Saturday 12^th June. It’s 7.30pm and, post-Oxford City, mandatory drug testing and the mini bus journey back up the A40, one of the GPSFA ‘A’ Squad members takes part in a Q & A session at which, contrary to the usual protocol, it’s the player who is posing the questions.

Q: Can I ask a few general questions first and then a few more about today’s games?

A: Of course you can. Ask away.

Q: Besides GPSFA, I play for two other teams. One of my other coaches says I’m a Defensive Central Midfielder and shouldn’t think about playing anywhere else. Everyone says he knows lots about football. So, is he right?

A: I know plenty of people who know lots about algebra and equations and theorems and calculus, which means they probably know lots about maths. But it doesn’t mean they know anything about children. You’re 11, you love playing and for your age, you’re decent. Don’t let adults spoil that.

Q: Hmmm; okay. I’ll think about that. The second thing my coach says is that I need to play football twelve months a year if I want to improve.

A: Your coach has a point. Twelve months a year of non-stop football will certainly improve your chances of sustaining recurring injuries as you’re using the same muscles and the same movements over and over and over again and will also hugely escalate the possibility of you losing your love of the game and packing it all in by the time you’re eighteen, ‘because you’ve had enough.’ So, it’ll definitely improve the chances of those things happening. On the downside, playing twelve months a year to the exclusion of other sports and pastimes limits your co-ordination spectrum, polarises your friendship groups and by putting all your sporting eggs into one basket, ramps up the very real possibility of you feeling you’ve failed if you don’t reach the levels you (or, more probably, someone else) would like. And apart from all that, you’re only 11 once and it’s a great age. Enjoy being with your mates, going out on your bike, having a kickabout where no-one knows the score and no-one would care even if they did; clambering over the adventure playground, hiding behind a tree trunk so your parents spend (not too long) looking for you; laughing, joking, chatting, listening; telling stories that become more exaggerated every time you recount them; slurping the nuts off the top of your Cornetto; trying to find the sea at Weston-super-Nightmare; losing a fiver trying to make that single 10p piece that will push all the other 10p pieces over the edge of that oh, so unbelievably addictive arcade machine that may eventually win you a quid which will take no more than thirty seconds to lose and finally take a few risks which, whether they work or they don’t work, will be so absolutely invaluable in the weeks and months and years to come as you learn for yourself what’s good, what isn’t so good and what, with a little bit of tweaking, might just possibly be good.

Q: Oh, okay, but I may need to read that lot again. The third thing my coach says is that we need a full, individual de-brief after every game, be told every time we do something wrong and that facing up to things we’re not very good at is essential for character-building.

A: Do you want that?

Q: Not really. I just want to play.

A: Interestingly, I went on a coaching course about a hundred years ago and some of the people there said exactly the same about the ‘young adults’ in the youth teams they were coaching. Just before lunch, the instructor sat everyone down, passed out pieces of paper and pencils and announced we were having a spelling test. He’d collect in everyone’s answers, mark them over lunch and put the results on the flip chart so everyone could see them. According to some of the participants, this wasn’t on, there was no way they were taking part and a genuine revolution was on the cards. Character-building techniques which were supposedly so important to the ‘young adults’ in the teams they coached clearly had nothing to do with them. Oh, and by the way, you’re not a ‘young adult’. You’re 11.

Q:  The last thing my coach says is that school doesn’t matter as lots of really successful people didn’t do well at school, so I should concentrate everything on my football instead.

A: Everyone is good at different things. Some are quite good at maths, others at science or French or design. Other people are quite good at sport or art or music or making or mending things. But whatever you’re good at and whatever you’re not so good at, having an ‘I want to be the absolute best I can be’ approach to everything you do, whether it be school, football, looking after your dog, playing the piano, being nice to other people or whatever, is your absolute best chance of achieving success. Having a great attitude and a massive amount of ‘drive’ is the key to having a successful and really fulfilling life.

Q: So, does that mean if I work really hard, I should achieve everything I want, like becoming a millionaire, being a pro footballer, flying to the moon and winning ‘Britain’s Got Talent’? Particularly winning ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

A: No, but if it means that you’re the absolute best you can be, I’m not sure you, or anyone else, can do any more than that.

Q: That all makes pretty good sense when you think of it. Now can I ask you a few questions about Saturday?

A: Crack on.

Q: What do you think of Oxford City FC as a venue for the District Finals?

