Footy

I've been playing on this team the past year now. Although I spent 6 months recovering from my broken knee - which I managed to rather embarrassingly break in practice. Yesterday's game, all be it another loss, was as fun as it gets for me. I played left-back and had my position covered from half way through the first half. So much so that the other team stopped attacking my side. This is in striking comparison to the last game I played when I was double teamed by two attacking players throughout the entire game (two players that should have been playing a couple of leagues up). Yesterday, in 80 plus degree weather and with a hangover, I had one of those games that reminded me why I bother running myself ragged, getting out of breath, risking injury and so on for an hour and a half. When you can come away feeling good after a close loss then it's worth every moment.

Aislinn and Muirenn play on Saturdays. I'm coaching Aislinn's team of eight seven year old girls. I was asked to help out and after winning our second game of the season, I'm really enjoying it although a little paranoid that I may have over stepped my mark in terms of coaching! I hope not and don't think so. Coaching Muirenn's team last year left me feeling a little lost when the team disbanded during the summer. I felt I had done well as a coach and was looking forward to this year. Muirenn has gone on to join one of the best teams in Ballard. She is playing a year up, in the highest division with girls a year older than her. And she fits right in. She played a storm on Saturday, after a slow start. Running up and down the left wing as an attacker, she can out run anybody and deliver clinical crosses into the box. She's playing 35 minute halves on full size pitches. Pretty impressive if you consider the size of a soccer field.

I love this time of year and kids soccer. These ages in particular are such a pleasure as it's recreational and yet still competitive. Just a year or two from now soccer will become very serious for Muirenn as it's not so easy to get on the school teams and school teams here are taken very seriously. Then you have the groups associated with the team, the sports kids, the jocks the image. It's so easy to fall into cookie cutter moulds at that age. But it is something I don't believe Muirenn or Aislinn will fall into. They are so strong willed.

In Aislinn's game on Saturday, we had 2 minutes left and were down 3 - 2. Aislinn came on and scored 2 goals back to back. For one of them, she chased a ball from the halfway line stopped it on the line, turned and shot between the keepers legs. A very proud moment for Lisa and I.