Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Manchester United sign Aussie 9 year old

I read the story about Manchester United signing a 9 year old from Brisbane with a bit of sadness. As was ponted out here there have been a lot of youngsters that have shown promise but not lived up to it. Manchester United claim they have not broken the rules in any way and I am sure they have followed the rules. The problem is that you are now seeing the pushy parent syndrome kicking in and moving the whole family thousands of miles to be within the catchment area for the club. Having done this the entire family now lives miles from their friends and the only reason to be there is for the kids football career - how much pressure is that!!

Now I would love to have been really good at football (or any sport!) but I never was, but I have always loved playing sport and still do regularly. Having said that I used to love kicking a ball around at school and getting yelled at by my Mum for ripping my school uniform when I, inevitably, fell over (OK so the last bit wasn’t so much fun, but I still carried on kicking a ball around regardless so it must have been worth it!!) Can you imagine how different it would be if you were ten and your kickabout in the playground was now a regimented training session that you went to almost everyday, you’d almost look forward to homework? Can you imagine if your folks turned around to you and said ‘no you can’t have that ice-cream, your nutritional balance will be thrown out’. Or even ’stop playing with your friends you might injure yourself’. It’s not only football, it’s happened many times with prodigies in various sports getting burned-out before they make it out of their teenage years. It’s also happened with other areas too - showbiz parents, beauty pagent parents etc.

Quite simply shouldn’t you let kids grow up normally? Kids need a chance to grow up before they can reasonably be expected to handle that kind of pressure. If your child was that gifted wouldn’t you want them to grow up knowing what normality is so they can distinguish between that and the bizarre world they may find themselves in, under the glare of the spotlight and, more importantly, the world they will find after their career when the spotlight is no longer on them?