RESPECT

Click on the banner above to view some videos and earn a certificate about parental behaviour at youth football.

The FA have  linked a number of campaigns together under the Zero Tolerance banner to try to make it possible for anyone who participates in football to be able to do so in an enjoyable and safe environment and be protected from poor practice and abuse.

The campaigns include:

Respect The Ref (Self-explanatory)

Kick-it Out (Anti-racism)

Give Us Back Our Game (Allowing children to learn to play the game in a child focussed environment, not to benefit the adults)

Don't X The Line (Restoring respect towards all other participants in our game)

What can we do as a club, one of many thousands up and down the country? Fortunately, we are blessed with an excellent set of players and parents, but we could all learn from this campaign. The following poem by a young man called James Douglas certainly struck a chord and will with many of you too.

Dad, just let me play

All I want to do

Is play football like my idols,

The game more important than the prize,

And I'd rather gain friends than rivals.

On a Sunday I feel almost too scared to play,

Worrying that my mistake might lose us the game,

Then all the angry dads will start shouting

And they'll all be cursing my name.

None of your children try to make such mistakes,

We're desperate to make you feel proud,

But all we need is friendly support,

Instead of this angry crowd.

So Dad, please let us play the game,

In the friendly atmosphere that we'd all like

And take a look at what you'd rather do,

Be little adults playing football, or big children having fights?   

To try and support this initiative we are therefore going to attempt to implement the following measures:

1) At all home matches we will place a line of cones along one side of the pitch, from penalty area to penalty area, approximately 2 or 3 metres from the touchline. We will then ask all officials, substitutes and spectators from both teams to stand behind the cones. In an experiment conducted in another part of the country where this has been trialled, "incidents" were reduced by 80%.

2) We will distribute a Zero Tolerance leaflet to all of our club members and all visiting spectators to our home matches, outlining what we are attempting to achieve. This will be based on a leaflet produced by Sale United, a youth football team in Manchester, who have become something of a national cause celebre following their attempts to improve behaviour at their matches.

3) We will ask each of our players to read and sign our Players Code of Conduct (See the Rules, Polocies page) to indicate that they agree to be bound by the code. Additionally, we will ask parents to sign the Spectators Code of Conduct and all of our club officials to sign the Officials Code of Conduct.

4) We will encourage all of you to report any incidents that you witness of unacceptable behaviour or language, either to our club Child Welfare Officer, to Paul Mallett, Herts FA's Child Welfare Officer or to the FA/NSPCC hotline.

Together we can try to become a beacon of behaviour that other clubs will look up to and hopefully in doing so we can drag up the levels of behaviour of those we come across during the course of the season. We have reported 2 incidents of unacceptable behaviour that we have encountered thus far this season and will continue to do so, but we need your help to make this work.