Category: Uncategorized

A Game For All Seasons

I’ve been involved with kids’ football.. sorry I meant soccer (my English side coming out again) for over 10 years. I coached my eldest son’s team, the Pistons, until they aged-out after U18 and now I’m doing the same with my youngest son’s team, the Cobras.

Footie season in Vancouver always goes the same way. 

September. Glorious weather. The kids and coaches a few pounds over weight and happy to see their buddies at practice. Terrible scrimmage game with no team cohesion. Trying to figure out where the news kids fit it.

October. Autumn rains starting. The reality of school  starts to bite. A few injuries and the odd player drops out. Games get better and we figure out who plays best in what position.

November. Weather starts to turn to shit. Rain affects practice attendance for kids and coaches. Full match fitness back and we start to get the measure of the teams in our league and figure out if we’re competitive.

December-January. Cold wet hell-on-earth practices. Freezing fucking games, coaches and parents wrapped up in strata of thermals, water proofs and gloves. Miserable frozen wet goalies permanently on the verge of hypothermia. Hopefully we have a winning record which keeps the kids turning up to games.

There have been days like this…

February. See above. 

Late February / early March. Last game. Season done. Over and out till September.

Except this year is different. That last game is really my last game.

I’ve Eaten Some Weird Things

But this one, bobbing around in my soup, was probably the weirdest.

You can’t stop staring at it right?

Actually, I didn’t eat it. I stared at it for a while and lamely prodded it, curious what the small black hairs were on the dark bit but not really wanting to ask.

I was in northern Peru for a few days: the port town of Bayovar, visiting a phosphate rock exploration project. We ate breakfast and dinner in the workers’ canteen at the port. The food wasn’t bad but let’s just say Chef’s Table won’t be profiling the place anytime soon.

This particular day, the first course was soup. A luke-warm yellow, greasy soup with chunks of.. of.. stuff.

I can say with 100% certainty that it was part of an animal. But exactly what part and what species the unfortunate animal was remains a mystery to me. My best guess is it might have been a snout, or maybe a well-boiled hoof, possibly piggy in origin.

In the end I wasn’t brave enough to eat it. Call it a missed opportunity.