...Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut.....

Junior coaching again tonight after the first day back at work.

12 children turned up tonight, including 5 girls, so each coach was responsible for two youngsters. I got two doozies!

The first was a lad who was with us last year...he'd forgotten everything we taught him........couldn't set up the gear...couldn't get a maggot on the hook,......couldn't get a fish off the hook,.....snapped two rigs and got tangled in a branch. These things are sent to try us.

The other lad was with his Dad, who declared that he was o.k. looking after his son as he went fishing himself. While I was with my first learner I kept an eye out on the lad and his Dad. It soon became obvious that they were the only ones not catching. I wandered up to see them and spotted that they were fishing about 3 feet over depth, so I asked the Dad if he could shorten the rig. Easy enough to do, cut the line shorter, tie a new loop and connect to pole and Robert is your uncle. Only the dad couldn't do it....eventually he fessed up....he's only been fishing for three weeks himself...no problem, I stepped in, rig shortened , off the lad went, 1 minute later first fish caught. After about half an hour the lad started to complain about being cold, and the Dad had asked about 50 questions about fishing. Dad replied to son's whine, "It's o.k. Mummy will be here in about 5 minutes".

Five minutes later a car pulled up and out stepped Mummy, I was expecting her to have brought coats or jumpers......but instead she had a couple of pizzas and garlic bread!!!!!! The entire family then proceeded to have tea around me, with the little lad fishing (kind of, it's not easy fishing with a fist full of ham and pineapple pizza) while Mum and Dad carried on with the Spanish Inquisition................and they never even offered me a slice!

When I told the rest of the coaches after the session ended they just fell about laughing!

A similar thing once happened when I was coaching hockey, the team had been winning a match easily 1-0, when an error between a defender and the goalie, led to a soft goal and a 1-1 draw. The team neeeded to win the next match to qualify for the semi-finals, so I was doing my post match analysis and team talk about the next game and how important it was, when I turned round to see the defender accepting delivery of a pizza, which he had ordered at half time in the drawn game instead of listening to the team talk! I was too stunned to even bollock him!

God knows what next week might bring, perhaps it'll be picnics all round!!!!

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