UAG YDL Match 2 - Stockport 28th May 2017

Matthew Coyle, Matthew Connor & Sam Johnson continue to represent our group and philosophy in an excellent manner and are producing some tremendous results, across a number of different events, as multi-eventers. Match 2 was another great example of how proud we are as a group of: 1/ making athletics accessible to ALL, whatever their sporting objectives are and 2/ how successful we are, with our contribution to trying to keep young people active and healthy.

Matthew Coyle joined us as an U17 and has a training age of less than a year. He only trains once a week, as he plays Cricket & Football as well and he is in Yr10 (the younger year of his age group). His attitude to Competition is exemplary & inspiring to me. He turns up at Competition for all the right reasons: a second training session; an opportunity to work on his technique; an opportunity to develop race fitness; to increase competition experience; to try and achieve PBs ........................................TO DO HIS VERY BEST ON THE DAY for himself and his club! I know he is delighted with the progress he is making with his speed endurance work in training and so his 200m PB is really very well deserved! There is an enormous amount more to come from Matthew if he chose to invest more time into athletics. One thing is for sure, he leads the way, within the group, in terms of his positivity regarding competition. Well done Matthew!

Matthew Connor has currently got other priorities, it is fair to say, however he has stuck at it and because of his talent and our multi-event approach, he is still able to turn up at such an event and: be the only U17 to qualify for three extra throws in the Javelin and naturally win the competition with a good PB; be one of only 3 boys to compete in the Sprint Hurdles and win it; come second in the Long Jump with a jump well below his PB and finally finish off the day being part of a 4x400m winning relay team! Is he doing the right thing for himself? Is he in a very strong position, if he wanted to take athletics more seriously? Have we done the right thing by him as a Group? I believe the answer is Yes to all those questions. Congratulations Matthew! Outstanding in my opinion, especially as the events could have been Discus, Shot, High Jump, 1500m..........etc etc Very Impressive!

Sam Johnson also currently has other priorities and we need to always add the fact that he has only got a training age of 2 years and in that short period of time we have multi-evented with him. I'll keep this short and sweet: one of only three U17 boys to do the hurdles and came a close second to Matt; a PB & UK ranking achieved in the 800m! & a UK ranking in Triple Jump, an event that he doesn't even train for!! Again, outstanding as these are not the only events he is good at or trains for. He could have done High Jump, Long Jump, Discus, 1500m ........etc The questions I raised above and the answer I gave regarding Matthew, holds true for Sam as well. Outstanding Sam!

Talent is important, but I have seen many good sportsman waste it, as they are not prepared to put the hard work in. The last conversation I had with Sam, was that he wanted to do the Lyme Park, Park Run as it was the HARDEST one in the area, this Saturday. If you want to achieve your full potential you need to continue to challenge yourself, you need to have the correct work ethic. Doing the easy option, the bare minimum, gets you nowhere! Whose joining him!?

Three great lads, who are a joy to coach, as they work really hard in training, but also have a good time doing so. One is a United fan and two of them City fans and that tells you that however good you are, you can't have everything in life! :-)