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Monday, March 24, 2014

Soccer Girl

Soccer practice was cancelled last Monday due to the storm system we had. In fact, all practices were cancelled through Thursday—the field was "too muddy" to play on and they didn't want to risk ruining the grass. It's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around it being "too muddy to play soccer" and also that playing soccer could ruin the grass. I mean, it's a soccer field, right? Plant some hardier grass or whatever.

They're rather protective of their field, really. It's in this secluded neighbourhood surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire curling around the top. When we first saw it I turned to Andrew and said, "What is this—Egypt?"

It wasn't unusual to see playgrounds surrounded by a brick wall with shards of glass imbedded on the top to keep out unwanted patrons in Cairo. I understand that vandalism is a problem but I also think that barbed wire protecting a field of grass and glass shards protecting a swing set is a little over the top. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, Rachel got to have a make-up practice on Friday, which was good because she had her first game on Saturday and her coach was hoping to at least tell the girls some of the rules of the game before pitting them against a rival team.

Here's Rachel before practice on Friday:



And here she is at her game on Saturday (I didn't go but Andrew did and he took this picture).




The team got their uniforms at Friday's practice and decided on a team name: The Flying Cheetahs. 

Technically their games aren't competitive since this is a developmental league so no score is kept but we do know that the other team won 3–2 so obviously someone was keeping track. 

We have soccer practice again today making three days of soccer over four days. We're a little soccered-out at our house...

3 comments:

  1. Maybe the people in that neighborhood had trouble with gangs or just innocent people who kept coming onto *their* field and playground equipment (that they maintain with their HOA fees) so they went to those drastic measures. I've never seen anything like you've described so maybe it's a Durham and Egypt thing.

    Anyway, Rachel looks cute! I hope she isn't too soccered-out, and enjoys practice today. At least it's nice and sunny out.

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  2. The field is owned by her soccer association, which is why I think it's bizarre that it's so fenced in. They obviously want to make sure that it's available for their teams to play according to schedule, but the barbed wire seems over the top to me (considering they also use public school fields for their league practices AND considering the city has a soccer field just on the other side of the river and the grass there is just fine...even with people playing after it rains).

    Like I said, I know vandalism is an issue.The barbed wire just rubbed me wrong, that's all.

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    1. I reread what I wrote earlier, and see it comes across differently than how I meant it. I don't like it either. I was just thinking of possible reasons why a field in a secluded neighborhood would resort to such things.

      Maybe not only vandalism, but it is kind of gross to go to playgrounds and find drug paraphernalia or condoms so maybe they were having that kind of problem even with a regular fence. Not fun to think about. I hope it wasn't to merely keep people out of the park who just want to play.

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