LETTER
Over the weekend during the finals of a kids’ soccer tournament, my nine-year-old son Cailean was subjected to verbal abuse from two parents of a member of the opposing team.
We believe this was an attempt to intimidate my son and the other players on his team so that their son’s team could win.
In spite of my husband’s best efforts (as both father and team coach) to raise the young Fencibles team’s (Fencibles United Hamilton 10th grade rep team) morale, the damage had already been done and the boys were so badly scared by these “adults’” outbursts that they didn’t play as they usually did and lost.
After the game, the father “apologised ” but in such a way as to actually attack my son again.
Normally, I would let it go as yet another display of poor parental sportsmanship, having witnessed this too many times before. However, my son is doing speeches for his school work and had already produced a heartfelt speech outlining the effects of negative sideline behaviour.
We asked him to record it and I uploaded it to YouTube so that others (especially those parents who feel that their child’s team must win at all costs) could see it.
I thought it might be something you would be interested in sharing with your readers.
Katie Hamilton
Sunnyhills
