Have I gone mad?

I do think it is about time Santa provided a service whereby his elves came round about 3 days after Christmas and helped tidy up! Our house has just about recovered from the festivities that Christmas brought with it, and as we trundle round the house cleaning up the last bits of wrapping, we begin to see what appears to be a floor, which we haven’t seen for some time! We hope Santa was kind to you and you received lots of nice gifts. Santa, thought he would play a trick on me, now don’t get me wrong – I love socks, but, when eight pairs of socks are wrapped individually in varying shapes you have to start questioning his humour, that crafty little Santa!

I hope you enjoyed your nice break. 2012 looks like it is going to be a good year, the London Olympics, the Euros and of course, the highlight of your year, it is the Little Kickers 10th birthday! We have planned some great little events to celebrate, and we hope you will be involved too.

My prediction for 2012 - England to win the Euros. Yes, you heard me correctly, do not adjust your sets, and not a touch of the naughty juice crossed my lips over Christmas either. Call me an optimist, but there is a method to my madness! Rooney is unavailable; he has always been labelled the glory boy for our England side, and the player who makes us tick. With Rooney being unavailable I am expecting there to be less expectation and not the usual enormous bandwagon that ‘this is our year’ ( I do realise that I am claiming the exact sentiment...but for a different reason!) I think this will have an enormous effect on the team, there is a pressure on the England squad drive

n by the media and our own optimistic minds, with no pressure, and the players can relax and play their normal game. England have some amazing talent, with a good balance of older more experience heads, with the young vigour of players like Ashley Young and Rooney.

The England manager, Fabio Capello, has got us playing some good attacking football, and with the England squad being blessed with some of the best defenders in the world, it gives us a really good opportunity to break our trophy-less drought of over 40 years!

What do you think?

If all else fails, we will just have to wait another 4 or 5 years, by then some of our original Little Kickers (who are not so Little now) can start breaking into the team...

Garden Games Doc

Our New Garden Games!

Shooting for the moon!

I hate myself a little bit for jumping aboard the X Factor bandwagon: I do not mind the show itself but I do dislike everything that attaches itself to it!

I cannot think of any plausible reason or time where I would use Louis Walsh as an advisor, and his antics during the latest episode reinforce this. Let me give you a bit of background on Frankie Cocozza (apologies if you haven’t heard of his name before now). He is not the greatest singer in the world and when he applied for the X Factor and he got through based on personality and stage presence - similarly to Jedward and Wagner (previous contestants). His performance skills make up for his lack of singing ability, which is fair enough. Robbie Williams, for example, will be the first person to tell you that he is not a good singer; however he has created a career for himself due to his stage antics, his personality and a VERY good manager!

Back to the point – Frankie Corcozza performed on Saturday night, and let’s just say...it wasn’t the greatest performance the stage has seen (any stage for that matter)! Put this to one side for the minute. Now, I am well aware that each judge is entitled to their opinion, as is everyone - that is their right. What I do not agree with is Louis Walsh stating,
‘you’ve never been a rock star, you will never be a rock star, you will never be good enough to be one either.’

Do you know what? He might be right. Frankie may never become a rock star, he may never be good enough, but nobody has the right to tell somebody else that! It’s fair enough to comment on the here and now, and maybe he could have even added a constructive element to his comments, but I feel very strongly that he should not tell a young guy that he will never become anything or achieve his goal in life.

I remember when I was in school – a lady called Mrs Sowersby (the name being a relative representation of her attitude to life) asking what I wanted to be when I left school – without a flinch I said a Footballer. Which, at the time of my utterance, was not a too distant dream -having been at Reading Academy for the previous 6 years. Without knowing my background, she flippantly replied – “now let’s be realistic, that is not going to happen, so let’s have a think what you could actually be.” Sadly, my reaction earned me a detention that day (the first time ever!). However, I stick by my rant! Nobody has the right to shatter someone else’s dreams. If nobody chased a dream, then as a society we would never move forward. I understand that you should be forward thinking and, of course, be careful that you do not limit your skills so dramatically that your employability is hampered, but we should instill the desire (in children especially) to try and achieve their dreams and to make a success of themselves, whatever meandering path that assumes.

Luckily, I remember telling my Mum ‘I am going to be a Footballer when I am older’ and she replied ‘Do you want me to have a word with Sir Alex?’ I must add here that my mum still believes she is on first name terms with ‘Fergie’ after he apparently waved at her during the 1999 Treble trophy tour. Her reaction was perfect, although I realised it was tongue in cheek. She didn’t quash my dream, in fairness she still claims to have Fergie and Eric (Cantona) on speed dial anytime I tell her I scored at the weekend.

