JDG, Cann, Pozniak, Dwayne's old club team - hard as F&%K
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle1666203/
Parents and soccer officials in the Greater Toronto Area are up in arms after an incident at an under-13 game last month in which a parent allegedly threatened an assistant referee with a gun.
The York Region Soccer Association has refused to assign officials to games involving North Scarborough Soccer Club’s under-13 team, better known as the Bulldogs, since July 12. On that day, a parent of a Bulldogs player approached an assistant referee after a controversial decision during a 1-0 loss to the Aurora Stingers and allegedly revealed a weapon tucked into his belt. Police were called by an Aurora parent, but no charges were laid. Neither the official nor the parent has been identified.
Four teams – the Woodbridge Strikers, Vaughan Azzurri, Kleinburg Nobleton Reds and most recently the Leaside Tigers, who were due to play the Bulldogs Monday night – have all since refused to play North Scarborough.
“There was the threat that there was a weapon,” said Kent Green, secretary of the YRSA. “Whether a weapon was seen or not seen is not really the point. This is youth soccer and the district’s position, quite frankly, is that we’re not prepared to put our referees in jeopardy.”
Aurora head coach Brian Cooper was reluctant to divulge details.
“We had quite the incident,” he said. “However, I don’t know if I want to see it all over the newspapers. If that’s in, people are going to go, ‘Wow,’ and that’s not really good for soccer, is it? I’m not saying we want to shove it under the carpet either.”
The North Scarborough Soccer Club – which has helped produce players such as Toronto FC midfielder and Canadian international Julian de Guzman – is denying any such incident took place.
“It’s just propaganda, nothing like that happened,” said club president Byron McCormack. “No, absolutely not. It’s not a very responsible statement and I don’t know who’s making those statements.”
However, Mr. McCormack had no explanation for other teams’ unwillingness to play games against the Bulldogs.
“I don’t even know why those games were postponed. I’m still trying to get an answer from the league,” he said. “They haven’t been able to tell me the reason why. I have no idea why they’ve done that and I intend to find out.”
However, parents of the Leaside Tigers under-13 side, which was due to play host to North Scarborough at Flemingdon Park Monday night, are in no doubt as to the reason why they have decided not to play the game.
“We’re refusing to play them because of security purposes,” said the parent of one of the Leaside players, asking that his name be withheld. “Even [Leaside Tigers executive director] John Morgan has said, ‘I’ll hire a police officer or two,’ and I said, ‘Why should we have a cop at a soccer game for 13-year-olds? That’s just stupid.”
The Central Soccer League, in which all the teams compete, held a disciplinary meeting for North Scarborough last Thursday, but refused to comment on the outcome either by phone or by e-mail. A call to the Ontario Soccer Association, which governs the sport in the province, was not returned.
The Leaside parents are concerned that little has been done in the intervening month to resolve the issue.
“Nobody seems to want to talk,” said the same parent. “We’ve tried talking to the CSL and the OSA and we basically know more than we’re supposed to know and they’re trying to keep it hush-hush.
“You know, I kept my son out of hockey because I thought hockey was bad, but when you start bringing a gun to a soccer game for 13-year-olds, then you’ve got issues. It’s got to be dealt with, and the CSL doesn’t seem to want to deal with these things.”
Another Leaside parent believes it’s largely due to a lack of respect toward officials.
“They are out of control some of these people, and nobody’s helping the referee or linesmen at all,” said James Gardner. “They’re not big games – there’s 30 parents maybe at a good game, which is not a lot of people, but still, they do act up.”
The incident again raises the issue of abuse against officials in children’s sports, a matter that Hockey Canada has had to deal with in the past. However, firearms-related offences are almost unheard of at this level of sports.
“It’s incredibly isolated,” said Mr. Green, the YSRA secretary. “We don’t run into a lot of alleged gunplay at soccer games generally. We’ve certainly dealt with a reasonable number of alleged referee assaults, whether they be verbal assault or pushing/shoving/the odd punch in the face or whatever the case may be, that has happened, and we deal with it accordingly under the jurisdiction of wherever the discipline needs to be heard.
“In my [20] years of being involved in this [sport], this is the first I’ve heard of this.”
Incidents such as these, however, can leave an almost indelible mark, especially on the players themselves.
“My son doesn’t want to play. [His friends] don’t want to play,” said the anonymous Leaside parent. “They’re worried. I’d be worried that if I scored the winning goal in the last minute they’d come after me or something.”
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Originally Posted by Whoopee
Great love does not exist without joy and without great suffering ,that's why One club is worth only as much as its fans !
