I Need Guidance

So true. Taking my lad really chilled me out. It's only a game and I walk away with a smile now. I was never like that

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I'm toying with the idea of moving up there. I sit in the Ponty and my little girl joined me last year and loved it. She's just turned 10 and my boy is 5. He came to a game at the end of last season, so I got him a season ticket this season too and was looking forward to watching the games with both my kids (almost as much as the missus was looking forward to her Saturdays to herself!). However, my 5 year old nephew started going to the kids training sessions at the Academy last season and he loved it. Seeing him playing footy, he can certainly whack a ball and looks the part when he is running with the ball, in the way that my uncoordinated non-sporty lad doesn't.

Basically, you drop them off at the Academy at 10:30 where they do footy practice and play mini games, with several coaches. There's around 40 kids turn up, aged from 5 to around 12 and they split them off into age groups. They then get a MacDonalds happy meal for lunch and all go into the Family Stand to watch the game. You then pick them back up at the Academy at full time. It's a great way of getting the kids used to playing team sport, teaching them the basic footy skills and getting them interested in watching the match. I would have loved it when I was a kid. And what's more, it's only £13 per session and this includes the meal and the match ticket. That would buy you a few hours babysitting normally!

My kids went along for the Burton game and enjoyed it. Watching my little lad attempting a stepover was one of the funniest things I have ever seen! The downside of this is that my kids are up in the Family Stand with their mates and the coaches, when I had envisaged them being with me. The other downside, as far as my daughter is concerned, is that they left the game 10 minutes before the end, in order to be at the Academy for the parents to pick them up. I guess the parents who don't go to the match themselves will want to pick their kids up before the crowd leaves the ground.

They said, when I asked at the Burton game, that we can either pick them up at 12:30 or at full time and we don't have the option of picking them up prior to kick off. I also can't go up to the Family Stand cos I am in the Ponty. It leaves a dilemma. Do I move to the Family Stand? I really don't want to, as I'm a Ponty boy and sit with all my mates. Do I pick them up at 12:30? Possibly, but that means they get dragged to the pub for a couple of hours, or that I don't get to the pub (it's the only time I get to catch up with my mates from the old London branch) and it means that I have to walk from town to the ground and back and back again and I'm not too mobile these days. Or do I insist on meeting them pre kick off and taking them in with me?

The latter is the preferable option, but even then it's not that straightforward (even if the coaches will let me do it), because it will mean that my little nephew doesn't get to sit with my lad in the ground (they're good mates). Really don't know what to do, because I don't want to move up to the Family Stand, but I don't want to miss out on spending time with the kids at the ground in the formative years of their lifelong sentence as a Reds supporter. I guess the missing the last ten minutes of the games may be the key factor, cos it did upset my daughter!

 

After all that advice, guidance and coaching I gave ya and you had to listen to Mario. Sell out !!!

 

The club sent me an email saying that if you buy a season ticket they will refund the home match tickets you've already bought which sounds decent enough. It does annoy me that it keep saying 'watch 13 games for free' - just buy a season ticket! The word free appears many times but of course it isn't free at all!

 

JAmdrop, does that apply throughout the season

 

They specifically wrote Burton and Bradford! Although it would make the 'free' line accurate if they did!

 

Family Stand has definitely chilled me out and made me less sweary. I do miss the Ponty though on occasion bumping into folks and having a chinwag balanced against this is taking the little one (when it's warm enough). She called Conor pretty last time...

 

I'm not your little one am I? :nails:

 

When I told her I was going to Rochdale today. She asked me if the pretty boy was playing

 

Season tickets purchased!
£669 lighter.
Looks like working a bit longer!