The soccer field menace

[East Coast Pirate]

Is it just my city where it seems almost every park has been turned into a soccer field? At the moment there are neighbors of a park trying to save its trees from being cut down to clear the way for yet another fenced off, sterile, treeless field. I'm sure the builders of these beasts contribute handsomely to local politicians.

[Buzz Clik]

1. Is there money in building soccer fields? Cutting down trees in a park to make a field seems wrong.

I'm used to seeing the goals dropped into open areas for practices and games, but never cutting trees.

[East Coast Pirate]

4. There is always money to made building things.

[Buzz Clik]

5. That's not what I meant. Whoever is paying the contractor should have a profit in mind.

Otherwise, it's a no go. It is difficult to turn a profit from a small soccer field.

If your city is doing this (paying for their construction and the destruction of public parks) you most certainly need to get your voice heard.

[East Coast Pirate]

15. I wouldn't think there would be any profit for the city.

But like I said, that wouldn't stop some politicians from doing it anyway and getting a campaign contribution out of the deal.

[Buzz Clik]

17. We are not communicating at all.

Nevermind.

[East Coast Pirate]

20. Huh?

I guess not.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Might I make a recommendation?

1.- Talk to neighbors...I am sure you are not the only one to feel this way.

2.- Start a Facebook page, where neighbors can stay in contact, and come up with a mission statement and keep it very narrow...or you will be herding cats.

3.- Contact your local media...

4.- Gather signatures, to show that you got support.

5.- Attend city council and speak on the issue.

Most of all...make noise.

Oh I know this means work. But if my locals can take on Verizon, or the California Publics Utility Commision...I think you can take on the local construction company.

[East Coast Pirate]

27. It's not my park.

It's something I read in the local newspaper. There is a community group doing just that though. We have a new mayor who has replaced our horrible pay to play mayor and city council. Hopefully he'll put a stop to it. It really isn't necessary and would ruin a very nice park.

[haele]

26. Active usage and money that usage provides to the city.

A soccer field complex generates revenue to the local area by attracting more people for the games and practices. Parks and Recreation can get more money from the general fund by pointing out that more people are coming to the park now that it's one or two soccer fields and they have to build and maintain bleachers, rest rooms, the pitch and goal areas, additional parking, etc.
Less money spent on actual management - especially on maintaining vegetation and they won't need a full-time arborist or landscape specialist for the area, as they would for an arboreal park setting where the usage is only for trail walking/running, hanging out or picnics.
They may also think an open space is less attractive to homeless and gangs of teenagers or other vagrants.

Haele

[East Coast Pirate]

28. Yeah, who needs trees and bums?

[HappyMe]

34. Who needs exercise in this obesity ridden country?

[East Coast Pirate]

36. There are already plenty of soccer fields.

We don't need to turn every park into one. There are also lots of baseball diamonds and places to run. No one is lacking a way to exercise.

[HappyMe]

37. Obviously there are enough teams in town

to warrant another field.
Where I lived in WI, there were little kid through adult teams, male and female.

[East Coast Pirate]

38. Look you...

I should have known better than too argue soccer fields with a soccer mom.

[HappyMe]

39. Sorry.

My sons loved playing and they were pretty damn good at it.

They played hockey too. I won't bore you with how we got that started up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Can't they do it the way it's done around the world?

Very portable nets when you have money. Cans will work too.

No tree removal necessary

[Recursion]

3. You have to remove the trees from the field itself (nt)

[East Coast Pirate]

6. It would seem so.

Running full speed into a tree would be quite painful.

[Buzz Clik]

7. Cans? Used for nets? Please explain.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Photos tell the story better

When I was growing up, we just played kick soccer, with two cans in the street, or the park.

Like these kids are doing.

[Recursion]

12. ^^ That

Zanzibar! I think I played on that beach once!

[Buzz Clik]

16. Really?

That opens a completely different discussion: are soccer fields necessary?

Playing street ball or beach soccer has its place, but it is a different conversation.

[HappyMe]

18. I just can't see 2 soccer

teams galloping down the sidewalk from opposite corners.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. They are, but not in every park

Which is the point.

A sport center, the YMCA (though not outside my window at ten at night) sure..but a park...not really. A park shoud be able to accommodate this without being exclusive for soccer.

Incidentally this is why soccer is so popular around the world. All you need is a ball. A soccer ball woud be preferable, but kids have been known to kick the ball with whatever ball they have.

And global stars, like Pele, learned the early skills in the hood, as it were.

[Recursion]

10. Put two cans down where the posts of the goal would be. You have a goal.

That's how we did it in Daar. es Salaam..

