OK, was privileged to work with the U-19 Thun Tiger team on Wednesday night. I can’t begin to tell you how much fun it was to be back out on the field with a team. Finally!
Yeah it was raining – But just an on and off drizzle. Hopefully it will be clearing up in the next few days. Ah hell, I can take it!
What a great bunch of energetic young men. Not many people in the states realize that all of these guys buy their own equipment and also have to pay for a license to be allowed to play football.
Yes, they PAY to play their sport. Plus, they come from all over the area to get to practice. They take busses, get rides – sometimes trains just to practice.
There are no school sponsored sports in most, if not all of Europe. Everything is club oriented. That includes soccer, hockey, basketball etc.
Therefore you don’t play for dear old Northampton High School – home of the Konkrete Kids (see how I neatly worked our nickname in there???) You play for perhaps the Norhampton AA, Hokey Eagles or Fullerton Ramblers. Honestly an interesting set up.
These guys and their coaches are truly committed to playing and also working on football!
Speaking of coaches …what a fantastic group. Most have played for the club years earlier and then we also have some expats who lend a had as well. But, they are there because they love working with the kids and also being around the game.
By the way the practice area and the stadium – well you can see what it looks like. Just awesome. I know there won’t be fans early on …also that is the stadium for FC Thun soccer club and that is why it has 10000 seats. My guess we will get a small fraction of that for our games. But …. who cares still a great place to play!
Get back to practicing again on Friday! I’m excited to do it!
Many of you know I was a slow pitch softball guy (a star I might add …well, OK maybe not!) But the one of the best parts of playing slow pitch was the after the game when we sat around and analyzed our effort, who made mistakes, hit well or poorly and then assigned the blame to someone if we lost – which wasn’t often. HAH!
An intensely critical time for us all (think gnashing of teeth and pulling hair out) …. well, maybe not so tough because we did it over pitchers of beer! In fact I don’t think we ever talked about the game or worried about who did what – just who was paying for the next pitcher off beer!
So after practice last night all the coaches stood out around Coach Arne’s car in the parking lot drinking beer. No bitching, no complaining – just camaraderie. Simply awesome!
Yup – football is back and again things are becoming normal … as John Steinbeck wrote in “Cannery Row” “Once more the world was spinning in greased grooves.”