One Night at Cooper's Gulch

Hope you like my story. -Paul



Where do old soccer players go? I think most just fade out gracefully. They sense their time is up. One injury too many. The pain in the knee or the hip that used to subside between games, never goes away now. One day you realize, hey haven’t seen Hank in a while. What’s he up to some one asks? You have no idea, but he’s probably out walking the sideline of some soccer field every Saturday, the dew soaking his Sambas, watching the kids he coaches roam the field. On Tuesday nights, at dinner time he’s with his family. He looks up at the clock, it’s nearly six…what was it I usually did on Tuesday night? Think , think…



A FEW HOURS IN THE LIFE OF THE MEN’S 30/37 SOCCER LEAGUE

(I can’t swear all the following statements have not been embellished in some way, but I swear it’s all true.)

Tuesday, October 28 - Week 8 - The last night of Fall League

3:30 p.m. My phone rings. It’s Noah Rodriguez, the Men’s 30/37 commissioner. “You want to hear something funny?” He says. My gut feeling is that this is sarcasm. I could really use something funny, but I don’t think it’s coming my way just yet. “Eureka Parks and Rec just called me,” he says, “apparently some people tore the goal anchors out of the ground and moved one of the goals over by the shed.” We play our Tuesday night games at Cooper’s Gulch in Eureka, because it is the only lighted field in all of Humboldt County we have access to. In addition to that, the HSL has to provide our own goals and nets, and line the field. The steel goals, once assembled, weigh A LOT. One of the goals has been apparently slid across the field some 30 to 40 yards from it’s designated spot.

5:30. Game 1, Hooligans versus Stormers begins at 6:00. Noah has arrived, turned the lights on, unlocked the shed to get the nets out. Players begin to amble in. They will, as needed, move the goal back into position, put up the nets, start donning various knee and ankle braces, slapping on the Icy Hot, and begin their warm up, which might amount to jogging up and down the length of the field one single time in a kind of gait that resembles running. Good enough. To most of us the first 15 minutes of the game is the “warm up”. I will not arrive until shortly before my game which follows at 7:30.

My team, the Dirty Dogs, had gone unbeaten for all of last season and most of this season, until we had lost to the Hooligans, our arch rivals, 3 - 0 two weeks ago out there at Cooper’s under the lights. Then a week ago we lost again to the Stormers, 3- 0. Deja-vu all over again. Now if the Hooligans beat the Stormers today, we will be in a situation where the Hooligans will win the league, having tied our record but having a better goal differential, that’s assuming we win tonight against the Wild Bunch, which ought to be a given. They have not won a game all season.

7:10 I arrive in time to “warm up” and witness the end of the Hooly/Stormer’s game. I see the Hooly’s Chris Ramey dribble into the Stormer’s penalty box. He beats one player, then cuts the ball back and beats another. He slots the ball inside the near post. The Stormers hardly react, which is when I realize they must really be losing. Someone tells me the Hoolys are winning 5 to nil. “So,” Mauro Staiano calculates, “if we win by 13 goals tonight we could still take the league,” he jokes, but with that laconic tone that makes me wonder if he isn’t a little serious. The truth is that every guy out there plays to win, wants to win, but never at the cost of just being able to play. Most of us have known one another for years, and I consider every player out there a friend. I’ll be the first to admit, that I hate losing, which I see as a character flaw in myself. Tonight the Hooligans have won the league. Tonight I’ll play for no other reason, than to have fun. It’s a good feeling. There’s no pressure, I can just enjoy the game.

7:30 I have a slightly torn hamstring from a week ago, and bruised ribs from playing keeper two days ago. I told my wife, (as I was putting on my shinguards), that I wasn’t planning on playing…(much). The truth is that probably half the guys out there are nursing injuries, or have one waiting in the wings, with a date and time pre-ordained. As the fog thickens across the field, Craig Carroll counts his Wild Bunch. He hasn’t been able to field a full team in weeks, and has had to resort to borrowing players. But tonight, they are coming out of the wood work, he counts 9, 10, 11…12

My team which is usually flush with subs counts 11. As I walk across the field, I’m trying to decide which will hurt less, running with my torn hamstring and the jarring of the sore ribs, or playing in goal, which will involve diving onto my tender side. I toss a coin in my head and go for playing in goal.

I am able to handle two or three balls into the box, scooping them up with my gloves, somewhat agonizingly. I am encouraged when Patrick Stranahan, a Wild Bunch striker and expert goalkeeper in his own right tells me I am doing well. It’s like that out there some nights, we as adversaries can encourage and admire one another’s play. Tonight is a night like that.

