Today U15’s Devon Team had a game at South Dartmoor Community College in Ashburton.

Prior to the game started I assisted another student with setting up the VEO camera in order for him to analyse the football game.

Veo | Soccer Camera– more information about the VEO Camera.

I then warmed the players up before the game started at 10am. Saints Southwest have a ‘Club Warmup’ so I just needed to oversee that they were performing the correct exercises and movements in order to prevent injuries occurring.

During the first quarter of the game a player can cut his knee whilst slide tackling so I provided general first aid to ensure there was no rubber crumb stuck to the knee and applied a plaster to cover the graze.

The second quarter had no injuries but at the end of the quarter one of the players were complaining of groin tightness so I applied K-Tape to the affected area to help relieve the tension and reduce the pain then went through some quad and groin stretches with him.

At the end of the match I took them for a cool down.

Being pitch side for games there is not really much I can do until an injury occurs. However I could next time discuss with the coach to see if they need any assistance with the coaching aspects, find out what they are working on today from their training session (main focus) and see if I could bring along some exercises that could help prevent injuries from occurring which they can perform in the warm up. Ensuring they are not just sitting/standing around between each quarter is another thing that I could assist with, making sure they are keeping warm during the breaks are essential as it will keep the blood flow circulating and allowing the athlete to prevent becoming injured.