End of Year 2020 was quiet a difficult time in our lives. I lost my brother, to respiratory complications in Zimbabwe. Misheck was a great inspiration to Del on his taking up of football as his passion. Only our last visit home, kicking the ball around was their way of bonding in. During the year, there had been no notable football games or play for him to engage in due to the corona virus. We took a precaution approach of not engaging a lot in crowd activities. Nevertheless we still allowed Del to attend one or two sessions at the Drury Football Club.
As the new year came,his mum in her internet searches came across the Ricki Herbert Football Academy, and made the undertaking that in memory of my brother, the best we can do for Del in his quest to be a professional footballer as he put it, at least we should be prepared to invest more in his talent. At the same time we would allow Rin his sister to take up swimming lessons as well as she seemed to have a more keen swimmer than Del has ever been. And so we signed up for Del, to join this elite academy.
Del had been part of the Waiuku Soccer Development But somehow in all the times that he has been there, I strongly felt that he wasn’t getting the attention that his talent deserved. It seemed he was there primarily to assist the other kids to play and achieve the level he was at instead of further developing his own. In addition to that there was some sort of ganging up where in principle once he is position of a ball, all the kids, would quickly want him to release it to them whilst unfortunately they wouldn’t voluntarily pass the balls to him. From my perspective the coaches needed to manage that aspect of play, but it seemed not to have been an issue with them. I raised that with the coach, who just downplayed it and the kids power play continued. When Del raised the issue as well, I simply encouraged him not to pass the ball away unnecessarily, which is contrary to any football spirit to built in your child.
So when the Ricki Herbert Academy came about, we lurched on it as an opportunity to keep providing him a chance to further develop his skill.So today 11 February 2021, is his first day, possibly not much will happen, as it would be more an introduction to the academy and how everything works. I will take the afternoon off so that I could drive him there, with mum and Rin, and hopefully this will be considered as his start to a professional football career in the next phase of his life.
Super Del Football 