JON COKE'S other half reckons that she's a footballer's wife without the TV glamour.

In fact, the Kingstonian defender mentions the word 'football' with some trepidation at their gaff in Maida Vale, because when he's not keeping Ks at the top of Ryman Division One, he's coaching Shepherd's Bush United U11s - and when he's not doing that he's at his day job teaching in Chiswick at The Falcons School.

"She doesn't really want me to do all this," he said, "but I love coaching the kids and I want to play at as high a level as I can for as long as I can."

And he's done pretty well in both so far.

With Coke at the helm, Shepherd's Bush have won the Hayes & District League twice in a row for their age group, and the former FA Trophy winners are recovering from a six-year slump to fetch the kind of championship odds not worth the walk to the bookies.

Shepherd's Bush started when Coke and former QPR community worker, Danny Hibbert, launched Sports for Choice, their west London football coaching scheme.

"We thought that as we had quite a lot of talented boys turning up to the sessions, it would be good to make a football team out them," explained Coke.

Three sides as it turned out, with the Kingstonian man taking his side from U9 level to their current U11 status.

He coaches on a Tuesday night, and miraculously on a Saturday morning as well.

Tip-toeing out of the house he's at the Virgin Active Centre in East Acton by 9.30am where he prepares United for their match the following day.

He's usually required to meet up with the other Kingstonian players by midday - and if it's an away game at somewhere like Sittingbourne - he's not back before 9pm that night.

His dinner isn't always in the cat, and the glances when he dumps his kitbag in the hall, aren't always frosty.

But Coke admits it can be a tiring existence, although not as tiring as it seems to be for his boys this season.

For the first time they're playing on full-size pitches and their coach wrings his hands at the pointlessness of it all.

"They're all still very young, and they're lucky if they can get a corner kick into the box - never mind making it tell," he said.

"You try and teach players about being marked and working in a tight area so they can improve skills - and then all at once they've got acres of space. "What it does is turn our young footballers from technically gifted players into athletes.

"If they can run harder and they're tall, at this age they're going to win games - and that doesn't do anybody any favours."

For all that, United U11s are joint top of the league - again, and Coke and younger brother Giles, who plies his trade with Northampton Town in League One, have plans.

Coke snr explained: "We'd like to start a footballer's agency, so that maybe when the talent at Shepherd's Bush comes through and they're a few years older, we can look after their interests.

"We'd certainly know who we're dealing with."