Sunday afternoon football has taken over our lives, and I don't mean slumped in front of the television, drinking Carlsberg and watching whatever game happens to be on at that moment. Two of Two is playing in a league for the school team. Three twenty-minute games every Sunday, stretched over three to four hours. Different time every week. No more planning what to do on Sunday, not for the moment. You hunker down in the bomb shelter of expediency and wait to discover what time the first game is going to kick off.
There are twelve teams, each of which has been given the name of a country which they are nominally representing. Sadly Two of Two's team was landed with England. On the plus side, the strip doesn't particularly look like England's. (On the negative side, his grandparents just bought him an England strip for his birthday, and he wears it all the time. We call it the Strip of Shame.)
The kids enjoy the Sunday afternoon football league, the parents have far more angst. Now I had a small moment of epiphany a few months ago when watching One of Two playing a mini soccer tournament on a Saturday morning. The following day was the NFL AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the San Diego Chargers. I've followed the Patriots religiously for the past twenty-two years. I've travelled to Boston several times to watch them; I sit up through the European night when they're playing an evening game in the States; when their games aren't on tv I following this absurd little helmet graphic online, as the helmet moves up and down the pitch with every play. I'm that sad: I watch an online helmet graphic for three and a half hours, starting at 2.30am. However, that epiphanic morning - I was bound to get to the moment of epiphany eventually - I realised that despite my obsession with the Patriots, I cared far more about my kid playing in a pointless soccer tournament than in my sporting obsession playing in the NFL semi-finals. And it was more fun to watch. And I don't just mean more fun to watch than the helmet - because there are a whole host of things which are more fun to watch than the helmet - but just plain more fun to watch.
One of Two's team won the tournament, but that wasn't the thing that made it so great for me watching in my position as Dad. It was just getting involved in watching a game that really mattered to my kid, and realising that that was far more important than a bunch of absurdly overpaid sports stars who I'll never meet.
If that's not an epiphany, then I don't know what is. Well, apart from the manifestation of Christ to the Wise Men of the east...
The drawback of caring this much about your kids' sports teams, is that it's equally and oppositely rubbish when they lose. Last Sunday Two of Two's team lost their first game 4-0, to a bunch of giant Polish kids who are obviously stretching the age-limit to breaking point and cheating horribly. I mean, some of those kids have beards. Not wanting to be an Angry Soccer Dad, I kept my Soccer Dad Rage to myself and stopped myself sticking a leg out onto the park and tripping up one of the six foot behemoth "eight year-olds" who were holding my kid at arms' length away from the ball.
For the second game we were up against the other team from our school, so really just playing against their mates. This was a no-stress game, as generally both sides - and both sets of parents - root for either team. For this game, the coach had to go off somewhere, and for some reason I was placed in charge. I seemed to be bestowed with this honour by a committee of soccer mums. Maybe they thought, Ah, he's Scottish, he'll know about football....
I really, really, really didn't want to do it. If it happens again I'm going to pull the classic faking an aneurysm manoeuvre so beloved of dads in this situation. I hate being in charge of other people's kids. Never know what to do with them. Can't shout at them, can't order them around, can't whack them, so what's left? I just get the feeling that they're looking at me, thinking who are you and why are you giving me orders? Where's the coach? Have you actually got anything to do with this team or are you just some strange man who's wandered in off the street? My mum told me about people like you. So, no, I'm not going in defence, and you can bugger off!
Well, that's what I presume they're thinking.
In that type of situation, you have to hope that you don't have too many players. Unfortunately I was two to the good, so had to have two kids on the sideline, looking pathetic and constantly tugging my sleeve asking when they were going to get on. I rotated of course, but kids don't care about rotation, they just want to be playing football NOW. I didn't shout instructions at them either, just let them wander aimlessly around the park, kicking the ball in whatever direction they were facing. They were rudderless, an even more random collection of wandering wildebeest than normal. Fortunately they escaped with a 1-0 win and I didn't have to face the opprobrium of other parents for my weak and pathetic managerial style.
That said, I have been informed by the Parental Collective that the next time the coach is forced to leave early, I will be relieved of my deputy managerial duties and placed in charge of the socks. As long as it doesn't involve having to interact with Other People's Children, I don't care.
No comments:
Post a Comment