Hello

I have been coaching now for two years, taking roughly the same group of lads from U6 to current U8. They’re an incredible bunch, very tight knit and supportive of one another and they all love football. Coaching them is one of the best things I’ve done in my life and the parents are fantastic too - I’m so lucky to have them.

Unfortunately my assistant coach, whose son is our regular GK, is an incredibly bad loser for whom results matter way too much. This has led to him being reprimanded twice by our safeguarding team (he’s made kids cry by shouting at them for mistakes on the pitch) and his coaching attitude is anathema to my own. He has now decided to step back slightly on game days to avoid more trouble, which is nice, but it then means I spend the days after the match being bombarded by negative texts about how bad the kids are and that kind of thing. This week after a (relatively rare) defeat he has been sending stats about how many shots our defence gave away and telling me they need to sort themselves out. This is to shift blame from his son, no doubt, who actually refused to play on with about 10 minutes left because he couldn’t stand letting goals in. And he spent the warm-up telling all who would listen “we’re going to get battered”. 

No one else, it’s fair to say, has given the result a second thought. The kids didn’t care, the parents were happy as always and we’ll play again next weekend having learnt loads. What can I do? I’m sick of his constant negativity and refusal to engage with the ethos of our club as a whole and everything we were taught in our training, which he considers “woke”. He takes my opinions/feedback, (which I always put a lot of thought into to make sure I’m reasonable) as a personal insult and threatens to quit. It’s crazy! He’s in his 50s!