I've already answered that in my post above when I said the followng:

"In other leagues (e.g. recreational leagues) that feature volunteer coaches (often parents who are not licensed), there are more problems because the score is often considered more important than fun and player development. These are the situations where posting scores/standings often has to be abandoned to help them get the priorities right."

The people who allow their behaviour to be affected by scores and standings are the adults (coaches and parents). These are the people who cause nearly all the problems in youth sports. Removing scores/standings often helps these people get the priorities right (fun and skills development ahead of winning).

As I've also said before, the kids keep score themselves anyway and they know who has won or lost the game. So removing scores/standings has little impact on their desire to be competitive. But having coaches and parents who have the correct priorities increases their fun and development.

Can I just ask a question, someone posted earlier that in some or other hockey game they stopped posting scores when the leading team got to more than 5 above the losing team.

So lets say the score is team A 5, team B 0 - team A scores another 15 goals but these are not posted jus cos - then team B by some miracle has a comeback and scores 6.

Whos in the lead???? do they retroactively put on some of team A's 15 goals or not???? Is the score 5 - 6, 15 - 6 or 6 - 6

The score is 20-6. That is what will be in the score book and what is reported to the league/association. What is on the scoreboard is up to the scorer's discretion - there are no hard and fast rules. I expect they will retroactively add some of team A's goals.

When kids play football at playtime they always keep score, its part of the fun and enjoyment.

... and then just before the bell rings, and when the score is 15-1, someone from the losing team shouts "Next goal the winner!"

i dont believe removing scores and standings helps..boys like to compete and see whos top middle or bottom gives them something to play for.

I do agree about removing parents as coaches esp those who have never played football or have little concept of how to develop players and mentor them.

I know this will sound sexist but removing mothers from the sidelines would help massively..i am a qualified FA coach and coached youth football for many years back in the UK..and mothers were the bain of my life, they tend to get over upset if the team their son plays for gets a thumping or they lose generally i dont think they grasp the concept of winning and losing.

Mothers also seem to think their child is better than it actually is as well. Theres a mum around these parts who moved her child to a different school so he could play for a different hockey team because she didn't think he was progressing enough - when the general concensus between everyone else is that this kid just isn't as gifted in hockey as she seems to think he is.

If one reads the English v Canada school posts, it would appear that deluded mothers are the norm the world over!

I agree - and therefore it seems that we should stop giving out trophies / awarding prizes and keeping scores for every recreational activity that invloves someone with a mother. (or a crap coach)

Sorted.

So you're to blame then.





Kidding.

if i had been italian i would have been a shoe in

Generally they aim to keep the difference at 5 goals - so at 6 - 0 - score board reads 5 - 0 but if team B scores - a goal is added to both teams to make it 6 - 1 until the 5 goal differential is eroded at which point the correct score is posted. All the goals count but the idea is to not humiliate a group of kids that are getting blown out by having 12 - 0 posted on the score board for everyone to see. Not sure it works that well to be honest - but it is nice that they try!

I have coached boys/girls for many years in leagues that post scores/standings and in leagues that don't. Believe me, they compete no matter what. They try to win everything - even if it's a pre-season friendly.

The non-posting of scores/standings doesn't affect the kids' attitude that much at all. They will still compete and try to win each individual game. Removal of scores/standings is used in an attempt to modify the behavior of the adults (coaches and parents) to help them get their priorities in the correct order (fun and skills development ahead of winning).

Once the priorities are correct, then I see no harm is posting scores/standings. As I said before, there's nothing inherently wrong with posting scores/standings per se - the problems occur when the priorities are wrong.

And I agree - dealing with parents is the biggest issue I have as a youth coach. The fathers cause just as many problems as the mothers - although the mothers can certainly get more emotional at games.

i coached from u7s through to u13s when i left.

Now up to u10s teams played in a friendly league where there were no standings but just results and yes they wanted to win every game..at u11 the teams would then enter the competitive league and you suddenly saw a different nature emerge where the boys could see the whole picture of who exactly the best teams were and where their local rivals stood..and it definelty created a more competitive edge to the games that did not existed before and it was something they really enjoyed and got them talking and thinking about the up and coming games.

As for fathers i never had any issues in the UK as most had grown up playing football and were more laid back about the whole thing.

Instead it's better to humiliate them by convincing them that they can't count?

My eldest kid started playing basketball in Germany when he was about 10. In the first competitive game he played in the score was 99-2 for the other team.

He went on to become a pretty good player.