Football class woes - friend's behaviour

[Cat98]

This is a bit of a weird one! But dh and I are disagreeing a bit about how to deal with it. I am not sure of the best way tbh.
DS (4) goes to a football class. he has a friend who also goes.
Background - The friend has had some issues with behaviour in the past - mainly things like hitting and pushing. Friend deals with it sensitively, but in some ways ineffectually although I would never say this to her. He has pushed and hit my ds several times before in anger and either made him cry, or ds pushes back and it turns into a full on scrap.

However my DS generally loves playing with this boy - they enjoy playing chasing games, wrestling etc. My DS is very much a "rough and tumble" kind of kid! Sometimes the friend goes a bit too far but equally ds is no angel and sometimes goads him into hitting him. They have their spats but love to play together at each others houses/soft play.

Also DH and I are good friends with his parents.

However, at the football class, DS is really into it and really wants to just play football. The friend, however, doesn't seem to "get" the whole football thing and literally spends most of the time just chasing my DS. When he catches him, he pushes him! He also shoves him all over the place in line ups etc. DS has pushed back a couple of times and then they have both got into trouble, however most of the time ds tells the friend to stop and he doesn't. DS tries to move away from him, and friend just follows him and shoves him!

The parents have another young kid and so don't always see, when they do see they dismiss it as "the way DS and friend play", which to an extent is true but here in the class it is all the friend pursuing ds, ds really just wants to play football!

The friendship makes it hard. I also feel that we can't just step in for him and that ds will have to learn to deal with other kids maybe doing much worse. He still says he wants to go to football and likes it, just says "friend just wants to play with me but I just want to play football, Mummy!" However dh wants me to have a word with friend's mum. I am not sure this is a good idea and may cause a rift.
wwyd?
thanks for reading, I know it's long :)

[tumbletumble]

Could you talk to the person running the class? Explain that DS loves the class but finds the other boy a bit distracting. Maybe the guy running the class could try to separate them, put them in different groups etc. I think this would be a more successful approach than talking to the other parent, and easier for you too.