A mixture of ages and genders aren’t often found on the same athletic field. That’s what one will find, however, at the Central Georgia Soccer Association’s adult league, one that is growing just as fast as the CGSA Strikers youth divisions.
Established in 2007, the adult soccer program gives men and women of any skill level – or maybe no skill level at all – a chance to play in a competitive yet at the same time enjoyable environment. It’s on a shorter field, similar to U-12 soccer, with eight players on each team and one certified official whom one could also see working the county’s high school matches.
The first season, in the winter months of 2007-08, ended with 131 players. When the summer season for 2013 began, 560 signed up, according to league director and player Loraine Holden. That makes for 32 teams in five divisions.
“It’s almost 100 over from last year,” said Holden, adding that the numbers are usually lower for the winter league. “We play in the offseason, not the same time recreation and select play. We play when it’s 100 degrees outside or zero degrees outside.
“I think the word is getting around. We’re here for fun. With this league, you have to have two girls on the field at all times. We picked up a lot of ladies, which really helped, because then you pick up more males. The community wants to play mixed leagues.”
Added with that, Holden said CGSA did not do an open (highly competitive without requirements for female players) league this summer due to a lack of numbers, only around 40. She feels most of them are playing in an open league staged in Macon.
So for the 2013 summer season, the A division is the tops in terms of skill, and it goes all the way down to the E division. Holden said A teams also feature more younger players. But she said if anyone wants to see some fun soccer, check out the E division.
“That is THE best,” said Holden. “It’s great to watch them play. You can tell they’re out there to have fun. They aren’t very skilled, but they want to learn. I have old ladies and young guys, mothers with children trying to get back in shape. Families are there.
“Even when they are playing against each other, it’s always, ‘You O.K.?’ They don’t try to kill each other getting to the ball.”
Everything in between, Divisions B through D, are based on what kind of competitive pace the players want. There is no practicing, and Holden said the best prize a team might get for having the top record of its division at the end is a t-shirt.
What becomes a challenge, Holden said, is dividing up all of these players, and naturally she does not personally know all 560 players even though she’s been involved with it for six years. Her own team, Orange Crush, sometimes is a B team and sometimes a C depending on whom she can get on the club.
“I know the caliber of my players,” said Holden.
She said there are team managers for all teams, and this year the total number of teams went up to four. There’s a meeting held after everyone has registered, and she finds out whom each manager will have on his or her roster.
“Then we have this other pool of people whom we don’t have a clue how they play,” said Holden. “At lot will put on (the registration form) ‘new’ … ‘brand new, used to play in college 20 years ago,’ stuff like that to help us decide what league they need to be in.”
As for rules variations, the adult league does not call offsides and slide tackling is prohibited. Doing so will bring a card from the referee.
“We are hard with cards,” said Holden, who saw a teammate penalized that way in her match Saturday. “It was a harmless slide, but it doesn’t matter. You have to be on your feet at all times.”
And when a female player scores, it is worth two points. Holden said there are some skilled ladies in the league, but the men do have a tendency to shoot the ball harder.
Former Houston County High soccer player Bethany Crenshaw was in action Saturday. She spends most of her time on defense and therefore doesn’t try to score too often.
“I think it ups the ante a little bit,” she said. “It’s a lot harder for the girls to score. In the lower leagues, you can have some girls who may be better than the guys on their team. In (the higher leagues) that’s very rare.”
The team names are quite unique, Crenshaw playing on ‘Manchesthair United.’ She’s a nurse these days after playing college softball for Georgia Southern University, so she was looking for more movement than going up and down the halls of a hospital.
“I just play because it’s fun and exercise,” she said. “The girls here really know what they’re doing.”
And, yes, players do get hurt in adult soccer. Holden said there was one incident of a broken leg bone this summer. In addition to the registration form, she said players are required to fill out a medical clearance form before playing. Holden herself is in charge of looking out for emergencies in addition to making sure they have enough soccer balls and that they clean up after themselves.
HHJ News
