Weather permitting

It has been a rough time for soccer in the DC area. It seems that it is wet on the weekends. I suspect that in mid November, we will still be making up some of the matches that have been suspended this season.

I have reached another first, the suspension of a match in mid play. It was the 12 noon match of a U13 travel boys and it was raining at a steady clip. I left home around 11:20 and got to the field at 11:35 thinking that the match would be called off because of the rain. But to my amazement, the match prior to mine was being played. The field was grass and not turf, so that made it more interesting. On top of that, the field I come to find out had just been aerated so it had a lot of things going against it.

So I walk out to the field and I am already soaking wet, there are indicators that there will be a little pool or two soon and the field looks bad. One of the coaches wanted to play the other was reluctant but said that this match was a postponed game from a couple of weeks ago, so to please, please play it. I had the issue that I did not want to tear up the field but it seemed that I was outnumbered (although I know that I was the final authority on it).

The game was not good. Sloppy play, sloppy passing, sloppy field conditions. The blue team was 10 times better than the yellow team and they got a goal from their star player #53 early but after that, it was all ugly. One player on yellow was adamant on telling me where I missed all the calls. Halfway through the first half he slide tackles from behind (and I did tell the kids that slide tackling was risky given the conditions) so he gave me a present to calm him down, a yellow with a good chewing out as well.

In the end, he did finish the match but the only reason that happened was because I had to suspend it with 12 minutes left when we started looking more like water polo rather than soccer. Lucky for him I guess. But it was wet all around for me and we all know how much I love reffing in the rain!