Sport is all about taking opportunities when they come your way.
One great example of this occurred in 1911 when Gaston Varielles the French centre failed to turn up for the rugby international against Scotland. Luckily in the crowd was the French sprinter Andre Franquenelle, who agreed to take his place. The game would be France’s first ever international victory (16-15) and Franquenelle played so well that he would receive two more international caps. The man who he replaced, Gaston Varielles, who it transpired had jumped off a train to buy a sandwich and did not manage to get back on the train before it departed and left him stranded was never selected for France again!
With the “pathways” created by a multitude of sports many will tell you that there is no longer a need for scouts to go and find talented young players. Although few will try and find talented players in the crowd!
These people may well be right, as just last week one sport ran an advertisement on social media inviting people to nominate themselves for an under-age state team! How is that even possible? It is bad enough that we have had club coaches emailed by State Coaches asking them to put forward players from their club for the state side, rather than the coach actually going to watch the players, but having players self-nominate is surely a step too far?
There is however one continual problem that exists in clubland, which makes it hard for some coaches or scouts and that is the numbering of the players.
Yes, some clubs have adopted a squad system where each player is nominated a number. Yes, clubs and associations produce programs with team lists and player numbers. However unfortunately these numbers frequently do not correspond with the number on the player’s back.
In some sports the squad in each grade are given numbers. So when a player is elevated to the first team squad what shirt do their wear if their number is already being worn by a regular first team member? That is a genuine issue.
In some clubs every player has a squad number and that is theirs for the season. Once again problems can occur if they are asked to step up and play for another grade after playing time on the same day in a lower grade. It may be raining and they understandably do not want to sit on the bench in a soaking wet shirt, as they risk picking up a chill. They may have had blood on their shirt in the previous game, and so cannot wear the shirt in the next game.
There are a myriad of circumstances which can create such problems. Probably the best was the other week where the players in the Premier grade rugby that were starting on the bench switched numbers, which was confusing for those with a program. The reason was explained after the game. Certain numbered shirts which had been allocated to the players did not fit them, so they had to swap with a team mate!
The problem is, and this has occurred twice recently is if a coach is going down to a game to watch a player who they have been told has talent, and that player is not wearing the correct shirt number they may well miss out on an opportunity to play at a higher level.
An A-League coach was watching a local game recently because they had been tipped off about a player. When asked whether they had come to watch anyone in particular they revealed the name of the player, but then said that they had been far from impressed with them. They were then told that that may well have been because the player was in fact wearing a different number to the one listed in the match day program! Had that not been pointed out to the coach he would have dismissed that player completely. As it was he stayed to watch the correct player in the second half.
The same thing happened in another sport recently, where the player that the scout was looking at was again wearing a different number.
There has been much talk about making a number of sports more professional in terms of the product that they put out on the pitch, even if the clubs are still run on a volunteer basis, and are still amateur. They are required to meet all manner of administrative criteria and frequently tick boxes to satisfy the powers that be. Yet surely having the program match the players that take to the park should be something that is given more attention? If there is a change, then just as in the olden days when teams only wore 1-11 and the program would differ, have the ground announcer share those changes; however sadly at most grounds the PA system is so bad few would hear the announcement.
This may seem like a frivolous issue to raise, but is one that could have a huge bearing on a young player’s future. It would be a great shame for a player to miss out on an opportunity to take their potential to the next level purely because they were wearing the wrong number.
Then again sport is littered with cases of mistaken identity, and not just in the 2001 movie Harry Bassett England Manager. In 1906 Arnold Alcock who was an average rugby player at Blackheath was surprised to receive a letter inviting him to play for England against the touring South Africans. If he was surprised, the England team were even more surprised when he showed up for the match; there was no training prior to games in those days. The letter was supposed to have been sent to Andrew Slocock, but it was too late to change things and Alcock made his one and only international appearance.
