OI, referee!

Saturday evening I helped at out by refereeing! It was the under 11s Scottish Crusaders Indoor Football tournament and what a lovely experience it was!! The kids were so pleasant but also had a lot of passion to win. One of the teams was made up of all 8 year olds including a girl who, in her obsession to get the ball, ran into me, knocking me over (much to the hilarity of the parents and other players). A particular highlight was the fact there were no controversial decisions,Thank God! Being "cheated" is the sort of things which can ruin the whole experience for a team and leave parents shouting at the poor ref!

Lenzie Crusaders (as usual) won the tournament. The reason they win is because they have the best team but the reason they win so often is because they have a massive group. So big, in fact, they have to meet a number of different nights! For years the Pollockshields teams ,which I was part of, used to complain about how unfair it was. Now though, as a leader, its just fantastic to see how strong there group is and I pray that our group will grow again and see people meet God. A man called Gordon has run the Lenzie group for many decades and thank God for him and all the work he has done, still does. His service is something which, again, I only noticed when I was a leader.

Only 15 years ago Scottish Crusaders used to have athletics, swimming, badminton and football competitions annually for all the different groups to compete in. It was a very good way of getting children of all ages to get involved and along to Crusader grups. The need to work as a team helps built up friendships and comradery between younger people and also there leaders; relationships which grow over the years. Sadly, as my friend Darren talks about in his last blog post, a few years ago everyone decided that competitiveness, for children, was bad. As a result Crusaders stopped many of there competitions from happening, what a mistake! Thankfully Gordon, I'm told, fought to keep the football tournament and after seeing the children at the weekend enjoy it so much I see how important it was.

Sport is such a good way to get kids interested, fit and having fun. As a society we need to bring back competitiveness in schools and sports. Not to make people feel they are rubbish, but to encourage them to play hard! Everyone winning leaves children with no reason to push themselves because without a reason to do try why should they? After being and seeing children play (especially boys) its important that winning is something which is emphasised as a good thing, not the only thing, but a good thing!