Little league soccer?

We had a soccer recreation tournament this weekend at a visiting field.  The field isn't far for us, but unfortunately they aren't the best fields.  The league is on the grounds of a local high school, and I mean literally on the grounds.  There are no soccer fields, just a plot of land that the league divides into three make-shift soccer fields and so the "fields" are usually full of hills and valleys, holes, and are covered mostly in dirt.  We had rain the day before the tournament so I knew the ground would be nasty, but what I didn't know was that the our game with the home team would be too. 

There are 14 leagues within our county.  Under each league are anywhere from 20 to 100 teams depending on age groups and amount of signed players.  This is a recreation league played for fun and for learning of the game.  While we have played competitive soccer in the past we have agreed that the recreation league was more our style in travel time, money, rules, and in parental nuttiness.  Both my girls started in this league at the age of six and we have been a part of this league for nine years.  While we had a league closer to our house that would have saved us much time I opted instead for this league because I wanted my girls to meet kids outside their school zone. 

Our league, like many of the leagues, is associated with the city's recreation department.  The city owns the fields we play on, takes a cut of our fees, and is involved in ways that allow our league to run a well organized program.  The home league where we played isn't associated with a city or a recreation department, and they have had many problems with organization and their board, and this in turn has caused some of their players and coaches to leave the league and join ours.  Our league is the closet league to this league in distance, and therefore an ideal switch for parents.  This makes this home league very unhappy, and so each time our leagues play each other, no matter the team or age group, the other league wants to win as if to stick it to those parents, players, and coaches who defected. As it turned out Darcy's coach was one of those former coaches who defected, and so the game just went downhill from there.

It started out with a complaint against the ref from one of our parents who knew the ref had a relative playing on the opposing team.  It just escalated from there.  While the league's soccer rules allow for some leading with the shoulder in attempting to get a ball it became a pushing and shoving match.  That got the parents on the sidelines fired up and they began shouting at the players.  Players cursed out parents on the opposing team.  The coaches on the opposite team began yelling at their players to to walk when the ball went out of bounds so that it ate time off the clock.  That fired up our side of the field and things just got out of hand.  The main referee was a kid and he just lost control of the game.  I felt sorry for him, despite the fact that he is the main leader on the field.  He wasn't about to take on irate adults and out of control coaches, and I didn't blame him.  There were parents, from both sides, who probably would have taken him out too.  Girls were getting knocked down left and right and leaving the field in tears.  I suspected that it was more from emotions then anything else.  By the time the game ended I was sick to my stomach.

As I crossed the field to join my daughter and the team I heard one of our parents in a cursing screaming match with another mother on the other team.  This was being done in front of players on the other team, and had they both not had cakes in their hands I suspect we would have witnessed a knock down dragged out fight complete with them rolling around on the ground.  I calmly went over to our parent and with the help of a man on the other team we separated the two, and I escorted our parent back over to our side of the field.  Where I found my daughter on the ground crying.  Apparently, players on the other team had been out there stomping on our players feet with their cleats whenever players were dormant at their positions.  Darcy's foot was numb.  Also, a player on the other team had cursed her out and then bit her finger.  Darcy was sobbing, again more from all the drama then the aches and pains, but it was something I didn't expect to see in a recreation league.

So I calmly marched over to the tournament director, took him aside, and told him I felt some changes had to be made when it came to these two teams.  He told me that they don't allow these two teams to play one another during the year in regulation, but that come tournament time it can't be helped.  I suggested that they play on neutral territory, but he told me that wasn't always a possibility.  I then suggested that an adult be the main referee for those games as it wasn't fair to expect a kid to regain control of nutty parents.  I told him that had I been the referee of that game I would have called it at half time and issued both teams a loss for bad behavior.  At the very least I would have sent the parents of both teams to another field and continued the game with no spectators.  I told him that at our school soccer games the parents are told ahead of time that if they yell anything to the players besides "way to go" or "good job" that our coach will take out the child of the parent who coached from the sideline and sit him on the bench.  He was a nice man, and at his wits end with all the angry complaining parents, but I'm not sure that anything will be done about any of it.  It was not a nice ending to a long day.

Tom sent a letter of complaint to the association board, but I don't expect anything to come from it.  Our game on Sunday was the exact opposite.  We played a team we had played twice during regulation.  The parents on both teams chatted with one another.  The players were out on the field cutting up, laughing, and patting each other.  All the giggling and enjoyment made all of us giggle and smile on the sidelines.  This is what we signed up for and this is how it should be.  Unfortunately, with these two leagues I'm not sure it can be.  Somewhere someone has got to take charge and see that a change is made.  Before anyone gets hurt.