AND there was me thinking these youth coaches were doing it for the love of the game.

The only rewards from taking a junior football side were non-tangible - or so I believed.

What happened last Friday, then, was something of an eye-opener.

As I left our latest training session, I was told: "You've got £500 to spend on anything you need for the club."

Yeah, right. "Anything you need for the club." A euphemism if ever I heard one!

All the lads have got strips and they bring their own boots, so what else might we want?

But just as I was planning a team-bonding session for a select few parents at Newcastle's For Your Eyes Only, preceded by a trip to the world-renowned Rupalis restaurant, my bubble was well and truly burst.

"We need some match balls. And goal nets. And a new set of shorts for our home kit. And a full first-aid kit. And water bottles," piped up one parent.

I stopped him there before he suggested we bought a new manager.

In fact, had I not called a halt to the list, I thought I'd be left facing a £5,000 bill.

Oh well, I suppose the evening at FYEO can wait.

With the countdown to the big kick-off (copyright Sky Sports) underway, I swept a new broom through our usual training regime last week.

Instead of an hour-long five-a-side fest, followed by a little bit of outdoor work, we practised some set-pieces.

One major weakness I pinpointed in last month's tournament was at defending and attacking corners, so I set about remedying that problem.

And as we're not the biggest team in the world - some of our players are so small that we ought to be called Lilliput United, not Willington Boys - I wanted us to try a few cute routines.

Was my idea successful? I'll let you be the judge of that.

Put it this way: we tried out about 15 corners and free-kicks - and scored a grand total of no goals.

But while the execution of our set-pieces could have been better, just as worrying was that our defending wasn't all that clever, either!

Plenty to work on, then. But it must be recorded here that we did improve as the evening unfolded.

Whether the players will have forgotten it all in the last week is a moot point and one that will only be proved right or wrong later today.

This column is being written ahead of our latest pre-season friendly, against Division One team Houghton Hawks on Thursday evening.

I should have a squad of 15 to choose from, so I'm expecting to follow Sven-Goran Eriksson's lead and make a glut of substitutions during the game.

Fingers crossed, we'll have come through it unscathed - and got a confidence-boosting win to boot.

But if we've conceded a goal from a corner, I might just throw myself into the River Wear!

Team spirit is good, although it always helps to have a vulnerable victim at whom the players' mirth can be targeted.

That happened last week, when one lad (I won't give his name to spare him further embarrassment) arrived sporting a handful of pretty ugly marks on his neck.

"I got attacked," he pleaded. "By a seven-year-old girl?" someone asked. Oh, the trials and tribulations of being a teenage boy!