A: I think it’s as good as we can possibly get. Geographically, it’s in the centre of the region from which the participants come; there’s the 3G pitch, so apart from being a great surface on which to play, there are no potential weather or reseeding issues; the stadium is the perfect size in that the crowd looks and feels like a crowd, making for a good atmosphere and organisationally, the people there are great to deal with. Oh, and their new Weather Team did a really good job this year in sorting out the sun as well. Always helps.

Q: Has Gloucester got a good record in the Southern Counties Cup?

A: Gloucester has reached the actual final ten times in the last thirty years – and you were a big part of the tenth. The next team in the all-time list has made six final appearances. So, not a bad record for a provincial city that is best-known for its rugby and has never had a Football League side. #SuperGlos

Q: So, if Gloucester has reached the final on average once every three years, it must be quite an easy thing to do.

A: If it was that easy, everyone would do it.

Q: Are there moments in games when you think: ‘We’re going to win now?’

A: Not very often, but when the Wokingham coach dug his big white tactics board out of his bag and started moving the counters around at half time on Saturday, I thought: ‘This is gonna be our day.’

Q: How do you think I did in the two matches we played?

A: You decide once you’ve looked in the mirror: How much real effort did I put in? How good were my concentration levels? How well did I prepare for each game? How did I react when I came up against the better players and when things got tough? If you score highly on all of these things, I think you did really well.

Q: Do you think we made any mistakes when we played?

A: Of course people made mistakes; it’s what happens when you’re 11 years old. And without wishing to depress you, it’s also what happens when you’re 21, 31, 41, 51 or 61 and everywhere in between. It’s just that, if we’re not careful, the older we get, the more we tend to forget about the mistakes we made when we were 11. I can guarantee you – there were loads.

Q: Were we unlucky not to beat Wolverhampton in the final?

A: Only if you were lucky to beat Wokingham in the semi, so not at all. In sport, as in life, you win or you don’t. And if you don’t, you try to win next time. It’s interesting that most ‘unlucky’ people fail and that most people who fail, are ‘unlucky’.

Q: So, how should I react when our team loses?

A: While you should never, ever enjoy the moment you lose, you should always accept that your opponent on the day came out on top and that’s how it is. They’re not lucky, you’re not unlucky; it’s not fair or unfair – and it’s nobody’s fault. We win together and we lose together. That’s life; move on. That’s not to say you should like losing – you shouldn’t. But you must accept it. People who can’t accept things going against them tend to have a pretty short sporting involvement. And sport apart, people who find accepting setbacks difficult tend to have relatively unfulfilling lives, too. One of the greatest sayings of all time is this: ‘Success is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.’ Have a ponder as to what this means. And then come back competing even harder.

Q: I will, but I have a few more questions to ask first. The other day, I overheard my mum and dad talking about the glass being ‘half full’ or the glass being ‘half empty’. What does this mean?

A: Take the final v Wolverhampton as a great example. The ‘glass half-empty’ people will focus on the fact we lost, analyse everything to the n^th degree and remain hugely disappointed to the exclusion of everything else. The ‘glass half-full’ people will think that every player gave of their absolute best, had a brilliant attitude, were a hundred per cent committed and, all in all, couldn’t have done much more. Forget half; that’s 99% full in my book.

Q: Point taken. After Saturday’s final, my mum told me she was proud of me even though we lost. How can this be?

A: Pride is a funny thing. People will tell you, quite rightly, that they’re proud of you when you win a cup, get a good job, receive a high grade in an exam or collect something impressive from a posh person with a gown while hundreds of people are clapping and your family members are crying. But they’re all ‘one-off prouds’ and they tend to occur mostly when good things happen, which is a bit limiting. Real pride comes from who you are and what you’re like. It has little to do with football, jobs, exams or status; it’s got nothing to do with money or any number of material considerations. It’s about how you react when things go wrong, what you do when times get hard, how supportive you are of other people. It’s about how well-mannered and respectful you are, how much drive to succeed that you show, how much commitment you make to whatever you do, how much you give and how little you want in return. Real pride is about the way that you feel and the things that you stand for; about who you are today and the person you’re going to become tomorrow.

Q: Hmmm. So, are you all proud of us?

A: You’ll never, ever know how much.

Gloucester: Marvin; Hurricane, MfAS, BB Dix; Triple B, Cooperman, Rhodes, 60cm, Freemason; Monty Don.