Kevin Hoyt breaks free in the top of the box and hits a hard low strike that, even if I were healthy, I probably wouldn’t be able to get down to. 1- 0 Wild Bunch.

In the hills that surround the field, night time revelers drawn by the field lights, roam through the shadows of the skirting trees, making odd howling and whooping noises, that for some reason makes me think of the movie Deliverance.

The fog is even heavier now. At the other end of the field my team scores. I can’t see it, but only hear the celebration. 1 – 1.

Minutes later, a shout comes from that same end of the field. One of our players, I don’t know who, has gotten injured. These cold foggy nights play havoc with our tight old man muscle tissue. There is one guy standing on the side line, Andre from the Stormers. Though he has already played in the previous game, he has stuck around to get another game in if needed. Now since we are short, players are calling out to him to see if he wants to come on. I run over to the sideline and grab a yellow Dirty Dogs jersey for him from my bag.

Play continues, and I still don’t know which one of my players got hurt. Someone tells me it was Mark Verhey, but I can’t see him anywhere on the sides of the field. The other end of the sidelines are shrouded in fog, and there are those voices in the trees. “Maybe the fog monster got him,” someone suggests.

Another thru ball into the edge of our box, I hesitate, and groan, not necessarily in that order, trying to get to the ball first. Kevin Hoyt dances in and lightly tips the ball around me into the goal. This is ridiculous, I shouldn’t be in here I realize, but I don’t know if I can play out there, as I watch these men sprinting, actually sprinting after the ball. Somebody shouts, Glenn Hurlburt I think, “Be careful Paul, don’t get hurt.” Glenn, like most of the guys out there, except maybe Gilbert Castro (62 years old), was young once. When I came to the HSL in 1989, Glenn was one of the fastest guys out there, unmerciful speed. Almost 20 years later he still surprises me. Despite his middle aged belly, and “adjusted” style of play, he still has a rocket of a shot good for at least two or three goals per season. Gilbert, another one of the league’s “seasoned” players has a knack for always being in the right place at the right time defensively. It used to leave me shaking my head in wonder, now I just accept it as fact.

I’ll be honest, though most of these players are in their 40s and some in their 50s and beyond, they are still for the most part, strong and quick. This is a damn competitive soccer league, and I think the few younger players in their 30s will tell you that.

Patrick Stranahan in a scuffle in our penalty box takes an arm to his face. One knee on the ground taking stock, he wipes a little blood onto the back of his hand from his mouth. “Is that all..” someone jokes. Patrick gets up and we all get on with the game.

I notice Andre, who is a big guy and hard not to notice, running around with his jersey on backwards, the Dirty Dogs logo should be on the front. With Andre I can’t quite be sure if he has done this on purpose, kind of a rebellious statement, “I will wear your jersey, but I am a Stormer to the core.” “Hey Andre, you’re wearing that jersey backwards!” I shout.


Mark Verhey has materialized over on the sidelines limping badly. “What happened,” I shout from my goal box? Play goes on down the field “Pulled my calf,” he shouts back, “at least I hope that’s all it is. I heard something, a noise. I know it’s not my Achilles though.” (Mark had a complete rupture of his Achilles a couple of years ago) It’s week 8. For many of us men’s league is like a marathon, you hope to make it through the 8 to 10 weeks, and then it’s healing time. I see Doug Frey of the Wild Bunch over on the sideline, done for the night, pulled something. Most of the time we don’t even know the names of the muscles we’ve hurt. When you play long enough, you discover parts of your anatomy you didn’t even know existed, until you tear it. I call it “adjustment”, kind of a balance of limitations. (Caution technical jargon ahead) This muscle/tendon thingymajingy part is hurting, so your body starts favoring another part, and then that part starts hurting, and so on, to infinity apparently.

The half ends, it is 2 to 1 Wild Bunch.

I have elected to come out of the goal and “take up space” or “help flatten grass” in the mid-field. Rafael Rivera our normal tried and true keeper is back between the posts. Like many of the guys on our team, he’ll play anywhere cheerfully, but as he has said, “Keeper, that’s what I do man!” There are at least one or two other guys willing to go into goal at this point, like Noah who has a bruised foot. Craig Carrol is in goal for the Wild Bunch because of an injury keeping him from playing in the field, and he’s doing an awesome job.

My first couple of touches on the ball are satisfying. Because it hurts my ribs so much to run (and now my back – see definition of “adjustment” above) I try to just trap the ball, turn, and pass, and that seems to be working fairly well. We are able to develop a few attacks out of the midfield. On one, Mauro makes a run down the right flank, and at a very difficult angle is able to leverage a shot from about 20 yards near the corner of the box, and it goes in. I was thinking, better cross that ball Mauro or play it back, until he shoots and scores, at that point I am convinced his was the right decision. Game tied 2 – 2.

