Death of a Team?

I really didn't want to write about this...but it seems I might as well.

One of the teams i'm on, an Over 30s men's league team, which has been around for about 10 years, may be dieing. The team has always been in the middle of the pack or lower since i've been with them (about 6 or 7 years). The way we are playing this season and the number of players that "had to drop out" may put us at the very bottom this season.

A few players, and our usual "manager," quit this past year due to lack of participation by other players and lack of winning. This never stopped me, as I grew up on several losing teams and learned to appreciate the game and just be happy if i felt like I put in my best possible match (not that I always do, but I try). This has cut down our core and the additional players have not stepped in as the rest of us hoped they would.

Granted, our team is probably one of the, if not THE, oldest team by average age. But to add to this "problem" we have several players that are coaches for local high school teams. This "winter season" is always the hardest to get and keep players for every match. In the past we've been lucky to get some of the coaches out to one or two of the 10 match season. Between the age thing and the lack of participation you can see why we are immediately at a disadvantage.

This brings me to our last match which happened Wednesday night. We were scheduled to play the other "bottom dweller" team, but a scheduling problem and a local accident which kept many teams from having a full roster switched things up on us. (There was an accident on one of the main roads which affected all other smaller roads. My drive to the fields usually takes about 20 minutes, it took me almost an hour and I got there about 5 minutes before the scheduled game time.) We ended up being matched with one of the better teams...who had a full team of six (did I mention this is a super-six league?) and we were forced to play with only five (the minimum you can play with and not forfeit the match).

I won't tell post the score here, mostly because I don't know what it was, I don't think anyone but the ref knew the score at the end of the match. The team we played probably scored ever two to three minutes or so. Obviously, it wasn't good. We did get in a couple goals. I had two chances myself but screwed up one of them and had a bit of bad luck on the other.

The first half it was kinda funny and we were mostly able to laugh about how horrible this was, originally thinking we were in for a good close match with one of the other bottom dwellers and ending up getting battered by one of the top teams. But, by the second half, we knew there was little we could do but hunker down and try to prevent scoring at will. We almost were able to do this, they definitely did not score as much in the second half (at least it didn't feel like it). And we were actually able to put in a couple goals mid-way through the half, so not being shut-out was also nice. But, by the time we got to this point we had lost our sense of humor and basically just wanted the match to be over.

At the end of the match, I spoke with our regular goalie about the team and its future (he's playing the field these days, AND SCORING, while he mends a sore/bruised hip). He agreed that this season (and this type of match) could signal the end of our team). This almost happened at the beginning of this season, when the day before registration ended our usual manager decided to tell us he was stepping down. We scrambled and scraped together another team (luckily combining with another small crew who were looking to start a completely new team). Around that time I questioned the feasibility of such a quickly gathered group, even asked around to see if any other teams were looking for players. Eventually I knew I would stick it out with our "usuals" or at least a handful of them and see how we would do.

Evidently, not so well. I think i'll be browsing again soon. Which is not fun on so many levels. Wish me luck.

Guessing this means our "international" adventure is no longer viable either. :(