Poor Sports

I am playing on a recreational co-ed soccer team in Newport Beach every Thursday night. My company sponsored our team (there was a $1500 entry fee per team) and pretty much anyone can play. There are three divisions and we are in the lowest and supposed non-competitive division. Boy was I surprised the first game when our team was left in the dust by a more experienced team who have obviously played together before and were very serious. I kept reminding myself to have fun and just kept thinking maybe we were in the wrong division. We're not. Holy cow!. Most people on our team have never played before or some like myself have not played in almost 20 years. We lost and I can't even remember by how much, but we definitely scored no goals.

This past Thursday our team had a real shot to win. We were playing against another corporate team, a CPA firm, and they too had not scored any goals their first 3 games. Yes! The game ended as a tie 4-4. We were happy to take that ending. The part that was sad though were the jerks on the other team. Several guys kept swearing overly loud (children were within earshot) and the refs warned them to stop. Player number 70 was warned and he continued to swear, the ref yellow carded him, then he continued again and the ref red carded him. 70 then proceeded to tell the ref to F*** off. That was it. He was thrown out of the game. The craziness did not end there since the gentleman (yeah, right) threatened the ref who then kicked him off the field. The coach was swearing at the ref, who remained calm the entire time, and other players on their team were freaking out, too. The ironic part was they were winning at the time. Next, another player was thrown out of the game. Let me remind you again, this was division III, co-ed recreational soccer. Gimme a break. We scored another goal since they were 2 men down, but we could not pull out the win. Oh well! I think we won anyways since we remained calm, had fun, and left with our dignity.