May 13
OK, we had a couple of hiccups yesterday. We like Clean Slate and Outcasts so much we listed them twice. Here's our count as of close of business Monday. We're tallying up our collection for the men's division and will have updates out to those teams tomorrow.
If you're Over-30 or minifut, we need your stuff in by Monday. Yes, minifut is the same as 5 a side.
| |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
| 1 |
Las Hurricanes |
Mustangs |
Screaming Weasels |
the shockers |
| 2 |
Dynamics |
Da Bombs |
Blood Sweat and Years II |
Nike |
| 3 |
Clean slate |
Whatever |
Crawdads |
Pork Chops |
| 4 |
SAIC |
Rodekill |
Thunder |
We Kick Balls |
| 5 |
Strange Brew |
Blood Sweat and years I |
Renegades |
|
| 6 |
Swingers |
Outcasts |
Superheros |
|
| 7 |
Moosehead |
Rookies |
Mavericks |
|
| 8 |
Old Spice 2 |
Shenanigans |
Fury |
|
| 9 |
Diversity |
FC Caliente |
L is for Peanut |
|
| 10 |
Clair de Loon |
Roadrunners |
Most Wanted |
|
| 11 |
Legion |
Old Spice 1 |
Cerebrial Studs |
|
| 12 |
Bandits |
DNR |
|
|
| 13 |
Jest 4 Phun |
Spikenardians |
|
|
| 14 |
Spam! |
The Closers |
|
|
| 15 |
Dirty Dogs |
Yucca Doos |
|
|
| 16 |
|
Clash |
|
|
| 17 |
|
|
|
|
| 18 |
|
|
|
|
| 19 |
|
|
|
|
| 20 |
|
|
|
|
We’ve got ten fields available, so as soon as any division hits twenty teams, that’s it.
May 8
OK, fellow aficionados of futbol, we appear to have secured three fields and Balloon Fiesta doesn’t work. The upshot is that I’m too tired to type tonight but we’re in pretty decent shape to get our ten fields. Much more rambling on THAT subject over the weekend, since there’s some baggage that comes along.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SATURDAY, MAY 10 IS THE DEADLINE TO GET YOUR DEPOSIT IN FOR THE NEW MEN’S SUMMER LEAGUE. (I’m Pele, and I approved this commercial). THE OFFICE HOURS ARE 10 A.M. TO 2 P.M., WHICH MEANS YOU CAN REALLY COME TO THE OFFICE EARLIER THAN 1:55 P.M. HONEST.
Here are updates for teams who have submitted completed registration for coed. When We’ve got twenty teams on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights, that’s all the field space we have. Thursday we split with AWSL over-30, so we probably have 7 fields that night. If you take your time, you do so at your own risk, since the great “Tour de Albuquerque” field search is ended.
Monday
Las Hurricanes
Dynamics
Clean slate
SAIC
Strange Brew
Swingers
Moosehead
Old Spice 2
Clean Slate
Diversity
Clair de Loon
Tuesday
Mustangs
Da Bombs
Whatever
Rodekill
Blood Sweat and years I
Outcasts
Wednesday
Screaming Weasels (we just write em, we don’t name em)
Blood Sweat and Years II
Crawdads
Thursday
The Shockers
May 6
We checked out Garfield MS field today, but it’s missing a whole lot of grass. The dirt was nice and level, but it probably wouldnt’ be much fun to use. Hopefully we’ll have updates tomorrow on Balloon fiesta park.
Right now we’ve got about 8 fields availabe for coed play, so when we’re out of fields, it’s first come first serve. That means we can do 8 games a night. Hence, the Balloon Fiesta park is a big deal to fit everyone in.
Over-30 and 5 a side are due May 19.
May 5
Over 30 teams, your registration stuff is posted on the web site under 2008 Summer Soccer.
OK, here’s our update on the field situation. We will definitely NOT be playing at Bullhead. Based on our offer, the city parks people took their management out to Bullhead to see what it actually looks like and they weren’t happy. Now, while I’d like to exercise my constitutional right to have the city fix everything that I need, as well as drive a fire truck around, the current state of fiscal affairs at the city isn’t particularly promising for finding unused money, which is a polite way of saying if we want it improved, we get to kick in to pay for it. On the bright side, the city is now pressuring the other users to come forward with money as well.
