West Coast League 2003/2004

[trece verde]

Hi kids. Grandpa Stew here with this year's Division lineups for the West Coast Over Thirties Soccer League.

Premier Division

Columbus
Club Inter
Firefighters
FC Sierra
Paddlewheeler
PAOK
Total Marine
Westside Miloni

First Division

Covercrete
Lobbans
Lusitanos
PCOV
PoCo Blues
PoCo Celtic
SFU Clan Alumni
SFU Celtic

Second Division

Cliff Avenue
Coquitlam Ajax
Cracovia
Killarney Spurs
Ridge Shooters
SFU Rangers
Vancouver United (formerly Fransen Engineering)
Westside Bulldogs

Third Division

Canterbury (formerly Avanti)
Caribbean Allstars
First Fifteen
Meralomas
New West Reds
Olympiakos

Changes from last year:

SFU Clan Alumni and PCOV relegated from Premier to Div 1; FC Sierra and Paddlewheeler promoted from Div 1 to Premier.

SFU Celtic and Lusitanos promoted from Div 2 to Div 1; Coquitlam Ajax relegated from Div 1 to Div 2. No second team relegated due to Dartmen retiring from Div 1 to go to Over 40's.

Olympiakos relegated from Div 2 to Div 3; SFU Rangers and Vancouver United (Fransen) promoted from Div 3 to Div 2. Spurs (3rd place team last year in Div 3) get bumped up to Div 2 due to Dartmen retiring from Div 1 to go to Over 40's. This replaces a 7 team Div 2 with an 8 team one.

Two new teams in Div 3 this year; Meralomas and Caribbean AllStars. Both welcomed over from the NSCL due to North Van's screwy residency requirements and expected to do well.

Not in this year: Dartmen (going to Over 40's); Admirals (still on hiatus); Croatia (not enough "old boys" yet; hoping they can join us next year).

Biggest rule change we've looked at is to allow teams to sign 3 guys ("underage players") between the ages of 31-34. This took a lot of discussion to enact, and hopefully everybody can live with the results.

Let the banter and Pisstaking begin......

Stew

 

[Lupoman]

"underage players"....

Thanks to as you said North Van's residency policy, we found that being allowed to sign "younger" players is a good way to keep fresh blood coming into the league, catching those players that might otherwise sign elsewhere, then stay. For us, it gets some North Van boys back playing on the North Shore before they hook up elsewhere. Thanks to WCOSL for welcoming Carrabean Allstars and Meralomas, both teams are class acts on and off the field. A great addition for your league, we were very sorry to have them go. Good luck to all.

lupoman

Treasurer/Registrar NSCL

 

[trece verde]

re underage players....

Lupoman:

Ironic thing about it is that my team hasn't signed any underage guys (yet). We're still stuck with the same old curmudgeons.

Not sure how some of the other West Coast ttpers have done re this. Peter? Pylon? Any thoughts?

Stew

 

[Lupoman]

younguns......

We didn't actually actively look for younger players, they ended up being friends of team guys looking for somewhere to play... tricky part comes if your team quailifies for provincials....happened to Nordic last year. Many of their best players were under 35... they ended up scrambling to sign eligable players and then got thumped 9-1. NSCL got ripped by the soccer community over that one. That situation won't happen again. Anyway, it can be a saving grace for some, as long as it's managed properly.

lupoman

 

[peter]

We have some new guys but they're all O-35. Although we've had some good players come early over the years (John Catliff, Bill Johnston et al) the majority of the good 31-35 y.o. players are still playing Premier somewhere and the young guys that do play O-35 might have some springs but lack the finer qualities that can actually make a diference in a game--as opposed to a practise.

 

[Lupoman]

true enough......

for teams with championship asperations, but when you are a steady, middle of the road div. 2 side, as long as they hang about after games and practices for a brew..... talent, they don't need no stinking talent!!!!!

lupoman

 

[peter]

Premier Result

Westside 4-0 PAOK

We didn't play last weekend so this was a good start to the year.

Columbus' game was cancelled due to homocide! I heard Frank Ciacca, who's a detective for the NW Police, showed up to play and got called in to work at Sapperton Park.

 

[trece verde]

Sapperton

Peter:

Not sure exactly what happened there, but Carlos was talking to Vic and he said that a body was found there about 2:30 this morning, so the whole park was closed off as a crime scene.

Wow. This is probably the most macabre reason I've ever heard of for calling off a game since the Fiji league went slightly awry one day....

Other news not quite so impressive:

Lusitanos 2 SFU Celtic 1 game was stopped for a few minutes as one of the SFU players was carried off the field with a broken leg.

Spurs 1 Ajax 0 Good tight game with the winner being decided on a strong header that was deflected past Ajax's keeper.

Both games played at Empire Stadium fields. 4 teams, no dressing rooms open. Sounds almost like the FVSL

Beers,

Stew

 

[coolhead]

Premier result

Firefighters 1 - Sierra FC 0

Figherfighters had the edge in possesion, we had a few more scoring chances, including a sitter in the six yard box with an empty net that will be the source of at least one nightmare tonight, and Figherfighters taking advantage of an opportunity from a tough angle to sneak one in the near post.

A difficult introduction to premier for Sierra, with Columbus and then Figherfighters in the first two weeks. We are only minus 2 in goals for/against, but sitting at 0 points where it counts. Time to stop settling for good efforts and start winning some games ....


Coolhead

 

[trece verde]

welcome aboard

Coolhead:

Notice any difference with Danny actually back playing after his adventures in refereeing? He told me on Saturday that he was going to concentrate on playing instead....

