I’ve been there too. My son is shy and timid so joining a team was a big deal. The first team he tries the coach was awful – led him along through summer training then phoned me before a training session to say my son could no longer come. I was devasted for him, and furious. I phoned a coach friend who invited him to their team.

A much more welcoming team but then the coach only played him a few minutes here and there. He isn’t the best footballer but he is technically good, just timid and was scared to do something wrong (confidence took a hit from the earlier team). We once drove an hour for him to have 5 minutes game time – not impressed.

My solution turned out to be taking over as team coach when the old coach left (I appreciate this is definitely not for everyone!). I literally spend an hour planning out match time to get as fair time as possible – and they’ve just finished their u12 season. If this had happened at u8/u9/u10 etc, then they would all have developed. Now, having been given plenty of game time, they’re all so much better, but because these are mostly kids who have been let down by the system/previous coaches they’re behind others in their age group.

Be reassured, there are coaches around who want to develop players and let them have fun playing football. They are probably likely to be found at the lower divisions but I’ve seen some great coaches this year be rewarded with promotions for building a team, not relying on a couple of good players.

There are so many things I want to change about grassroots football – people coaching for their egos and not for the kids is at the top of that list.

To be honest I think equal playing time should be all the way up to adult football. I always had an excel spreadsheet for the game prepared who was playing when and where and we followed it as good as we could, because sometimes you have boys that wanted to be subbed or got hurt. I kept the sheets on my laptop and could show them to any parent who wanted to see it. Also I made sure that the we not had the same boys starting the game / we’re on the beach from the start. I believe, as a couch, you have to make sure your boys ( or girls) feel all appreciated and supported. The phrase I see quite often on this site is :nobody remembers the games that they won or lost, but they do remember they had a good time!

We had discussed with the coaches a few times regarding my son playing less football than his teammates, which was received well but nothing changed. It was the final straw when he got 38 seconds on the pitch in the first game of the tournament.

We left really upset and my son didn’t go back. My husband then took on a team so this didn’t happen again. It’s very early days but it seems to be going well and I can only hope that my boys confidence will continue to grow. It seems that this sort of thing happens more than we realise.