A Youth Football Manager With Terminal Cancer Hopes To Bring Fun Back To Football

A youth football manager diagnosed with terminal abdominal cancer is so exasperated with pushy parents ruining the game that he has decided to change the mindset towards children’s sports. Kids football manager, 37, has put on paper a fresh list of rules for the sport. He has been in the business for only seven months – a time too long to grasp that competitive mums and dads are “sucking the fun” out of youth football.Show more

Russ Powell from Stoke-on-Trent has created a fresh list of rules for the children of his team, Kidsgrove Athletic Ravens under 7’s, that would preserve fun in football and to leave as his legacy since being diagnosed with terminal cancer. With only a few more months to live, his diagnosis helped him understand what was really important in life.

The list is called “Russ’s Rules” and they are as follows:

– We will always try our best.
– We support our teammates – we all do well when we work together.
– We will avoid arguing and respect the decisions of officials.
– We will play fair. Real winners follow the rules.
– If we win we won’t rub it in.
– If we lose we won’t make excuses.
– We will learn from our mistakes and get back in the game.
– We will end with a handshake.
– We will be the kind of people who make the world a friendlier place.
– We will have fun.

“It’s all about the kids, the rules, protecting them and making sure the adults are involved – parents, coaches – are doing right by the kids and not ourselves,” he says.