Thought for the week: The story of the catfish
Allow me a moment to explain this week’s thought. Because at a glance, I know it is easy to dismiss any relevance between football and a group of fish. The thought starts with the codfish, which in America is an important food species. Yet, the best tasting, freshest codfish only come from the west coast, out of the Pacific Ocean. This means that in the east they have a problem: how do they get the same fresh tasting codfish to them without losing the taste during transportation? The first plan was to transfer the codfish on a train in salt water tanks. Yet the codfish were lazy and rested for the entire journey. Therefore upon arrival they didn’t taste fresh. The second idea was to freeze the codfish on their journey. Yet, again they had a dull taste. Finally, it was decided to put catfish in the tank with the codfish. Catfish are the natural enemies of the codfish and would chase the codfish around the tank for the entire journey. The end result meant that the codfish tasted better and fresher than ever on arrival to the east coast.
The moral of the story for our footballers is that we need people on the pitch who act as catfish, as that keeps the players challenged. Without them, life would be easy and people would rest rather than work hard, therefore not improving.
A person will naturally have those catfish characteristics but the majority of people will be the codfish. At FFF we look at those players who have the characteristic of the codfish and see if they can deal with those acting like catfish. For example, if a player has their bib pulled, do they try to continue or pull up complaining? If a player is fouled, do they get up and take the free kick or do they go off sulking?
Our player of the weeks earned their awards this week because amongst other things, they showed that they can deal with the catfish. Aidan Cordes and Jack Hillaire both have that attitude of never giving up. Technically improving all the time, they commonly deal with things going against them. Our Top Funster award went to Aryan ......... Aryan also has a superb attitude and puts in lots of effort to everything he does, which means he will always improve. Aryan has already come on leaps and bounds and is a role model to young footballers looking to improve.
Allow me a moment to explain this week’s thought. Because at a glance, I know it is easy to dismiss any relevance between football and a group of fish. The thought starts with the codfish, which in America is an important food species. Yet, the best tasting, freshest codfish only come from the west coast, out of the Pacific Ocean. This means that in the east they have a problem: how do they get the same fresh tasting codfish to them without losing the taste during transportation? The first plan was to transfer the codfish on a train in salt water tanks. Yet the codfish were lazy and rested for the entire journey. Therefore upon arrival they didn’t taste fresh. The second idea was to freeze the codfish on their journey. Yet, again they had a dull taste. Finally, it was decided to put catfish in the tank with the codfish. Catfish are the natural enemies of the codfish and would chase the codfish around the tank for the entire journey. The end result meant that the codfish tasted better and fresher than ever on arrival to the east coast.
The moral of the story for our footballers is that we need people on the pitch who act as catfish, as that keeps the players challenged. Without them, life would be easy and people would rest rather than work hard, therefore not improving.
A person will naturally have those catfish characteristics but the majority of people will be the codfish. At FFF we look at those players who have the characteristic of the codfish and see if they can deal with those acting like catfish. For example, if a player has their bib pulled, do they try to continue or pull up complaining? If a player is fouled, do they get up and take the free kick or do they go off sulking?
Our player of the weeks earned their awards this week because amongst other things, they showed that they can deal with the catfish. Aidan Cordes and Jack Hillaire both have that attitude of never giving up. Technically improving all the time, they commonly deal with things going against them. Our Top Funster award went to Aryan ......... Aryan also has a superb attitude and puts in lots of effort to everything he does, which means he will always improve. Aryan has already come on leaps and bounds and is a role model to young footballers looking to improve.