The rain is sleeting down, your lad’s having a ’mare and your rotation policy means you’ve voluntarily withdrawn both your star defender and the striker who’s just scored another hat-trick. Winger-worth Buccaneers, backed by an icy wind, are coming on strong and you’ve got to get off to work sharpish once the nets are down.

Remind us, why are we doing this? Matlock, up on Cavendish Playing Fields, has its own microclimate; this feels like midwinter. But there is sunshine in our stomachs as we drive away and not just because Wirksworth Athletic Under9s have held on to win 3-2. The morning’s third and final round of games in the Rowsley & District Mini Soccer League has kicked off and, as you recognise other teams, coaches and players on the four pitches, there is an uplifting sense of a common goal that matches anything the afternoon’s Barclays Premier League action can offer.

Kids’ football in this country is rubbish, right? It must be, because so many experts are telling us so. In fact, is it not the kids’ and their coaches’ fault that England failed to qualify for next year’s European Championship? You might believe as much as the post mortem into the Steve McClaren reign has sought out new scapegoats over the past week.

Kids’ football is not perfect and, especially with the transition to the 11-aside game, the growing pains can bring out the worst in many of those on the touchlines. But Mini Soccer, introduced to protests outside Lancaster Gate, then the FA’s headquarters, in 1999, recognises the importance of nurturing our youngest footballers by giving them space on smaller pitches and not asking them to run the equivalent of 16 kilometres or play in goals three times their height.

“The concept has been welcomed almost everywhere,” Howard Wilkinson, the FA’s technical director, who instigated this integral aspect of the 1997 Charter for Quality, said. “The downside would be where parents’ behaviour suggests they still want to turn it into a mini version of the Premier League. But overall it’s been a vast improvement, brought a lot of enjoyment to thousands of children, aided their development, and it would be even further improved by better facilities and better surfaces.”

In Milton Keynes, they play six-a-side; in Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Shropshire, we play seven-a-side. Is this not an anomaly? “As long as they are enjoying themselves, and playing in the right atmosphere, in a conducive framework and getting a lot of touches, does it really matter?” Wilkinson asked rhetorically.

Not many clubs in Mini Soccer are that bothered about results. A year ago, we had only six players for one game, then two of them got injured. So Matlock Saints, leading 3-0 at half-time, loaned us two of their players. When one scored, against his own side, he was welcomed like a lifelong friend by his new teammates. Such a spirit is mirrored throughout a league in which tables were introduced this autumn. Three points are rewarded for a victory; an additional three points are awarded for sportsmanship and the totals amalgamated, though a drawback there, of course, can be overcompetitive managers.

All Charter Standard clubs have an FA Level 1 coach running each team, invariably a volunteer pressganged by the other parents. In the five years in which 23,000 new Mini Soccer teams have been started, the FA has trained 100,000 such coaches and is striving to identify those showing sufficient ability/endurance/masochism to move on to its Level 2 or, with Sir Trevor Brooking’s introduction of the age-specific coaches, a streamlined Level 3. Level 4 is the equivalent of a Uefa A licence; Premier League managers go from there to get their Uefa Pro Licence. So there will be a ladder for the enthusiasts to make a career out of coaching. Most, however, do it for the love of the game.

“We have to use different coaching for 5 to 7-year-olds from the coaching for 8 to 10-year-olds,” Les Howie, the FA’s national club development manager, said, “and for kids at 12-14. We’ve got to get age-appropriate coaches, the right coach at the right time, and challenge mum and dad about their attitudes on touchlines.”

These attitudes become more testing as the children make the leap from seven-a-side to 11-aside. Simon Taylor, a solicitor who runs Rothley Imps Under11s in Leicestershire, underlines the challenge the Level 1 coaches may face in dealing with parents who cannot see beyond their own little super-star. “Some parents only observe one eleventh of any game,” he said. “Coaches may dream of having to make the decisions of a Wenger or a Ferguson, but instead we have to make decisions that are at once social, educational, humane, tactically astute and exposed to the love and scorn of parents who care far more about their offspring than anything in the world. If that sounds pompous, give it a try.”

This is such a valid point. The majority of the most critical touchline snipers are those who have not found the time to get what is a fairly basic qualification. Paul Williams, secretary of Bridgnorth Spartans Junior Football Club, Shropshire’s present FA Charter Club of the year, said: “The course wasn’t too big a commitment, spread over two weekends, but it was enough to give me the confidence and background knowledge I needed to help out with my son’s team. I have witnessed very poor behaviour by parents and coaches but in my experience such incidents are in a minority compared with the exemplary role models.”

Setting the parents away from the touchline by a few yards will work. I tried this out at a Brassington Primary School match on Monday, with a few green cones easily set down, and the 50-odd spectators happily complied. By the time Wirksworth Athletic had finished training that evening, a lad who had a nightmare on Saturday was producing the form of his life: one step back, two steps forward. Just keep encouraging them.

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