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steven007@live.dk
tlf 44983025
mobil 26353025
2012 Ditte,William,Oliver,Rebecca,Steven (photo)
How I came to Denmark from my native Northeast England is a long story,. However i could not have arrived at a place more closer to my heart , and can best describe Denmark as a BIGGER football land than my own football nation England. Including the berserk fans of Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle (North east English teams)
Now I am not talking about the Premier League , with very few home grown British players , but Denmark's homegrown success, their is no comparison,. Denmark's thriving talent base and the energy, facilities and infrastructure are an example to other lands.(Although not without room for improvement in some critical areas ! more later on that one ?)
England has been playing catch up in the latest years, with the establishment of many first class academies but still i think you the Danes are in front. (With one or two seriouse problems that need adressing)
I am optimistic that my talented children to my Danish wife, will have a much improved chance of making the grade ("If they want to and if they are good enough or lucky enough") in Denmark, than if they where brought up
in England. (55 million people to pick 11 men from, or 5 million, the chances are already 10 times better before one even considers everything else Denmark has to offer as a great football nation.)
Danish players are highly prized in the English leagues, for their technical skills.
This website is a cross between my own family's sporting history and success or failures, Its not the story of a superstar family (yet) but a family which dedicates most of it free time energy into something they love. This will give me a database or rather history which i can reflect on when i am old and finished.
Following our story will also be informative about the local Sjaelland football scene which covers about 1/3 of Denmark, with focus very much on football youth at grass roots, For this background i will draw on my ten years as a trainer and my years as a player mostly for the Royal Airforce (RAF)
First into this family portrait i would like to introduce my daughter
Rebecca Louise Angus 26 years old ( English from my first marriage). Rebecca is an England International who scored in her debut game against the USA when England met USA , Norway and Germany in February 2009 on La Manga. England won 3 - 1.
Rebecca started 2012 playing professionally for Vålerenga newly promoted to the top Norwegian woman's leauge on her return to the"Topserien" after a season in the best Swedish "Dameserie" where she played attacker for Gothenberg based Jitex. Rebecca and Vålengera after a shakey start have 10 points from the last 12 and move into midtable beating recently Kolbotn 3 v 1. Rebecca has respect and good memories of Kolbotn. Representing Kolbotn at the start of her Scandinavian career for a 3 yr period.
For Kolbotn Rebecca scored also the deciding goal in the Norse Kings Cup and was presented to "Kong Harald" at the Bisset stadium November 2008, In front of 10,000 screaming girl fans... what a racket they make... you need ear plugs for that experience !
The explosion of womens football has been phenominal, especially in Scandinavia. Great little clubs like Bagsværd under Henrik Høj are doing
great work specielising in this huge potential.
steven007@live.dk
tlf 44983025
mobil 26353025
Next is my first son to my danish wife Ditte : William Angus 15 years old. William is Denglish (½ Danish ½ English ) He moved over from local rivals Akademisk Boldklub two years ago to become a Lyngby boldklub Liga elite player, for two years with mixed fortunes. It all started so promising under Søren Fjorting for William until a groin injury. After that and a change of trainer to another Søren ... Søren Hermansen and things went down hill for William and other out of favour members of his "troop" who never got another real chance as members of a large troop, relying on training games for match experience ... only 3 were arranged ! When William asked what he should work on, his trainer Søren Hermensen informed him he should just do more of the same, they liked his fighter instilling and told him he had developed very much in the last year .... none of it made sense ! as Søren Hermensens Lyngby side in Denmarks best leauge dived head first to the bottom of the leauge and William still did,t get his chance. An uncompromising stuborn trainer must now regret he did,t involve more of his troop and to make some of his "Prima Donnas" also fight for a place if they did,t contribute. Other prominent players also looked for patures new under Søren Hermensens "Control".
It was a very hard decision and with much thought and risk involved to leave the best leauge in Denmark to trial for Division 1 team B93. Continueing the same principal he had when deciding to leave AB of his own accord ... I take my hat off to his mental strengh and courage. William succesfully completed his trials and immediatly was cast in to the Semi final of the DBU/KBU Cup with his new team. It takes courage to take such a plunge and goes against the "Power" trainers have over the boys ... He has decided his own destination... a valuable lesson !
Williams time in Akademisk Boldklub (AB) and his subsequent move to Lyngby.
Originally under Bjørn Dyrmose,(A first class trainer at AB). Under Bjørn they won silver at Viborgs final elite 7 a-side competition, where teams from Denmark's top clubs participated and the best two from Poland.
OB , AGF, Randers, Vejle , Brondby, Esbjerg amongst some of the 16 names.
AB as the only invited Danish side also played in Germanys largest competition with other European teams, (Noticeably no English teams ?)The Karlsrhur Cup-Wacker Insbruck, Koln, Stuttgart, Borutia Munchen , Duisbjerg and many other top clubs. In the Autumn they visited Locomotive Moscow and other Russian, Finish and Swedish teams in Finland.. We will follow his progress from grassroots club football at Bagsværd with me as his trainer the first five years, and his progression with AB to an exciting future from now into 11a-side football.
Sadly Bjørn Dyremøse finished at the top winning at the very first attempt the transition from 7-aside to 11a-side winning Division 1 at the end of 2008.Because he had not taken hiis A Licence certificate, this excellent trainer was not allowed to take them futher.
