Day 5 - UWCSEA Soccer School

Today we had another late start, with only one session at UWCSEA at 6pm. To be honest, every weekday we work, it'll be a late start, as we only have after school sessions or evening sessions. The weekends will be an early start though, as we have sessions from 9 til 5. Should be good though.

We slept in late, again, and got up at around 3 to get ready to leave just after 4. Simon, Dan and I made our way to the bus stop to head towards the school. At this point, it was absolutely chucking it down with rain, and there was lightening everywhere. I was strongly believing the session would be called off due to it.

When we got there, the rain had calmed down a little bit, and it was only slightly spitting, so it wasn't too bad. The lightening warning was still going though, so no one was allowed to go on the pitch until it stopped. Soon enough, though, the sound came over the speakers and the kids went nuts, and ran straight out onto the pitch.

Daymon came over and told us what we were doing, Dan was working with Norm with the under 10's, while I was helping a guy called Mo with the under 8's. Like on Tuesday, we were there to assist the coaches, as they ran the session. Mo wanted to go for a passing session, so I helped him set up the cones, encourage the players, and coach them when they make mistakes. It was a good session, and for under 8's, they were really good. Mo was training them for a tournament out in Bangkok, where they play against other soccer schools. It's quite a competitive country, Singapore. They focus purely on winning and creating competitive players to win matches, instead of improving players in general. They are good players though, so whatever works for them works for them I guess.

We ended the session with a match, before wrapping everything up and packing everything away. It was a good session overall, so I was happy. Dan finished a while after me so I had to wait around for him, but soon enough he came over and we headed home. Grabbed some food, and headed to the apartment. We have a day off tomorrow, which we had planned to go to Universal Studios, but its a Bank Holiday, so we might not go. We'll see.

Day 4 - Dulwich Primary School & UWCSEA Soccer School

Today we started at 2. After not getting to sleep until 6am, it was nice to have a bit of a lie in. Guess I'm still not used to the time difference yet.

Our first session was with a primary school called Dulwich. We were taking the after school class with Daymon, with kids aged around 9-11 years old. We ended up having around 30 kids, of these ages, all unbelievably keen to play football, but not keen on drills.

While speaking to Daymon on the way to the session, he told us all we had to do was a quick warm up, then get them into games, as we didn't have long for the session. So that's exactly what we did. Our warm up was pretty basic. We just gave each kid a ball and told them to dribble it around in a tight space, using both feet, and avoiding each other. They seemed to enjoy that quite a lot to be fair. Then it was time for the games. We split the group into 4 teams of around 7 players per side, and had 2 "semi finals", one on each half of the pitch. When that was over, the 2 winners came onto my pitch, while the others battled out for 3rd place. Unfortunately, we ran out of time, so there wasn't a winner on my pitch, as the scores were tied 1-1. Oh well, maybe next time.

After the kids all got collected, we handed our badges in and headed to UWCSEA, where we were yesterday. On our schedule we're there Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday's. After yesterday's session, we thought that we'd be there to basically shadow and assist the main coaches there. Dan helped Simon and I help a guy i believe was called Kyle, but that may be completely wrong. Anyway, after yesterday, it came as a bit of a surprise to hear that we'd be together, taking over one of the teams for a whole session on our own. A nice surprise, but an unexpected one. That meant we had until we got to the pitch, which was about an hour away, to plan our top-class session. We planned, chatted, planned, and thought. Finally, we had our master session sorted.

We arrived at UWCSEA and got all set up and ready, the kids then arrived. We didn't have many, around 11, all playing for the under 14's, which was absolutely fine. We started off with a passing session, where they had to keep the ball moving, and inside a relatively small square. Dan took that one, which got them nice and warmed up, plus included a bit of fitness with running involved. Then, they came over to me for a bit of skills corridor. As the kids were quite good players, I decided to make it a bit trickier, and included a defender quite early on, which challenged them a bit more. We then progressed it to a game called Gauntlet, which is basically a game where players have to try and get past a few defenders, one at a time, before taking a shot at goal. They seemed to enjoy this quite a lot, and didn't want to stop when we called it, which made us happy, as they obviously enjoyed it. After a quick waterbreak we got into a match, Dan on one team, me on the other. I didn't keep up with the score but it was a good game to play, but me and Dan were sweating buckets at the end of it due to the humidity. It was horrible.

After that was all wrapped up we headed home, grabbed some food, and went to the apartment.

We couldn't get in our room.

The way our apartment is set up, is that we have one key for the actual apartment, then one key for our room. We'd somehow misplaced the keys. We searched everywhere for them. No luck. Called Daymon. Simon helped too, no luck. After a few hours, Daymon came over, and we had to do it. We had to break the door down. Dan stepped up to the responsibility. He took a step back, moved forward and gave it a mighty boot. The door was open. It wasn't even damaged much. He somehow managed to kick the door in a way that took the lock out, but the door was still completely intact. I was impressed. You can check out the video of it on my Facebook.

Late start tomorrow, don't start until 6pm, so plenty of time to lie in. Happy days. Hopefully we can have less dramas from now on..

Day 3 - UWCSEA Soccer School

Before I start off today's blog, I'll let you know about the dramas that unfolded last night.

Dan and I were happily doing our bits, getting our meals for the day sorted, in-between managing York and Woking on Football Manager in bed. I was making myself some noodles, while Dan was making some toast to accompany his cup of tea. All was well.

Suddenly, I heard a screech. Dan had spotted a massive cockroach climb out from behind the cupboards, and it crawled down by the kettle.

