The Outdoor Game

I've been playing indoor soccer for many many years now. I played a couple of games outdoors in an EMC summer league and pretty much hated it. Outdoor fields are notoriously uneven and either unmowed or barren of grass. Add a little rain and they become a mud pit. Passing and controlling the ball is difficult due to the crazy bounces and all the little undulations in the turf make it frighteningly easy to roll your ankle or twist a knee. Plus, the bigger fields and larger number of players results in a lot of running but far fewer touches on the ball.

A couple of the guys from indoor also play in an outdoor league and have been pestering me to play with them for a couple of years now but I always declined, citing the above reasons. This year, they finally wore me down. It was a combination of a couple of things that finally made me give it a try. The first was that I now qualified for the over 50 league. This is actually kind of depressing of course, but it also meant that I wouldn't be trying to keep up with the 30 year old "whippersnappers" who apparently don't have to get up on Monday morning and go to work, and who never seem to have a couple of Ibuprofen tablets that I can bum.

The other thing that pushed me over the edge was the fact that most of the fields the teams play on now are the artificial turf fields that have perfect bounces and no holes to swallow your ankles. These fields are very grass-like and have those black rubber pellets that give a more realistic bounce and provide a little bit of "looseness" to the field so your cleats don't stick and rip your knees and ankles out.

So I showed up to my first game, which was on our home field in Hopkinton. It's located down a dirt road that goes past the town maintenance yard and I'm thinking "This is not looking good." Well what do my wondering eyes behold but a spectacular complex with a suite of pristine turf fields. Here's a photo I took later in the season when it was getting quite chilly in the morning. It's not a great picture but it gives a pretty good look at the nice fields.

Turns out, I'm really enjoying playing outdoors. The turf fields play as nice as they look and I'm actually enjoying doing a bit of running. The other thing is that the I can hold my own against most of the players in the league and it feels good to contribute and feel like I can make a contribution to the team.

Despite this contribution, we didn't win many games this season and have been relegated to a lower division. Oh well, I've never really cared much about win-loss numbers, I just like playing the game.

Now I find myself looking forward to the Spring session and getting back outside. Who'd a thunk it?