While we still had no luck finding a lead coach for the younger group, thankfully a student coming for a placement assessment was to lead. However, a randomly large increase in the number of children he had planned for meant I needed to take half of the children away to work with them on something different. Without anything planned, this was somewhat of an unnecessary challenge! Thankfully, Chris was able to take payments for the night which did make things a touch easier.
For the second session, again Gavin and I split the group into two, with the older group working on an increasingly difficult possession drill that was made appropriate for their age while I continued to work on ball skills with the younger group. The session looked much better being split into two and with more appropriate coaching for the different children involved. Certainly, what I covered in my session would have been much too simplistic for the strivers in the older group.
We also had two younger assistants helping out, one paying back the club for financing his FA Level 1 and the other to complete the volunteering hours for his Duke of Edinburgh award. While both were inexperienced and young to be involved in coaching, they were confident and keen to get involved, whether it be assisting the session or in refereeing the matches.