Bloody children, Bloody soccer

The child has informed me that she needs to be delivered to a soccer game at some excruciatingly early time on Sunday morning. I thought her club games had finished as she is now doing intensive winter training for athletics, but no, she’s been chosen for the regional rep team and this is the first game. As well as being hideously early in the morning it’s also in the suburbs and not just any suburb but one at the furthest edge of the city, so far out that I will need to pack a little overnight bag for the journey.

I don’t know why they schedule games for teenagers so early in the morning as it’s a proven biological fact that teenagers have a different sleep pattern and don’t like early mornings. In fact one Wellington High School timetables their seniors to start at 10am to get better productivity from them. Why can’t the bloody soccer clubs do this? When the teenagers are wearily dragging their sorry arses off the soccer field the knee hugger grade is just starting. Hullooooo, those little buggers have been awake since 5am pestering their parents, is time to go yet, is it, huh huh? Till finally at a civilized time of day, ie; after the decent coffee shops have opened, they get to play.

There is also the drama of what does one do at a soccer field on the edge of civilization while the child is playing her game. No the correct answer is not watch the game.

I tried watching one of the games early in the season but I got sent off the field and banished to the car with all doors and windows firmly locked. The trouble is that at the child’s age grade there are not many girls’ teams around so they have to play mainly boys teams. I attribute this to the fact that at each end of the field they have goalposts and not hair straightening posts, plus there are no mirrors strategically placed along the field so they can check that they still look ok while they are running.

Playing boys teams means soccer Dads and their endless yelling abuse from the sidelines. Strangely the SD’s think the vitriol coming out of their mouths is encouragement. On this day there was a Neanderthal type hurling out little gems like, “they’re a bunch of girls, don’t let them beat you” (the girls were leading), “you can beat them, they’re only girls” etc etc. Gosh and we wonder why sexism is still rampant in our society.

My girlfriend could sense that I was about to go in for the attack and banished me to the car. I really wasn't going to be bad, honest, I was actually planning to praise him as it was quite astonishing that he’d learnt to string a sentence together that was almost comprehensible. Plus I was carrying no sharp objects.

While composing this little rant I have now realized what I will do this Sunday morning, I’m going to take my running gear! A devious Mother ploy of retribution, as while the child is playing her game I will go for a run round and round and round the edge of the grounds. The child will be mortified.

Oh yes, could someone tell my why if soccer is now officially called football in this country, why the national organization still refers to it as soccer?