By Jason Pike
This past week the annual Beaconsfield junior varsity boys soccer started. I went out with the intent to do a few game reviews and take in some soccer. Last year, this event was split into Tier one and Tier 2, because, rightfully so, there is a huge gap in the quality and ability of a lot of the schools involved and when I say gap I don’t mean just a little bit. There is a massive difference from the top to the bottom in the standings of this league, so it caught me kind of off guard when I showed up to take in the Mount Pearl intermediate versus Beaconsfield game to find out that it was 10 or 11 to 1 for Beaconsfield and their continued to be more goals scored after I had lost interest in what was happening.
I stayed around to watch Mobile play Brother Rice in the second game that night. It was a much more competitive contest with only a couple goal differential at the end of the game so I did a little light digging and had come to realize that they decided not to have a tier one and tier two this year. They just threw everybody in together. But in what world does that even make sense?
I also noticed because of this there were a couple teams that decided not to partake this year because they knew before it even started what they were getting themselves into.
I watched some more of the scores throughout the week and we watched McDonald Junior High get walloped by Paradise intermediate by a score of 8 to 1. After this it became increasingly difficult to sit through most of the games because honestly I felt second hand embarrassment for some of the teams and the kids involved because past a certain point it no longer becomes fun.
When you are getting beaten that badly in front of your friends and family members it’s hard to keep your head up and it does nothing good for your self-esteem. I feel like that’s something that’s often not taken into consideration when putting these events together. Because when you ask the question about why things are the way they are you get brushed off and they will say oh it’s only just for fun! Fun for who?
I can tell you that no kid out there on the field losing by a 10 goal deficit is having fun! Not even in the realm of having fun on a turf field in November freezing cold and snowing. The final nail in the coffin for me with this whole situation was watching a dominant Paradise intermediate team eviscerate a much smaller and younger less experienced Mobile monarchs team on Saturday morning to the tune of 9-0 and as we got deeper and deeper into the game you could almost see and feel the life force being sucked out of these kids.
Gross was the word that really came to mind as the final whistle was blown. What I really don’t get is why they done away with the two tier format. It would not have created any more games except for possibly two. A second tier championship and bronze medal game. Honestly, I think it would have saved a lot of grief and steered away from the risk of turning kids away from the game completely because when you take that kind of beating publicly it’s not often a feeling you want to explore a second time.
So all in all that is all I can really say in regards to game reviews for the Beaconsfield Annual Junior Varsity Soccer League. I only hope that moving forward they have the good sense to see the error of their ways and correct it for future events.
Some of these games can be viewed at @jasonpikemedia on youtube
