Soccer game October 7th

Dear Bro,

As yesterday was Saturday and it is after Labor Day, it means that every weekend I lug my 43 year old body out on to a local soccer field and duke it out with another team of glory-seeking over 30 "nothing better to do" male and female "adults". I have been performing this ritual for a spring and fall season over the last 13 years, with an occasional session missed for injuries.

The email from our team captain goes out on a Tuesday with an RSVP required to see if we need to recruit any substitutes for the week. You see, when you play in this league, there is the nagging problem that some of our players have a "real" life, including functions with their kids, weddings, festivals, or even vacations. Rarely have we not been able to round up the 6 guys and 5 gals necessary to field a team. The rules are the same as any other soccer game, except a female has to touch it in the offensive half of the pitch before you can score, there is no slide tackling, and we play four 20 minute periods rather than two 45 minute halves.

So after an active Saturday of running around town taking care of errands, I managed to relax for a 1/2 hour around 3:30 before changing into my soccer garb and heading for the door at 4:00pm. The games start at 5:00pm, but this game was on the other side of town in Day Heights so I needed some extra lead time to be able to get there for the start. As I got closer and got off the freeway for the last few miles, I found that I should have left the day before if I wante d to get there on time, as it took a good 20 minutes to go the final 3 miles up Rte 131 to get there. I actually watched two teens overtake me to the right as they smoked their cigarettes and laughed about something really funny as they walked on by.

Eventually I finally maded it to Miami Meadows park, only to spend another couple of minutes trying to turn left as the cars coming the other direction were backed up as well and no one felt any tinges of chivalry to actually let any of us in the left turn lane perform that particular manuver. This can create an uncomfortable situation for the people in the cars blocking our ability to turn, but they had this figured out as they stared dead ahead with an intensity only matched by Marine recruits on their first day of boot camp.

Now I am in the parking lot and ready to find my playing field. Normally we have played at a field in the far corner by the lake so that is where I point my car towards. Again, not that simple today.... it appears there are well over 60 kids soccer teams that originate out of the Day Heights/Milford area and they all happen to be playing each other on this Saturday at Miami Meadows. So slowly I drive at a crawl trying to get to the back of the park, waiting on numerous occasions for mini-vans(female) and crewcab pickups(male) to pull out of their parking spots, as the majority of them were eager to get in the line leaving at the entrance to the park so they too could spend 1/2 of their lives watching two teenagers in black Hendrix t-shirts stroll by them puffing and chuckling.

Another five minutes pass and I have turned the corner and am getting closer to the gamesite. I then hits me that the park dead ends at the lake so I better not wait til the end of the road to find a parking spot in this sea of parentmobiles. So about 100 yards short I see an open spot and take it quickly before it is gobbled up. Wedged tightly between two very badly parked mini-vans I manage to squeeze out of my car and make it to the field.

I can not find a single teammate. Not surprising as they are probably still cursing the same traffic jam I have just escaped. Within two minutes one of my teammates appears and we both proceed to do what I was doing before, look in all directions for everyone else. Finally we see a teammate across the driveway telling us we are playing over on that side today. So we pick up our gear and head over, to see a few more teammates hanging around there as well as several players from the other team. More waiting followed as neither team has many members and no one present had the prerequiste for warming up... an actual soccer ball.

More minutes pass and we finally have more team members from both sides making it through the gauntlet and appearing on the pitch. Then some members from two other teams that we are not playing that day show up and start discussions with our opponents. More time passes... then our opponents tell us that the other home team has a "season reservation" for the field we were going to play on and we have to find another one. So back we go to the field that I originally thought we would be playing on to play the game.

We have brought our own ref, as it appears to be the practice of most teams we play to forget that they are to supply a ref as well. Thus we begin the titanic struggle. At first we dominate, but soon we find out that they play extremely well together and pass very well. Our team does manage to score first on a breakaway, but I spend most of my time chasing this tall young guy named Jeff. The first half comes to an end.

Here's where the breakdown of the game occurs, and this is not an uncommon occurance. As I stated before, the team must field 5 women and a limit of 6 guys. In the second half they decided to play a game commonly referred to as "5 guys and a touch". It would be "6 guys and a touch" but one male was their goalie. The way "5 guys and a touch" goes is simple, they get a girl to touch the ball in the offensive half and every male on their team sprints to the goal and trys to score, ignoring the fact that they have 5 other members on their team. Unfortunately, they had one player who made a hell of a shot from outside the penalty box to score, evening it up at 1-1. We pretty much packed the defense and held off their onslaught, and the game ended with a tie.

We did well considering how fast and young they were, and how well they passed the ball. Kudos to them for playing tough against the male players but not fouling any of our females. I came away with a very sore big right toe and bruised ribs from a close call, but still in one piece.

To make things better, while we played all the 60 other kids teams had finished and left, thus we only had to fight traffic on the main road to get home. And I only got home about an hour later than I normally would expect.

Oh, and about eight miles down the road from the park were our two young friends, still smokin' them butts!!!