Being the absolute hero that I am,  I spotted the bug killer, grabbed it and sprayed the life out of this beast, leaving it, soaked, upside down on the floor. Its at that point that I grabbed my noodles and we both headed to the room, and locked ourselves in.

Now for today. We spent most of the night playing Football Manager, so we didn't go to bed til lateish. Still feeling jet-lagged, though, we managed to sleep in up until around 3pm, when we were pretty much forced to get up, as we had to leave at 4.

While we were getting ready to go, we also met Simon, who was the guy living with us. He was a nice guy, just a few years older than us, and had been in Bangkok with one of the elite teams playing in a tournament over there. He was taking us to the bus stop, where we would meet Daymon and head to our session.

Our session was at a place called UWCSEA, which stands for United World College of South East Asia. The pitch was a gorgeous, rooftop, 3G pitch. It was a dream. I was really looking forward to coaching on here.

Unfortunately, just as we were about to start coaching, the lightening sirens went off, and no one was allowed on the pitch. We managed to get in about 10 minutes of game time later on, but it was called off due to torrential rain and loads of lightening, it was a nightmare. The whole session got called off after that, which was a shame, but to be fair there was no chance of any football being played in that.

Dan, Simon and I made a mad dash for the buses, to avoid the rain, but it took about an hour for the bus to arrive, which was a pain. Turns out the lightening meant that loads of buses weren't running, which I guess is understandable.

Got home, Simon went back to the apartment to get ready to go out and meet his girlfriend, while Dan and I grabbed some food and prepared ourselves for a night full of Football Manager mayhem. Should be decent!

Day 2 - Tanglin Private School

Today we started our first day of work! After chatting to Daymon yesterday, it seems that our schedule isn't as busy as it was in South Africa, plus most days we start in the afternoon and have afternoon and evening sessions, which I prefer much more as it means we don’t have to panic about being up early, and can enjoy a nice lie in. Our schedule is also pretty much the same weekly, which is understandable as its more professional and serious stuff than in South Africa, where our schedule was different each week as we visited different communities. It’s nice to be able to experience both kinds of coaching work, and is why we’re all doing this course.

We started at 2pm at a private school quite a way away, called Tanglin Private School, so Daymon came by ours at around 12:30 and took us to the shuttle bus, then onto the underground. Yesterday we bought a couple of travel cards, which worked a lot like oyster cards back home, where you top up and use it to get around places. The underground is so much nice than back home. Its cleaner, more efficient, and actually sensible, with lines telling people where to stand to avoid punch-ups getting onto the train. It’s really nice. We were on the train for about half an hour before getting off at our stop. Outside it was chucking it down, yet it was still warm. On our walk to the school, we heard a massive crack of thunder nearby, which scared the life out of me and Dan. Apparently thunder like that is common in Singapore according to Daymon, so we just looked stupid. Oh well.

We got to the soccer school and all the kids were under cover. Apparently if thunder & lightening goes off within a certain radius where they are, they have to get all of the kids under cover for around 45 minutes before taking them out again, which was interesting. We took over one of Norm’s (another coach, from England – ex military so we didn't mess with him) groups and got them to do some passing under cover before taking them out to do matches. These kids were a lot different from the community kids in South Africa. They wouldn't listen, focus or do anything we asked them to do. They just wanted to play matches all the time. Norm did say that this school was the worst to coach at because the kids were just a pain. The school we’re at tomorrow is supposed to be decent, though.

After all the matches were over we went back home with Daymon. We’re both still pretty jet-lagged, though, so don’t plan to do much. We both got a sim card out here though, which means I can message my family to let them know I'm okay, as well as messaging Maddie (my girlfriend), and avoid having to go 3 weeks without talking to her, which I really don’t want to happen. But that’s all sorted so happy days!

Tomorrow, another late start, 5:30pm, so we’re aiming to explore a bit more during the day, which will be pretty cool.

Day 1 - Arrival

Touchdown in Singapore! We arrived at around half 7 in the morning (Singapore time), and as soon as we got off the plane, we got a taste of the heat and humidity that we had to get used to during our time out here.

We got our bags, and met Daymon, who was one of the coaches that worked for JSSL, standing for Junior Soccer School League. This was the name of the company, but they have now purchased the rights to franchise as an Arsenal Soccer School, so now, on all their gear, they have JSSL Arsenal.

Daymon introduced himself to us, and took us to a cab, which drove us to our apartment. We are supposed to live with another guy called Simon, who also works for JSSL, but he doesn’t arrive back from Bangkok until Tuesday so we have 2 days to get ourselves used to the apartment and the surroundings in Singapore. The apartments a nice size, nowhere near as good as the apartment we were in in South Africa, but its hard to beat accommodation that does your laundry twice a week and cleaning once a week, as well as providing us with cooked meals twice a day. We have a nice TV with loads of channels, wifi in the apartment (which will be good once its working), and its located so everything we need is in walking distance. We share a room, which is a decent size, and has good storage space so that’s all good too.

Once we were unpacked and everything, we went for a little walk with Daymon to try and work out our surroundings. We picked up some dinner at this place Daymon goes to quite often. Me and Dan had some chicken fried rice while Daymon had some other chicken delicacy. It was unbelievably nice, and we got a pretty big portion for around £2.50. So that’s happy days!

We were both pretty exhausted and jetlagged after our flight, sot when we got back we tried our best to stay up as long as possible. But it got to 8pm and we both passed out. Didn’t even get to watch Everton thrash United or the Arsenal game! Gutted.