It would take a brave man to step forward and fill Bjørns shoes after his success. Basse came forward and a big round of applause for him, but unfortunatly he could not build on Dennis Bøner and Bjørns earlier enthusiasm and success, In fact things went down hill at an alarming rate. At the eleventh hour when everything was looking grey Kenneth Santa, arriving from Farum Nord Sjælland stepped forward, and a huge sigh of relief was released, he can only be described as a football crazy nut, who showed this instantly by choosing to take the team to Italy on tour instead
of going on holiday with his wife.
Enthusiasm is one thing but is it enough?
Kenneth Santa proved to be vvery good for crisis hit AB, but not directly for William who was benched more than we wanted to see, as a flood of new talent was brought in to AB. New Players brought in by Santa to be part of Santas rebuild. Santa never put William of his team, but it was obviouse that williams small stature was holding him back, although Ib for Ib stronger than most, and technically stronger and faster than most others.
AB 96 now had in fact one of the best technical trainers they could have hoped for,after Bjorn Dyremose.
Before Kenneth Santas arrival at AB, William had a trial and accept from Lyngby.
William then decided to give Kenneth Santa a chance when he first came to AB. His loyalty to Santa and AB faded with the lack of playing time and again William went for trials with rivals Lyngby... This time William and Lyngby said yes to each other.There are no bad feelings, but it shows I think how things can change almost overnight from a team having success , failure and success again and the casualties of talent that get positively and nagatively handled along this rocky road... and this really was only a taste of what was to come ... more later. It is tough at the top and gets tougher.
steven007@live.dk
tlf 44983025
mobil 26353025
Last but not least we will follow the progress of Oliver Angus now 12 years old.(Also "Denglish")
As with William I was Olivers trainer for 4 yrs in a small but great little local club Bagsværd where I was sure I could personally give them the best ground principles and the fundemetal skills ... (dribble and shoot with both feet)
Oliver also has the basic ingredient of talent that Becky and William posess and I have tried to develop this also to its full potential .,
We played 5 a-side football with Bagsværd for the first 18 months ... under the Danish Ball Unions resrtucturing of childrens football .. more on that later !
The rest of the time we played 7a-side. We established Bagsværd as one of the best teams on Sjælland, beating regularly and easily our big
brother neighbour clubs Akademisk and Lyngby "boldklubs" with a great little team. This year group of Olivers 2000 team surpassed the 4 years of success which I had with his brother Williams year 96 team even though they were also very good. The talent base in the year 2000 had been much easier to work with. However a hard lesson was learnt by me (Olivers far/trainer).
The hard lesson was that the small clubs can create teams to compete with the big clubs, but maintaing that standard is much more difficult compared to the bigger clubs,. Natural losses, boys stopping for one reason or another, can not be replaced or trained as quickly as they go to the bigger clubs. We were victims of our own early success with other bigger clubs jealousely looking at our boys. At this point Oliver crossed over to our big brother club AB in a year group over himself. He was placed after his trials
initially in AB,s year group 99 2nd team. With Dennis Børner as trainer, I knew he was in very good hands.
(Dennis had handed over his succesful year 96 team to Bjørn Dyremose who my first son William had played succesfully under).... The recipe for success was already in place. At this point we simply did not look at Akademisk Boldklubs year 2000 team who were a long way behind the standard they should be, In recent years Sehat from "Værløse" their new trainer has made great progress with them and helped restore respect back to the AB year 2000 group.
Oliver and his team mate from Bagsværd Thomas Curtis where the only ones to make the cut for Dennis,e AB 99 teams. Many remaining Bagsværd players also moved over to AB,s yr 2000 team, which give them a core to build on. Since then my midfield from Bagsværd 2000 team has become centre piece with some of Dennis,s original team to be fast AB 99 first team players, having success at both 9 aside and 11aside football.
As you can see my children are all on their way. ,Only time will tell if it is to continue on an upward spiral ... but one thing is for sure ! it gets tougher and more cut throat every time you take a step up the ladder.
I will also try to explain the formula that works for me as a trainer my good and bad experiences the mistakes pitfalls and the pleasures and successes. Maybe someone will be motivated to give back something to a fantastic sport like football is, and nurture not only his own talentfull children but also all the others children to help create a great social network.
As a father and trainer I have to always remember and remind myself, at the end of the day it is their personal choice that is the most important , and I will and must always respect what they want to do and not what i would like to see happen. All I can do is give them the tools to do the job, if they want to do it. Lucky for us all we are just still enjoying our football. It should always be fun with a touch of dedication,.
AB offred me a place with their AB 99 squad of boys as a trainer which I accepted after a welcome winter rest and I could,t resist the temptation after they had paid for one of my training certificates,. After 18 months as AB,99 second team coach with close co-operation between Dennis and the new head coach Peters first team I called it a day. The type of Co-operation I demanded as a condition between the 1st and 2nd team is very surprisingly unusual with most clubs here in Denmark... despite the clear advantages of keeping talent at the club. (Much more on this seriouse problem later ?)
After 10 years I have accomplished my mission. Both my boys have had a good grounding in basic principles and played at a high level in a smaller clubs befor joining the same big brother club AB, and continue to play at the highest possible level. With William moving on to Lyngbys,U/17 League troop.
After 10 years with an average of 30 hours a week dedicated free time ,I have taken some time of over the winter of to catch up on some of those neglected duties around the house, for example to finish my bathroom (It has taken 5 years and not 6 months like I promised the Mrs). Ill be back...... !
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