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In the world of soccer, visiting opposing teams can either be a fun, worth while endevour or a total fiasco and worth forgetting about. The latter is what the Rain ran into in British Columbia on a one game trip to meet Team BC on June 30th. The negative was more or less a result of Team BC's seeming lack of ability to organize itself. On their first trip down to Portland on June 16, Team BC was unable to organize itself enough to travel to the correct field, showing up at Tigard High School instead of Delta Park Strasser. Once given directions to the actual field of play via cell phone, they claimed to have "never been given a notice of field change." Well, a poor excuse indeed as the PCSL schedule had been out and solidified for quite a good many months and Portland had contacted and left voicemail regarding location. It had always been at Delta Park Strasser field and surely was not a last second field change. Not only were they not able to make it to the correct field, but once they did show up at Strasser about 30 minutes late, they demanded a 30 minute warm up period even though the referees were on a tight schedule. 23 minutes into the warm up, the head referee blew the whistle for the start of the game. Again Team BC's coach stepped in and demanded "his" remaining 7 minutes of warm up time, upsetting the head referee and practicaly everyone at the field that day. Well the Team BC was graciously given the remaining time and finaly, an hour late, the game began. A match report for that game was written by Allison Andrews on the web site. On June 30, Portland traveled for a one game trip to Vancouver. Portland was able to make it to the correct field, one hour prior to game time, with all of it's players. One problem though.... Team BC did not have a permit for the scheduled game and a mens PCSL team did, for the same exact time, on the same exact field. Another Team BC disorganization had Portland warming up on the wrong field, about one hour total, while Team BC's management searched desperately for another field to play a scheduled league game. Team BC's management came back to say that they had located a field just up the road. The Portland players reluctantly grabbed their gear and walked back to their cars. Once arriving at the alternate field, it was quickly determined by Portland that this new field was unnaceptable. It did not have regulation size goals and was not lined, apart from the fact that it was in the middle of a baseball diamond! The fiasco continued even further as Team BC searched for an alternate field to the alternate field. Another was found and was determined to be mostly acceptable. The field was lined and netted while the teams had about a 10 minute warm up. The whistle finaly blew to begin the match... more than one hour late. Team BC, having recruited a whole slew of new players for their home match, took control of the ball for most of the first half. Team BC was able to score two quick goals within the first 11 minutes against a cold group of athletes, all before Portland's original warm up time was to expire. Portland began to play possession about 25 minutes in, just about time they began to get warm. Just as it seemed things couldn't get any worse, disaster struck Portland in the 38th minute. A low hard shot from the right flank had Portland's goal keeper Keau diving for the save, giving up a short rebound. Keau then was able to recover and dive forward over the rebounded ball just as a Team BC runner got a foot into it and a knee into the face of Keau, breaking her nose and knocking her unconscious for about 30 seconds. A foul on Team BC.... no wait, a goal called by the head referee that did not move from the center circle the entire game and could not have possibly seen any action going at either end of the field. Keau was able to regain consciousness and walk herself off the field with an obviously broken and bleeding nose, not to mention a mild concussion and severe head ache from the knee to the face. Both coaches agreed at that point to break for half time while Portland regrouped. The referee and linesman then decided for some reason to deny halftime to the teams, demanding that they play the final 7 minutes of the half. The teams then reluctantly kicked the ball back and forth for 7 minutes until the referee decided the teams could break for half. Portland had a decision to make at half time as they only had 11 players available for the trip. The injury to the goal keeper took them down to 10 players with defender Janay Mountain stepping in at goal keeper. The second half was much different as the Rain attempted to exact their revenge on Team BC. Portland dominated possesion with only 10 players in the last 45 minutes, scoring a goal mid way through off the head of Tami Perkins, and holding Team BC scoreless. The Rain also had a couple of shots from Laurie Smith rocket off the post and cross bar for what would might have been the tying goals. Needless to say, nobody in the Rain organization was happy about what happened in Vancouver that day. Regardless of the outcome of the game, it is unnaceptable to be disorganized in such a manner for league play. Lucky for Team BC that Portland did not file a formal complaint in the matter. So I guess what we need to say is "Cheers" and "you got us that time" and live to play another day. Perhaps one day Team BC can get it's act together and keep pace with the hospitality of the rest of the league. |