Monday, May 26, 2008

Once a Tiger, always a Tiger. (John Northey)

Although not as keen a follower of the Richmond Football club as I was back in the later 60’s, I still keep an eye on them and their progress. (Which of late hasn’t been that much although they did win their last game this week!)

Anyway, although not a great "footie tragic" I like to read about "my Tiges” if I see something in the Newspaper, especially like last Sunday when it was on one of the players of “my era” of the late 60’s. It was a long article on one, John “Swoopy” Northey, who after playing one hundred games for Richmond and becoming a legend of his era, went on to coach 300 Games at 4 of the top clubs, including the Tigers.

Now at 65 he is coaching a country-side at Ballarat. He says that he had no idea of continuing as a coach, as he thought his days as a coach were behind him, but was persuaded to do so again in 2005 for Ballarat.

In his interview John mentioned a couple of players who, when he took over were full timers in the Reserves but now are champions of the club, because of the training that they put in. John went onto say, “ Until people put the work in, they don’t often realize the ability they have.”

What about you? It doesn’t matter if you are a young footballer or an “old timer” coach, you too can be successful, if you are prepared to give it one more go and put in the preparation work, the training, the practice and the old boring grind, that is often all that is required to take you to the next level!

Unfortunately most of us want the glory and the success, but we are just not prepared (or willing) to put in the extra work and effort required to go from being a full-time second stringer, to a full-time stalwart of the team.

Sometimes we use our age as an excuse to just not try, saying that we are past that stage, but in fact we are not but need the motivation to continue on.

What is there that you need to put in the extra miles of training and preparation the will take your from fulltime mediocrity, to fulltime success? Over to you for comment, but maybe you need to go back to what you started and see it through to the end by giving it your all?

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