Playing up not by choice

[Anonymous]

Can anyone give me the pros/cons of my kid playing up not by choice? His small club wasn't able to field a full team for his age group so they are doing age bands and he will be playing two birth years up in the fall. He's a decent player but not big or tall by any stretch of the imagination. Is being promised an age group team and having to play two years up an excuse to get out of our "contract"?

[Anonymous]

Are you asking the pros and cons of this or for an excuse to get out of your contract? Very confusing.

[Anonymous]

It is a bad idea. Except for advanced players, playing up stunts a players development. Up 2 age groups is a level at which very few youth players would be effective.

[Anonymous]

How old is he? Playing 2 years up at age 9 is a huge difference than at 16.

[Anonymous]

Two years up is a big difference if he is not a very strong player. Would he end up riding the bench most of the time for older, bigger players? Without more details it sounds like this could be a bad situation for him. Can you recruit some of his friends to the team and get enough players on board to have a team in his age group? It may be late to look into other options, I would start doing the footwork on that now in case you end up needing to find something. Is it the coach you were expecting? How many players are on this 3-year band team? Where does he fit in among the whole group? Once you figure out all that you will have a better idea what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone give me the pros/cons of my kid playing up not by choice? His small club wasn't able to field a full team for his age group so they are doing age bands and he will be playing two birth years up in the fall. He's a decent player but not big or tall by any stretch of the imagination. Is being promised an age group team and having to play two years up an excuse to get out of our "contract"?

Yes. If your kid is not big and athletic or exceptionally skilled this is not a good thing - even playing one year up let alone two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is he? Playing 2 years up at age 9 is a huge difference than at 16.

He'd be skipping both his 9v9 years.

[Anonymous]

The only time a player should be playing up, is if they can start on the older team's 'A' team.

[Anonymous]

This sounds terrible. So you have a 9 year older playing 11 v 11? If he were huge, super fit and highly skilled it sounds good. For a normal kid, it sounds awful. I have a decent, not great, U12 and he’s going to have a tough enough time at 12 next year making the move to 11 v 11. That big field is a really game changer.

I’d bail for a bigger club.

I’d have at least considered it for my more skilled kid, but i still think that it would have been too much.

[Anonymous]

sorry to tell you but he's going to get run over

[Anonymous]

At that age it’s a bad idea. The jump to 11v11 on the bigger fields is a big change.

My daughter is 2009. She played on 2009/2010 teams the last two years because her small club didn’t have enough girls for a team for each year and some of the girls they did have weren’t really good enough to play at that level. This year that would have meant moving up to 11 v 11. We went back to her old club with teams for each age group.

We really liked the coach and the philosophy of the club where she was playing up, and it’s been great for our friends with boys the same age, but she’s happier with a group all her own age and girls who really want to play soccer and who had to try out to make the team. We gave it two years but ultimately we need to find the best fit for our DD, not hamper her development to help a fledgling club succeed.

[Anonymous]

We have a 2008 at our club play with our 2006s, she is great

[Anonymous]

Coach here,

As several have already pointed out, age matters greatly in this context.

Having said that I would NOT recommend playing up two birth years to any player, nearly without exception. There have been maybe a handful of players at 16ish years of age who were super standouts I've seen do it and look like they belonged, and even then it was only as guest players.

As for your contract, I imagine if the team originally offered did not form, the club should let you go without any financial repercussions. The earlier you ask for the refund the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old is he? Playing 2 years up at age 9 is a huge difference than at 16.

He'd be skipping both his 9v9 years.

I am surprised the club would even suggest that. DS is a very strong player on our club's top team. He regularly trains and scrimmages with kids 2 years up and the skill difference between he and them is apparent.

[Anonymous]

Bad idea because unless they perform well, everyone on the team will start asking why is that player even on the field.