Funky Monkeys Season ends

Yesterday was the final game of the 2010-11 U12 girls soccer season for our beloved Funky Monkeys . It was a season that had more moral victories than the other silly kind but it ended on a high note as the girls played a very solid game and emerged as well deserved 2-0 winners.

Our game was originally scheduled for 12:45 but with last week's snow wiping out a round of "Cup Games" we got shuffled down to 8:15 am on the turf at Van Tech. Strangely daughter prefers the early morning games and if I didn't work nights I probably would as well. Anyway it was a beautiful morning and a close fought match, the opposition Dunbar 99 Dynomites had most of the territorial play in the first half but some good work by our keeper kept the sheet blank .

For a while it looked like the result would be 0-0 but around the middle of the second half daughter struck the opening goal off a well placed corner, hard to really call it a set piece but the ball did go high into the middle of the box and daughter did settle it nicely before striking a nice shot high to the near post to make it 1-0 Monkeys.

The goal seemed to take a bit of the edge off the Dunbar attack with most of the play taking place near the mid field mark, then amazingly with less than five minutes to go the FM's scored a second goal, and it was a real goal . By that I mean that the girls moved the ball quickly up field from middle over to the right side where daughter, again the catalyst, calming beat one defender and having drawn a second defender to her slotted a perfect pass to left middle for Victoria to calmly run in on alone, and onside, before knocking one home from just around the 10 meter mark . While I horrified the players on the bench with a post goal "Shakira shake" I noticed daughter shaking her head . When the game ended I asked why and she said "I blew it, if Vic hadn't scored I'd have had the first goal of the year and the last " - and they wonder about those arcane sports records.

The day continued to a perfect conclusion as we joined up with "across the street" neighbours to dine at former downstairs neighbours for a "family dinner" ending with ice cream cake for daughter's recently passed 12th birthday (Sponge and Patrick Star on the cake) .

The game also, in all likelihood, marked the end of my coaching career as I've decided that it's time for someone else to step up . I love the games and don't mind the practices but the six month time commitment, and sleep deprivation on many Sundays, is just more than I'm willing to go through for another year.