[jmowreader]

13. You put two on the ground, and kick the ball between them

The team who gets scored on has to chase down the ball.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I hated that part of the rules

Why we always looked for a wall.

[Recursion]

8. Tangentially related: the problem is diamonds vs. rectangles.

I've done some work with my city's parks department; It's a question of shape. We built parks at a time in our cultural history when there were a lot of sports played on diamonds and few sports played on rectangles (something like 90/10 in terms of person-hours involved). Those numbers have almost reversed, so we're stuck with a real problem that most of our playing fields are the wrong shape for what people want to do.

[HappyMe]

11. At least people aren't sitting around on their asses.

My sons used to play soccer. There were some trees around the outer edge of part of the field. It didn't cost a penny for them to play soccer there.

[Myrina]

14. Soccer yes! And Indy is sinking $7M into a CRICKET stadium.

Yes, we have a solid Indian population but last time I checked, Cricket isn't exactly a popular US or midwestern sports.

[East Coast Pirate]

23. Someone in a local forum I post to is very anti-cricket.

They didn't cut down any trees but she was nailed in the head with a cricket ball. That pretty much ended the discussion because people found that funny which made her really angry.

[HappyMe]

25. The high school here has a

couple of cricket teams. There are girl's varsity and boy's varsity teams, then whatever the step down from varsity is.

[Myrina]

29. Most of Indiana is focused on either HS football or basketball or club soccer ...

Nearly everyone in the state did a Derp? when Mayor Photo Op went to India and announced the new stadium.
Literally nobody knew what he was talking about.

[HappyMe]

31. They have football and basketball teams too.

I'm not sure about soccer. I saw a bit of one of the boy's cricket games. It looked like fun.

There are a couple of adult rugby leagues. Not for this girl.

[jmowreader]

24. It's not for the profit of the builders

In the US, soccer has become a rich kid's sport. I know in the rest of the world it is a game for the masses, but in the rest of the world they don't put their kids in $200 shoes (around here the top-line teams require two pair-light colored ones for their away uniform, dark for their home uniforms), send little Mahmoud to a thousand-dollar camp where they will receive instruction from active MLS players, or put little Svetlana on a traveling team that costs mom and dad $30,000 a year in hotel bills, travel, training and tournament entrance expenses - all in hopes of getting Johnny a college scholarship. And they start this when the kid is six...which means they're spending doctorate money getting the kid a BA in English.(All together now: What can you do with a BA in English? What is my life going to be? Four years of college and plenty of knowledge have earned me this useless degree.)

Anyway, The Parents of soccer kids demand these fields, and those parents also know the e-mail address of the newspaper editor, the address of every sign shop in town and the date of the next election.

[Myrina]

30. You nailed it.

Yes, indeed.

[East Coast Pirate]

32. That's it in a nutshell and why I say it's a menace.

Every time I walk by one of these parks treeless lawns they are empty. No one reading a book, no one walking a dog, no children playing, no one playing frisbee, no one sitting on a bench enjoying the out doors. Just a chain link fence to keep people out.

[HappyMe]

33. My sons played soccer for 4 years.

Obviously you live in a waaaay different kind of neighborhood than we did. It cost nothing to sign up. The local businesses bought the shirts for the kids. I think I paid $40 for shoes.

[jmowreader]

41. We have those leagues too

Every city has Parks and Recreation teams, and then there are the private teams who harvest their players from the city teams.

Kootenai County has been converted by right-wing extremists into North Orange County. And they've managed to price Idaho natives out of the market. About three weeks ago someone wrote a letter to the editor demanding that everyone who doesn't "love Idaho the way it is" (this was after the city council passed an ordinance forbidding antigay discrimination) leave. I responded stating that if getting rid of all the liberals was so important the people who wanted us gone could pay for it, and about twenty of our best native conservatives agreed with the sentiment. But back to soccer: the rich want their kids playing with other rich kids...but they want their kids playing on city-owned fields because they pay their taxes, dammit!

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. They demand different coloured boots for the uniform?

Hell, even professionals don't get told to do that - it would interfere with their sponsorship contracts.

The England football team - in the official photo, with different coloured boots.

[jmowreader]

40. It would not surprise me...

...if pro players had to wear one color boots all season.(You know pros have several pair, but all of them are alike.)

Our postpress supervisor's son used to be really good at soccer...until he got accepted to the best U13 team in the area and came home with a $500 shopping list after first practice. It all had to be new, it all had to come from one specific store and it all had to be exact brands specified. Brad changed him to football on the spot. The kid will be playing Pac-12 football next season - on scholarship.

The sick thing is, Idaho natives don't have money like that but our Orange County Refugee crowd does.