although the other kids were also clearly tired.
To cap Del’s maiden match, he was voted the Small Whites Player of Day. Proudly took my son, and he couldn’t wait to get back home to tell his mum what a great day it was for him, whilst munching the chocolate that comes with the accolade.