Beers,

Stew

 

[coolhead]

There is less profanity when Danny is reffing. When he is at our game, Danny limits his playing time so that he can spend more time at on the sidelines swearing at the team (mostly me). After the move up to Premier, some of Danny's favourite 'targets' from last season have been replaced by some new Romanian imports. They are all very strong players, so I am assuming that whatever Danny is shouting at them isn't profanity, but Romanian complements and encouragement. At the Firefighter game he tried to pick up the slack by screaming at me, but it was a weak effort, as I have been rising to the challenge of stronger competition by simplifying my game and eliminating the stupid mistakes. If I can continue to keep my head out of my ass, Danny will start having spending more time on the field to get his workout .


Coolhead

 

[trece verde]

Danny on the field....

If I can continue to keep my head out of my ass, Danny will start having spending more time on the field to get his workout

LOL

Tell Danny that he needs more time on the field; he's getting fat and lazy from all the beer at league meetings Best way to take care of that is to make him chase Tim Jowett around when playing Firefighters....

Glad to hear that Danny's giving motivational speeches and lots of encouragement to keep his players hungry. At least you're getting exposed to the joys of the lilting Romanian language. BTW, if he's swearing in English, he's doing it in Romanian too...

Has The Judge been seen at all lately? I doubt that he'll ever put the boots on for you guys again, but just wondered if he's been out to the field in a while...

Is One-armed Jackson still healthy? We've got a pool going on him to see how many games he can get in before he hurts himself again...

Beers,

Stew

 

[peter]

Premier Result

Westside 1-3 Total Marine Celtic

After a good start last week, the boys couldn't finish their lunch Sunday. Celtic made the most of their opportunities and we didn't plain and simple.

On to FC Sierra at Queen's Park next week.

Other Premier scores:

PAOK 3 - Sierra SC 2
Columbus 3 - Firefighters 2
Club Inter 2 - Paddlewheeler 0

To answer Scottyshell's (is that Scotty's Hell--as in some kind of Star Trekese--or Scotty Shell?) question about Columbus he started in another thread (gotta keep these WCOTSL posts happening in one place), Columbus can -really- get under your skin. The trick is to get the first goal on them and they turn all that nasty energy inwards.

 

[trece verde]

Peter...

Agreed with that. I played the gentle version of thread nazi and "suggested" that he come over and play with us over here instead...

Not sure, but I'm guessing that Scottyshell is a reference to the old Wesburn team Scotty Shell - back in the dinosaur days when Wesburn was the only club in Burnaby that had overt sponsorship of its teams....

"Back when I was a boy, I remember having to chase the pterodactyls off the fields at Burnaby Lake so that we could play..."

Spurs 2 Ridge Shooters 2. All I can say is thank you, Conrad for turning a 2-0 win into a tied game....
PCOV 2 Lusitanos 0. The Battle for the Bifanas was won by Carlos' boyz. Would somebody please put a ball past him before his heed gets too big to fit between the goalposts?

Beers,

Stew

ps - welcome back, Hedkandi. How was the Grand Canyon?

 

[Scottyshell]

Dino Days

Got that one right on the money Stew.Went from Scotty's to Jim's Shell.Gotta admit that name sucked,but what the hey,helped pay for the sweats......Now about Columbus....we did score first,but key injuries and guys working limits the bench so we didn't have the legs but it took a missed call by the man in black to give them the game and (not one) but two reds......Gimme a break.Like I said earlier.....they better come back with the hardware from Edmonchuck or don't come home!!

Cheers

 

[trece verde]

Scotty:

Yeah, there's a few of us Burnaby bhoys still around and being kicked...I remember the sweats - made us feel jealous having to put up with the cheapskates at Cliff Avenue...."hey, look at that, man! They've actually got NUMBERS on their jerseys...Wow!!"

Holy shite, were we ever easy to impress then....

For those of you too young to remember, Cliff used to give out orange tunics (not jerseys) that you were supposed to wear over a black turtleneck. Damned things were as stiff as cardboard - I think they were actually left over from the 30's - and they looked like shite, too. Come to think of it now, I can also remember playing at Swangard as a kid with a cardboard number pinned onto the back of my "tunic..." Yes, kids, things really used to be that bush league....

Must suck beating those guys in the League Cup and then having them take the Provincials... You guys must have been missing a lot of bodies - otherwise you could have just let TJ run round and round out on the field - that guy never seems to run out of gas

"Sorry, guys...."

Welcome aboard, Scottyshell.

Beers,

Stew

 

[peter]

Welcome aboard Scott! It's a rare accurence that a new old fart discovers this site--and actually posts something. Craigo (pretty fancy looking grill he had out Sunday) seems to have fallen by the wayside.

How's the team looking this year? Any new blood? Retirees? Before last week I would have thought that Westside were looking stronger than last year...not that that was hard to do.

 

[kurgan]

From Sunday at Hillcrest

I was watching another game but thought this might be of slight interest here so I uploaded it.

Photo-op

I'm on the over side of 35 now so I should probably plan for my playing future sometime too...

 

[Scottyshell]

Photo

Great photo,although you did ruin it by having the big baboon Etheridge in the pic.

Cheers

 

[Scottyshell]

Sunday at Adanac

What a beautiful day for a little footy in the park.....to bad for our
opponents PAOK,as they found out....you can't come to play with only 12 guys in this league although we weren't much better.Truth be told,if they had any finish up front it would 've made for an interesting game.Anyway it was a super day with a 5-0
final that could've been more.Already lookin' forward to next week.Who's next????

Cheers!