A Friendly Match

Here in England you say:

'match' not 'game',

'friendly' not 'scrimmage',

'pitch' not 'field',

'rubber crumb' not 'turf'',

and for all of my laxers you say 'red' not 'crash'.

We had a friendly against Newcastle (the closest city near us). We already played them in a tournament, and we will be playing them twice in the regular season. We might even see them in the post season. I suppose you COULD say Newcastle is Durham's rival, but you wouldn't.

Allow me to describe the match. First we show up about an hour before the start time. This is classic, if not a little late, for American matches. I supposed, at first, England might be a tad different. We got ready in the locker room. (I puked my guts up because I get bus sick easily, and I have been fighting off a vicious cold. yuummm.) We walked on to the pitch. (I suppose I more swaggered than walked.) We did a warm up lap, stretches, shuttles, 2v3, 7v7, and a pep talk. Newcastle, the home team, was still no where to be seen 15 min before the match.

They show up eventually, 8 min before the start time. Their coach informed my coach that he would like to do a 7v7 for a while first because his girls are not 'game ready'. He also tells her that they do not have a goal keeper. I, of course, was ease dropping, and I was pissed. I was sick, grumpy, and missing a class for this friendly, and they weren't even treating it like a real game! I grew grumpier.

We played a nice like seven vs seven, which was actually good practice. Our defense held strong. Then we switch to offense, but I stayed in goal because they had no goalie to call their own. I was fine with this because I am used to my own players shooting on me at practice. What I was not cool with was the Newcastle coach, an American dude, yelling at my players for 'starting before the whistle'. His team totally did that too. Also, it was a joke to even be doing any of that so clam down A-hole.

Okay, okay, I am overreacting, but wait until you hear about the actual match, Internet. The coach decided to be his team's goalie. Alright that made me feel better for being there because a one goalie game in lacrosse is just lame; however, this guy was such a pompous ass that I'd rather play on Newcastle's team then witness his dumassery. He yelled at his girls like he saw a spider in his underwear and thought yelling would save him from it. He took back goals from my team for made up rules. He cheated by playing men's rules. (He raked the ball.) He was also a ball hog. Now keep in mind that he was a goalie. In lacrosse, goalies rarely move more than 15 yards; this dude could have taken a shot on me. Ass.

Good news is we won. We won by a whole lot. I had one save and no goals against. Normally I would be super proud and pompous about a shut out (or clean sheet as the Brits put it), but they were just that bad. I got to chat up one of the opposing offenders. She told me about some fun clubs in her town that I should hit up sometime. Her name was Lydia. We are now best friends.

I apologize for the rant. If I were a reader of this blog, I would say in the comment section, "Yeah, but why you mad though?" because there is no reason to ever be this pissed off in a blog. Blog should be used for good. I promise to keep the fun coming. Maybe. Sort of. Sometimes. I hope.