Last year we basically wasted our money because the work got started too late and the new sod didn’t have time to take root. This year, the city will take the park offline for 8 weeks. That means no one will play on it. However, it also makes it much more likely that it will be available for next year. I pointed out the obvious, that being that it was a little difficult to explain to my dues paying members that we were paying to repair it but not use it. Hence, the staff at the branch we work through is working with the Balloon Fiesta park staff for several organizations to try to get us moved to Balloon Fiesta park temporarily (like for this summer) at no charge. That would solve some of the problem. The “some” it doesn’t solve it the goalpost issue. The simple version of the goalpost story is that they generally don’t want them left out, which would lead one to assume that they would want us to put them up and take them down every day. Without giving you a long winded detail of what that entails, trust me that “Mike said” a dirty word when he heard that the first time. So we’ll be working on that and it’s a large part of the thing I might need some help on while I’m out.
I have some of your colleagues in the league who work at McKinley and Wilson Mid Schools who offered to discuss the use issues with the principals and see if we could bring those fields into circulation. Normally, the city would not install goals at McKinley and
Wilson has some full size movable goals. It appears we have someone we can pay to set up goals at McKinley if the school administration is on board. As the middle schools are supposed to be starting soccer programs, I would think it would be to their advantage to get usable goals at as many as can be.
Therefore, if I can bring the ones I’ve found on line, I’m somewhere between 10 and 12 fields not counting
Balloon
Fiesta
Park . However, they aren’t going to be 110 x 75 fields that most of you are used to from playing in World Cup and they won’t be grouped together. But they beat driving to the complex in Bernalillo.
Also, I’ll start posting the number of teams registered on each evening. When I’ve hit 20 teams on any given evening, anyone else goes on the waiting list. As you can see from the 2008 version of Where in the World is Carmen Soccer Field?, I’m scraping up everything I can and magic fields are probably not going to appear this year.
April 20
Ok sports fans, here’s an update on our summer field situation for coed and over-30.
Normally we would use 4 fields at Bullhead and fields at Jackson MS, Hoover MS,
Montgomery park, John Villela, Highland Detention Pond and Jerry Cline. Last year we contributed $5,000 towards sod repairs at Bullhead.
There will be no sod repairs at bullhead this year. Apparently we are the only ones willing to contribute any money. The others who contract with the city to use bullhead are Young America Football League and three soccer leagues that are operating as business, which apparently now includes Ligalatina, who has advised its members they will no longer be affiliated with NMSSA. So our options are to pay ALL the costs to resod the fields so YAFL and the three soccer leagues can enjoy the fruit of our effort or we can find someone else to play.
You can drive out and take a look at Bullhead yourself. I’d prefer to not play games there because it has been beaten down adequately that I don’t think it’s safe.
In the alternative, here are fields I’ve gone by and checked so far.
McKinley MS – great grass, no goals. About 5 years ago the principal at the school had them removed. I’m going to inquire of the city as to whether we can pay to have some reinstalled like we have at
ADO and Pius. To get goals similar to the ones we have at the complex would cost about $2,500 a pair. We would also have to manage to secure them daily to insure that they don’t get destroyed.
Oso Grande – two fields and I walked them off and they would probably be big enough for coed play. They’re slightly less than 100 yards long.
Hayes MS – still suffering from prairie dog-itis, meaning holes and lumps. Also, there is a softball field adjacent that would likely lead to problems with idiots hitting balls into the soccer game for sport.
Vietnam
Veterans
Park – also suffers from prairie dog damage and looks fairly beaten up from rugby play.
Van Buren MS – very beaten up and big dead spots.
Wilson MS – Decent grass, but there have been problems between the city and school and I’m not sure the school would allow us to put in goals. There are small goals at the school, but to get the full sized goals we have the same situation as we do at McKinley.
Lynwood – probably will work. We will have parking problems because of the number of players who insist on parking under ‘No parking” signs that will result in problems with the neighborhood association.
Jeanne Bellamah – this would have worked, but we had a pickup league playing games there on Sundays and finally broke enough windows in people’s houses that the city took the full sized goals out.
Balloon fiesta park – I’ve not had time to contact their staff to discuss but will do so this week. As I’ve noted before, this operation has a track record of agreeing to host games only to boot teams off when a better deal comes along and not understanding that it’s a problem that the league needs to have as many fields on standby as it has available from them. In addition, we can’t place permanent goals. If they were to guarantee me that we can play each night during our season, the money I had planned to spend on Bullhead could go to renting Balloon fiesta, buying portable goals, and paying someone to set them up.
I’ve got another couple of possibilities I’ll check out this coming weekend and send out an update next week.
