This is the topic that ends volunteer coaching careers. A parent asks a fair question in an unfair tone, the coach — who has given four evenings a week since February — feels accused, and both leave the conversation certain the other is unreasonable. It happens most often when nobody has a single reliable number to talk about.
So this guide is not about being told to play everyone. You already know that. It's about the gap between what you intend and what actually happens over a season, and about being able to see that gap before somebody else points it out.
The principle, and why it exists
Go Games are built on a simple idea: children improve by playing, and children who don't play stop turning up. The formats — smaller pitches, smaller teams, everyone getting meaningful time on the ball — exist because the alternative was a generation of kids who spent two seasons on a sideline and then found something else to do on a Saturday. The specific requirements differ by county board, code and grade, and they get revised, so work from your own county's current underage regulations and Go Games guidance rather than from what was true when you played.
The principle underneath is stable, though, and it's worth stating in your own words to your own panel and parents at the start of the year: at these ages, playing is the point. Winning is what makes playing fun; it is not what makes it worthwhile.
Why good intentions drift
Nobody sets out to under-play a child. It happens through a series of individually reasonable decisions:
- The game goes tight. Two points in it with ten to go, and the rotation you planned quietly stops. Do that four times and one child has lost forty minutes over a month.
- You sub by feel. You remember taking off the strong players because it felt significant. You don't remember the child who came on at 48 minutes for the third week running, because nothing happened.
- The quiet ones absorb it. The child whose parent is on the sideline every week gets asked about. The child dropped off at the gate doesn't. Over a season, attention flows to whoever generates noise, and that is a rotten way to allocate minutes.
- Blowout games look generous but aren't. Twenty minutes in a game already won at half time is not the same experience as twenty minutes in a contest. Real equity means sharing the competitive minutes, not just the minutes.
None of that is bad coaching. It's memory doing what memory does. The remedy is not to try harder; it's to write it down.
Track minutes, not appearances
“He played eight of nine games” is the number that hides the problem. Eight appearances of eleven minutes each is a child on the fringe of your panel, and his parents already know that even if the attendance sheet looks fine. Count minutes.
The practical routine, which costs a selector about zero extra effort:
- Plan sub windows before throw-in — say, on 15, 30 and 45 minutes — and write who's going on at each. Decisions made in advance survive a tight game far better than decisions made at 52 minutes.
- Record substitutions as they happen, with the clock running, rather than reconstructing them afterwards. If you use a matchday tool this is a tap; if you use paper, it's a time and two numbers.
- Carry a running total across the season, and look at it before you pick the next team — not after the season, when it's a post-mortem instead of a correction.
- Name the owed minutes out loud in the selectors' chat: “X and Y are 40 behind — they start Sunday.” Once it's said, it happens.
Talking to parents
Two conversations, and they need different preparation.
The one you have in February
Say your approach before anyone has a grievance. Something like: “At this grade everybody plays. We rotate on the clock, not on the scoreboard. We keep a record of minutes and we check it. If you ever think your child is being short-changed, ask me and I'll show you the actual numbers.” Then hold to it, including the day it costs you a match. The first time you don't, everyone notices — the children fastest of all.
If your grade is one where selection genuinely applies — minor, and above — say that just as plainly, and say what it's based on. “Game time is earned from here on” is a fair thing to tell a sixteen-year-old and their parents in February. It is a terrible thing for them to work out for themselves in June.
The one you have in June
When a parent comes to you, three things help more than any argument:
- Take it seriously, not personally. The question “is my child getting a fair go?” is a reasonable one from someone who drives to training twice a week.
- Have the number. “He's on 210 minutes, the panel average is 240, and he's starting Sunday” ends the conversation in ten seconds and leaves trust intact. “I think he's getting plenty” does the opposite, even when it's true.
- Concede the gap if there is one. If the record shows a child has been short, say so and fix it. Coaches are volunteers, not machines; parents are far more forgiving of an honest error than of a defensive one.
One thing to avoid entirely: never justify game time by comparing one child to another in front of a parent. It is the fastest way to turn a fairness conversation into a grievance about a different family, and it will be repeated in a car park within the hour.
What fair actually looks like
Not identical. A panel of twenty-four playing fifteen-a-side cannot give everyone the same minutes, and pretending otherwise sets you up to fail. What you can do is make the spread narrow, make it visible, and make sure it isn't always the same names at the bottom of it. If your least-used player is on 70% of your most-used player's minutes, you're doing well at a competitive underage grade. If they're on 25%, no amount of good intention changes what that child is experiencing.
The measure that matters most isn't on any report: how many of this year's panel come back next year. Minutes are just the best early warning you have.