Soccer Game November 4 ,2006

Dear Bro,

And so we come to the final game of the fall over-thirty co-ed soccer season. Since last weekend's glorious victory at the well hidden Evendale field it was time to return to our home pitch at Liberty Park in West Chester for the finale. Here in Ohio we turned off the switch on daylights savings time on the previous weekend, allowing us an additional hour's sleep last Sunday morning. However, in turn it also gets darker an hour earlier, thus the final game of the season is slated to start at 4:00 pm instead of the usual 5:00 pm, allowing us to avoid that awkward problem of having to finish a game in candlelight....

I had a lot of running around to do on Saturday, nothing like the marathon photo essay of the Sunday from a few weeks ago, but still enough to prevent me from returning home to change before the game. So I packed up my soccer gear in my kit bag and headed out to burn some hyrdocarbons in and around the northern suburbs of Cincinnati.

To recap the sheer utter excitement up to that point: I stopped by the library to drop off a book (overdue of course) and then cruised over to mum's to visit for a few minutes to say hello. From there it was off to the Microcenter mall and a thrilling session of webcam shopping, of which you are aware of the successful conclusion due to our dual observation of the end of the Bengals game on Sunday. And finally, up to Trader's World in Monroe to look for cut price DVD's to ship to you for boredom relief purposes.

Before we get to the game, I have to talk about Trader's World for a minute. Since you have not spent any time in Ohio in the last few years I don't know if you have ever gone to a mid west American flea market. It sits just off I-75 right near the Solid Rock Church, which has a lake with... oh heck... why don't I just show you...

I am sure it is a very pretty building inside with a lot of nice amenities, but a 100 foot plaster of paris Jesus with hands upward sticking out of the lake is just a little over the top for me. Anyway, sorry about the sidebar but I just remember this from Uncle David furiously snapping pictures at this slice of Americana as we returned from the Dayton Airshow last year.

Back to Trader's World... since it was around 1:00 pm by now and my soccer game was only two exits south of this one I decided to kill a few hours looking for DVD's for the aforementioned soldier who will go nameless. Most of the flea market is indoors, with some booths in an outside section on the northern tarmac, but with cooler weather soon due and temperatures that day in the 40's not many of them bothered to show up, thus the main action is inside. The one great thing they have done in the last few years is to ban smoking indoors, much to the dismay of the majority of the people who come here.

As usual, I was getting my fair share of stares. This is because I was wearing a pair of track suit pants with my Leeds United Nike training shirt, which instantly classified me as "different". To fit in with this crowd one is best suited to wear NASCAR gear, preferably Dale Earnhart Jr. #8 or even Tony Stewart, but you are in danger of being insulted if you wear anything with Jeff Gordon on it... I still haven't figured that one out yet.. maybe he just seems too pretty for the average NASCAR fan. Additionally, it you are over 40, such as myself, there is no reason on earth that you should not be overweight, with a gait that clearly demonstrates your main concern while in forward motion is to keep from toppling over forward due to the large excess of fatty tissue attached to the front of your stomach. Interestingly, this species seems to have had a mid-life body shift because they have no buttocks which to speak of. The younger version is still very skinny, but urban-wannabe-sprawl has set into this age group, with the hayseed crowd wearing sideways mis-colored NY Yankees caps, over sized winter coats, jeans strapped midway between their ass and their knees, and a minimum of one tattoo that is clearly visible at all times. They don't speak either, but communicate through a series of head movements and blank stares. Personally, I think some one needs to make them watch "K-Fed" videos over and over again for at least 24 hours straight so they will get some understanding of just how idiotic they look trying to "fit in". Then again we probably looked pretty silly in the late 70's with all that long hair....

Oh yeah... on to the soccer game.....

I still arrived about an hour early for the game, thus I sat in my car and started reading The Guns of August that I had picked up early from the library. After 30 minutes our team captain Greg showed up, so I changed quickly in my car and joined him to chat and kick around a ball. By 10 minutes til game time we had just about enough players to field a team. They did what I can only assume was there normal routine of stretching and chatting, as I am usually the last person there and habitually miss this pre-game ritual.

For some reason something appeared different for this game. I could not quite put my finger on it as maybe because I was usually late and not use to this game prep period of warming up, but finally one of my teammates vocalized what I believe we were all thinking:

"Where is the other team?"

At this point we all stopped our activities and looked around. There were two teenage girl teams duking it out on the field next to us but no sign of middle aged adults in soccer gear anywhere to be seen. We debated our options... We could send out a search party to drive around the local area looking for wayward mini-vans with passengers wearing soccer garb and swinging there heads to and fro desperately searching for our field; declare absolute victory and head for the nearest saloon to consume large quantities of poorly brewed highly marketed Amercian beer, or just wait. We choose option three.

Eventually about 5 people showed up ten minutes late, and stated that would be all the members of their team they would be able to field that day, as several members were either sick or injured. Thus we won by default. However, since we had come all that way we did not want to go home without any scars, bruises, or boring stories, so since we had enough players to play 9-9 we went ahead and split up the teams and scrimmaged.

I joined they opposition with our manager Greg, one of our female players Kathleen, and Don the referee who was talked into playing . Our remaining team members made mincemeat of us for the first 20 minutes, only scoring once but backing us up in our own half for most of the time. One of the player who bothered to show up for the team I joined for a day complained that we need to get the ball forward to her as she was not getting any "action". Although the first thought was to tell her that there was plenty of action back here where we were running our butts off while she stood around, I chose discretion as the better part of valor and did not answer. Which worked in my favor because when we finally got a break away my female teammate passed it to me rather than her right before I toe punched it right past the goalie. Score 1-1!!!

The second half did not go as well, and even though we managed two more goals (including one more by me!!!) this did not come close to the seven they managed to slip by our defense. Final score 8-3.

A fun time had by all.....