Our Little Kickers obviously are not sure what they will be when they are older. However, if one of them comes to me and says that they want to be the Queen, then I will turn around and state that I will give Buckingham Palace a call to see what I can do.
As cheesy as this statement is, shoot for the moon and at least if you miss you will still be amongst the stars.

Not that I want to give Louis Walsh's comments any air time - but, here you go if you missed it!
http://youtu.be/ag5FpGVir_Q


#HighFive

A weekend to remember..

Firstly, apologies for not having updated this sooner, as you would expect - September is notoriously a very busy month for Little Kickers HQ and 2011 has been no exception!
Saturday morning started a little differently than most, the early morning alarm went off as normal, but this time, I was accompanied on the journey with a rather large Lion! Fear not, this Lion is incredibly friendly; in fact he is so friendly we have made him our Little Kickers mascot. The Little Kickers Lion Cub was on parade at the Baby and Toddler show in Sussex.

I went down with the Lion, admittedly receiving a few strange looks driving down the motorway with the Lion sat in the passenger seat! It was great to see so many children wanting to take penalties with LKFC and the Lions hand must have been hurting considering how many high fives he had dished out!

It was a great day, and we got to meet some Little Kickers’ too! Thank you to all of you who came down to see us with your kits on. You did us proud :)

Later on in the afternoon, I had a Football match. I play for a team called Hartley Wintney and we had a match against Bashley in the early rounds of the FA Cup. Bashley are 3 tiers above us in the English Football pyramid, and we certainly expecting to be on the receiving end of a bit of a hiding! Luckily for us, we managed to hold them to 0-0 right up until the 85 minute. Now, I am sure you are expecting, (as were we) for this paragraph to finish with unfortunately they scored a late goal...well there was a late goal...but it wasn’t Bashley who scored!

The ball fell to me at the edge of the area, and I fortunately managed to tuck it away neatly in the corner. Needless to say, my celebration was somewhat elaborate, luckily I have watched lots of our own Little Kickers score so many goals – that I sort of knew what to do! Certainly my favourite goal that I have ever scored, as it was such an important match, and such an important time of the match. We won the game 1-0 and to be perfectly honest...I am still buzzing off the feeling!

Sunday also saw me being able to meet some of the Little Kickers over in Portsmouth. I was so incredibly impressed with the attitude of all the coaches, and the excellent sessions they delivered. Not only that, but the children were so incredibly well behaved, and have obtained a very high level of performance! In the afternoon of the same day, I rushed back to watch my beloved Man United, in what is usually a very tight game against our rivals Chelsea – and, well if you do not know the result...then where have you been! A fabulous win for the reds, who look untouchable this season, although slightly concerned at the progress of the noisy neighbours in blue, I cannot mention there name...as I do not feel it is right to use such bad language in a public place!

Lastly, if you have already voted for us to win the Smarta100 award then thank you a million times over. I know we have bombarded you with a lot of information recently, but your vote means the world to us. Gong gathering was never something we set out for, and nor will it ever be, however it is always nice to be recognized for the hard work that goes on, and this award certainly represents that as it is voted by you lovely lot!

Thank you once again! Feel free to leave a comment; I am always interested to hear what you guys have been up too!

High Five.

BBC!

Have a look at this fantastic article written about one of our franchisees Graham Ware.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14274809

LK Interview

I had the pleasure of going to watch the Little Kickers over at Tower Bridge, London. This class has already produced some excellent Little Kickers, one off which, Jamie, has gone on to sign for Millwall FC. I managed to catch up with Milo Strang, who was taking part in his first ever Mega Kickers session. Milo was excellent throughout the session, and then capped it off with a fantastic goal in the match!

Meet Milo...

Name: Milo Strang

Age: 4

Little Kickers Venue: Tower Bridge, London

Favourite Game: The Cocunut Shy

Favourite Coach: All of them!

Why do you love Little Kickers: I like to play all the games, and do big kicks around the room!

Favourite Food: Bananas

What do you want to be when you are older? A Footballer for Pompey!

Thanks Milo! I think Portsmouth FC could do with your goal-scoring capabilities this season!
High Five!

LKFC teaches KandH a lesson in Football Management!

I entered a Fantasy Football league this season against a group of accountants. Kirkpatrick and Hopes are a company in Theale, in the heart of Berkshire. A lovely, quiet and scenic area of England - however, home to some self proclaimed Fantasy Football gurus who were not so quiet about their chances of winning. So naturally on behalf of Little Kickers, I decided to show them how it was really done!

Well done to Poppy who came a not too distant second.

As I said from the very beginning, you carry on doing your job, and let us do ours! ;)

The first of many trophies for Little Kickers this year!

HIGH FIVE!