A busy footballing weekend began on Friday afternoon with the start of Toby’s eight weeks of training. He’d been chomping at the bit since he’d scored 22 goals for Argentina in the World Cup final earlier in the summer! His team details had come through earlier in the week and he’d been put in the Coyote Team – or Boyotes as he called them initially!
Not only was it time for Toby to start training, it was also time for me to start helping out! Despite protestations all week I’d managed to find myself volunteered as a coach – so that’s my next 8 Friday afternoons sorted – let’s hope I don’t get any Friday afternoon meetings!
I left work early and took Toby up to the fields up on Issaquah Heights – which is up nears Zeeks Pizza in Issaquah. It was an absolutely scorching afternoon – the start of September has set new records this year as it is the first time that there have been 8 days over 80 degrees and we’re only 11 days in!
When we arrived we went over to pitch 16 and I had lots of parents asking me if I was “Coach Stickells” which felt very American and very odd! Unfortunately I was coach Stickells and I pretended to know what I was doing! Anyway, after a quick kick about, we went over to the group of main coaches to learn the skills that we had to teach the team. The exercise was called “sharks and minnows” and it was designed to teach them how to dribble and tackle. I had the pleasure of coaching Toby who, despite being a year younger than the other boys on team, was definitely one of the best (the second best actually). I’m not biased – he is just very good for his age. Plus the American boys weren’t! One picked the ball up every time it went near him, another appeared to be completely deaf or just confused by my accent! The only one better than Toby was the French boy. So the Coyotes had two good players out of six – an English and French boy!
After the exercises it was onto a game. The Coyotes had been given a blue shirt to wear throughout the training sessions which was a relief as there was a team running around in bright pink shirts – I think Toby may have quit if he’d had to have worn that! It was a 3-a-side game which lasted for about 20 minutes. Toby played very well and scored his first goal which he was very pleased about, although I think he enjoyed making some crunching tackles even more. The game was against the Dragons and it finished a 3-3 draw. All in all a pretty good start and Toby enjoyed himself so thats the main thing!
Apart from watching it on the TV, Saturday was a soccer free day. Sunday wasn’t though. Sunday was the opening day of the season for the Issaquah Gunners. Kick-off was at 2pm and the match was being played at Starfire Sports Complex which is the official training ground of the Seattle Sounders – this made the occasion even more exciting for Harry. And me!
We arrived at 1:15pm, got our car park season ticket and settled down on the astro-turf ready for the opening game. The Gunners were playing against Tynecastle FC who they had played a few weeks back in a tournament (when Harry was in Hawaii) and they lost 2-0. Not to worry though – the Gunners are a finely tuned footballing machine with the confidence of a Cup victory behind them. It was a 9 a side game – which is the largest game that Harry has played in. His good performances in the Bainbridge Island Cup had obviously caught the eye as he was now a starter in the game.
Despite being American, the Issaquah Gunners are a very good soccer team, I think they would give the Harrold & Carlton Tigers a good thrashing! The game was tough and the Gunners goalie had a storming first half to stop what looked like 3 certain goals! At the other end, the Gunners were clinical and scored a couple of good goals through Marcos and Ben, to lead 2-0 at half time. In the second half it got even better with the Gunners scoring 3 more and not really looking too troubled at the back. Harry, who looked dead on his feet at the end, managed to score the 5th goal of the game. He came off just before the end and had a good drink to keep hydrated – there was no puking this time!
So, it finished 5-1 and the Gunners not only avenged the defeat from earlier in the season – they also went top of the league. Hopefully they will stay there but either way it was a very successful soccer filled weekend! Apart from the Sounders lost…
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