Quarterly Respect Awards announced by Stewart Taylor - League Respect Co-Ordinator
Tue 14th December 2021 | Respect Campaign | By Stewart Taylor
League Respect Co-Ordinator, Stewart Taylor gives us an insight into the principals and reasonings of our strong beliefs in the Respect campaigns of recent years and how (and why) we strive for best practice on and off the park. Stewart also announces the first Respect Award winners of the season.
Football is about your team winning matches is it not? Yes, of course it is but, for most of us, there is more to it than that. The vast majority of us involved with what the illustrious Pele once described as o jogo bonito at our level are volunteers. We could go a little further and say that football is our hobby and we all know how time-consuming it can be. It is more than fair to say that hobbies, almost by their very definition, need to be enjoyable otherwise we simply wouldn’t do it.
Whilst the Football Association have definitions revolving around Respect, my preference is to look at the idea of enjoyment (of a hobby) and how that enjoyment is manifest encompassing the overall concept of Respect.
Clubs which have been with the NWCFL for the last half dozen years or so will have seen how what I prefer to term the Enhanced Respect Initiative was developed bearing in mind that underlying consideration of volunteer enjoyment of the game. For clubs which have joined the League more recently, and others within the wider football family, then a few words of explanation of the thought processes behind the form which is submitted after every League match have come about might be useful.
In the beginning, a small team representing clubs, match officials and the League met and agreed the criteria to be involved in the process. These criteria cover every significant aspect of a match in sections relating to before, during and after the match in question. Specifically, these criteria say nothing about playing performance or match results. Such a process needed to be measurable in such a way that we took on board the over-arching League concept of “continuous improvement”. Hence, once the various categories were established we came up with a marking system which is, deliberately, heavily skewed in favour of “Good” and “Excellent ratings.
Every year, at the pre-season club meetings, we agree that the overall objective from the Enhanced Respect Initiative is an average rating of “Good” or better. This works out as an average mark of 67% and where this is not achieved it is highlighted in the three monthly analysis of results published in the League Management Committee Meeting Minutes.
This approach inevitably leads to comparisons but the objective is really to highlight the aspects of the Initiative where improvement can be found most readily – low hanging fruit if you will. What it also does is to allow annual comparisons based on the same methodology to establish if improvements are being made in line with League Objectives.
At this point we have to say that, as with many, many aspects of life, Covid 19 has had an influence. When we were thinking about the Enhanced Respect Initiative for this season back in June and July it was less than certain what restrictions might be placed on us. What seemed most likely is that the elements of the Initiative relating to Refreshments would be the most affected to the extent that the providing of food and drink in enclosed spaces may have been banned as in previous manifestations of the Covid related rules. So we left these elements out for this season largely because we needed consistency across the whole of the League season even though this would mean that the results for this season would not be directly comparable to some others. So far, the provision of refreshments has not been compromised this season but who knows what might happen in the relatively near future.
At the outset of this process it was established that we would have sufficient data to make comparisons, as indicated above, and be in a position to recognise achievement. The award is subject to confirmation from the League Management Committee and is based on the ranking tables published on a three-monthly basis with due consideration of any Misconduct Charges as raised by the various County FAs. It will come as no surprise that the award is per Division of the NWCFL hence we have three awards in each three monthly period of the season.
We are delighted to confirm that the winners of the awards for the first three-monthly period of this season are:-
Premier Division – Lower Breck
First Division North – Bury AFC
First Division South – Cheadle Heath Nomads
Congratulations to all three clubs and the awards will be presented in due course.
Let’s not forget that the methodology behind this process provides a mechanism for clubs to recognise which aspects of the matchday experience can be improved and, let’s be very clear, in whatever walk of life we may be talking about, things can always be improved.
Can I just conclude this article with my normal exhortation – “Enjoy the Match”.
Quarterly Respect Awards announced by Stewart Taylor - League Respect Co-Ordinator
Tue 14th December 2021 | Respect Campaign
By Stewart Taylor
League Respect Co-Ordinator, Stewart Taylor gives us an insight into the principals and reasonings of our strong beliefs in the Respect campaigns of recent years and how (and why) we strive for best practice on and off the park. Stewart also announces the first Respect Award winners of the season.
Football is about your team winning matches is it not? Yes, of course it is but, for most of us, there is more to it than that. The vast majority of us involved with what the illustrious Pele once described as o jogo bonito at our level are volunteers. We could go a little further and say that football is our hobby and we all know how time-consuming it can be. It is more than fair to say that hobbies, almost by their very definition, need to be enjoyable otherwise we simply wouldn’t do it.
Whilst the Football Association have definitions revolving around Respect, my preference is to look at the idea of enjoyment (of a hobby) and how that enjoyment is manifest encompassing the overall concept of Respect.
Clubs which have been with the NWCFL for the last half dozen years or so will have seen how what I prefer to term the Enhanced Respect Initiative was developed bearing in mind that underlying consideration of volunteer enjoyment of the game. For clubs which have joined the League more recently, and others within the wider football family, then a few words of explanation of the thought processes behind the form which is submitted after every League match have come about might be useful.
In the beginning, a small team representing clubs, match officials and the League met and agreed the criteria to be involved in the process. These criteria cover every significant aspect of a match in sections relating to before, during and after the match in question. Specifically, these criteria say nothing about playing performance or match results. Such a process needed to be measurable in such a way that we took on board the over-arching League concept of “continuous improvement”. Hence, once the various categories were established we came up with a marking system which is, deliberately, heavily skewed in favour of “Good” and “Excellent ratings.
Every year, at the pre-season club meetings, we agree that the overall objective from the Enhanced Respect Initiative is an average rating of “Good” or better. This works out as an average mark of 67% and where this is not achieved it is highlighted in the three monthly analysis of results published in the League Management Committee Meeting Minutes.
This approach inevitably leads to comparisons but the objective is really to highlight the aspects of the Initiative where improvement can be found most readily – low hanging fruit if you will. What it also does is to allow annual comparisons based on the same methodology to establish if improvements are being made in line with League Objectives.
At this point we have to say that, as with many, many aspects of life, Covid 19 has had an influence. When we were thinking about the Enhanced Respect Initiative for this season back in June and July it was less than certain what restrictions might be placed on us. What seemed most likely is that the elements of the Initiative relating to Refreshments would be the most affected to the extent that the providing of food and drink in enclosed spaces may have been banned as in previous manifestations of the Covid related rules. So we left these elements out for this season largely because we needed consistency across the whole of the League season even though this would mean that the results for this season would not be directly comparable to some others. So far, the provision of refreshments has not been compromised this season but who knows what might happen in the relatively near future.
At the outset of this process it was established that we would have sufficient data to make comparisons, as indicated above, and be in a position to recognise achievement. The award is subject to confirmation from the League Management Committee and is based on the ranking tables published on a three-monthly basis with due consideration of any Misconduct Charges as raised by the various County FAs. It will come as no surprise that the award is per Division of the NWCFL hence we have three awards in each three monthly period of the season.
We are delighted to confirm that the winners of the awards for the first three-monthly period of this season are:-
Premier Division – Lower Breck
First Division North – Bury AFC
First Division South – Cheadle Heath Nomads
Congratulations to all three clubs and the awards will be presented in due course.
Let’s not forget that the methodology behind this process provides a mechanism for clubs to recognise which aspects of the matchday experience can be improved and, let’s be very clear, in whatever walk of life we may be talking about, things can always be improved.
Can I just conclude this article with my normal exhortation – “Enjoy the Match”.