Andre in the middle of play decides he is done, “Can’t take any chances he says,” and walks off the field, placing my jersey back by my bag. Most of us try to play smart and know our limits. He has played 1 and ½ games of soccer tonight already, in damp cold weather. My injury problems started two weeks ago when I decided to play two games in a row on a night just like this.

I have the ball at my feet at the top corner of the Wild Bunch’s penalty box. I loft it into the mixer in front of the goal, like a Hail Mary. Somehow Noah Rodriguez gets hold of it and slams it home. 3 – 2 Dirty Dogs.

On defense, because of my lack of mobility, I do my best to play “smart”, or in other words, “not run too much”. My limit is about 20 yards of so called chasing someone, before my body says to me, “KNOCK IT OFF!” But when I do get the ball, being forced to slow down actually makes me play better. I’ve experienced this before, playing injured, like having a superpower where everything around you seems to slow down and you can see what to do more clearly, more economically…errr, or maybe that’s because everyone else is getting tired and slowing down too. Oh Well.

One thing I know is that standing there on the wet grass, under the lights, forgotten the pain, I am having a blast.

THE SHOT THAT DEFIED PHYSICS,
OR GRAVITY,
WELL, ONE HELLUVA SHOT.

Lennie McMillin is one of those players who actually does make the game look beautiful. There is a choreography to his movement, quickness, and in the vernacular of today’s youth, his skill is “sick”. Today from about 30 yards out he lets one rip. The ball knuckles savagely toward goal and Rafa throws his hands up in pure reflex and blocks the shot. The ball careens upward over the top of the goal. Then it comes back down bounces off the cross bar coming back down into the goal like a cruel joke. Rafa flails for the ball, just out of reach and tips it into the goal. Game analysis over beer after the game raised the question as to whether the ball actually had gone out of bounds. At least two eyewitnesses swore the ball actually tipped up over the cross bar and went out, by definition fully crossing over the goal line while in the air over the goal, then through some bizarre Coriolis effect wound back into play before going in for the goal. It’s, of course, academic. Wild Bunch 3 – Dirty dogs 3

Mat Isaac carries the ball against me, after 20 yards I stop running. At some point there is calamity in front of our goal. The ball drops halfway between Michael East our rock solid sweeper and Rafa our Keeper. Michael who is now hurting and would normally clear it leaves it for Rafa, who assumes that Mike is going to take care of it. Disaster is somehow narrowly averted before a Wild Buncher can get to it and score.

Kevin Hoyt for at least the second time during the game is hopping up and down in agony over having his injured big toe stepped on. “I thought I could play carefully and avoid that,” he says to me. Rumor had it that he had actually broke it a week ago. Brian Griffiths told me he had seen the toe when Kevin originally hurt it and that it looked like it had been bent sideways, permanently.

I look out over the field. I believe we are now 10 on 10, eking out the end of the game, the end of the season. The ref goes running by me, “This is one f**king great game. What a treat.” This is a ref who is a former HSU player, who I imagined probably looked somewhat cynically down on our adavanced age men’s league. “Just for you,” I say, “ I am going to run back and play some defense.”

On the ensuing corner kick, in one of those weird melees in front of the goal where the defense seems to be stuck in molasses, like in a dream, Mat Isaac pokes the ball unceremoniously into the net.

Final score, Wild Bunch 4, Dirty Dogs 3.

We all stand on the sidelines, the season over and clap for the Wild Bunch. Well done, we say, well done. Time to get some beer.



Though this story is dedicated to ALL the men of the 30/37 league, here are those that were there for 7:30 game. My apologies if I have inadvertently let anyone out:

Players present that night for the Wild Bunch:
Brian Griffiths
Christopher R Hickok
Alan I Cook
Craig J Carroll, Manager
Patrick Stranahan
Kevin P Hoyt
Lennie McMillin
Mohamadad Alnakhlaw
Hassan Rezakhani
Mat Isaac
Gilbert J Castro
Doug Frey

Present for the Dirty Dogs:
Noah R Rodriguez
Mauro R Staiano
Rafael Rivera
Mark A Verhey
Ron Cordova
Glenn Hurlburt
Paul Swenson, Manager
Benjamin A Okin
Michael East
Byrd E Minkler
Ken Bareilles Jr.

Present from the Stormers:
Andre F Fairon

Stories from the Fall Season

If you have a positive story or anecdote to share from the Fall Season,let's hear it!
-Paul