Dominik Roberts, a second-year coach with the Challenger Sports British Soccer Camp, says he uses two criteria to determine whether the program has been successful with the kids.
“One of my favourite moments of the week is when you go up to the kids and ask them if they had fun, and if they had learned something. It is the most satisfying thing when they tell you that they did have fun and the camp did help improve their abilities as a soccer player.”
The camp’s coaches were presented with evidence that the program has been meeting those objectives when the five-day camp opened on Monday at the Lions Field.
“There were kids that were wearing uniforms from camps that we hosted three or four years ago,” says Roberts. “It is great to see the kids want to keep coming back for more.”
Daniel Kam, 10, can be considered a “grizzled veteran” of the British Soccer Camp due to this being the fourth year of participation. He said he keeps coming back because the “coaches always make it a lot of fun” and he learns something new every time. Kam said one of the skills he improved upon by attending the 2015 camp was his abilities to dribble the ball past defenders to get to the primetime scoring areas.
The teaching of fundamental skills is done in the first hours of camp each day for both age groups. Each day there is a specific skill that is the focus of each of the drills of that day. The five major skills that are touched upon are dribbling, passing/receiving, shooting, heading and tackling/defending.
The kids take part in exercises to better these skills and then they do their best to implement those techniques in games.
The younger kids (five to nine) — who are on the field for three hours a day — and the older kids (10 and up) — on the field for seven hours — spend the first half of their respective camps learning those skills through tactical drills. The second half sees the kids engaged in coached matches and scrimmages.
Tim Degrot, a coach that made his debut with Challenger Sports this past week in St. Paul, says it is important to him and Roberts “that the kids have fun” during the skill building portion of the day as well.
Liam Boyko, 11, who is a first time camp attendee says, “each of the drills has been really fun,” and the reason is because the coaches have been nice and encouraging.
The games do provide a good opportunity for teaching as well. During both groups’ scrimmages on Tuesday, both coaches stressed the importance of teamwork.
“You attack as a team and you defend as a team,” said Degrot to the kids.
Roberts encouraged teamwork among the kids in his group by telling them that a certain amount of kids on each team had to touch the ball before an attempt could be made to score a goal.
After witnessing the kids swarm too close together on the field, both coaches paused the game to encourage the kids to spread out in order to open up more passing and attacking options.
In addition to the on-field activities featuring the kids, the coaches have been doing other things to make the camp a fun experience. Every day of the camp Degrot and Roberts entertain the kids by going toe-to-toe in a coach’s challenge.
Another initiative to encourage fun was themed-costume days for the kids on the last three days of camp. For example, there was “Wacky Wednesday,” which allowed the kids the chance to show up wearing whatever crazy costume they want, as long as it doesn’t impede their ability in playing soccer. On each of the theme days the kids were invited to bring in an item for their coach to wear.
“I am hoping it’s not forty degrees if I am going to wear four hats, four dresses, four wigs and four oven mitts,” joked Roberts on Tuesday.
At the beginning of the week, the kids form World Cup teams, and then throughout the week the teams earn points against each other in each of the scrimmages. At the end of the final matches on Friday, the World Cup is rewarded.
In addition to the World Cup, the coaches and kids closed out the camp with a special hotdog lunch and water activities.
“It really is all about having fun with each other,” said Degrot. “Both on the field and off the field.”
