Back In The Saddle

So I got a call out of the blue on Friday night asking me to ‘come out of retirement’ and sub-in on my girlfriend’s over 30 soccer team. She plays on a co-ed side called the Bengay Tigers in a 6v6 league which holds it’s games in a converted auto plant with a playing surface designed specifically to knock the crap out of aging knees. I didn’t need to be asked twice and before you knew it I had looked out all the essential equipment that a 48 year old, mother-of-three, soccer player needs: a pair of Adidas Sambas, a heavy-duty sports bra, and a ready supply of incontinence pads.

When I arrived the girls were already warming up leaving me on the bench with the guys as they tightened their knee braces, strapped their strapping, and filled their cups that runneth over. The heavy scent of menthol in the air brought back memories of the glory days when our star striker Gerry Attrick scored a last minute winner against Ludmuller Log And Lumber Liquidators in the final of the Detroit Narcotics Anonymous invitational. Then, just before kick off, there was one of those familiar screams of pain that let us all know that one of the guys had rubbed the Bengay a little bit too high up into his groin area.

The game itself was fine but the crowd was outrageous. The problem was that most of the players had brought their kids with them to watch. The little brats sat there on the sidelines shouting out instructions to us! Not only was that very distracting but what makes them such experts that they think they can tell us what to do? They also gave the referee a really hard time and blamed every player on the team for our problems except, of course, their own darling parents. There really is something disconcerting about listening to them disparaging our coach and you have to ask yourself where these kids get the idea that this is how you behave at the side of a soccer field?