Our Philosophy
We believe that playing a game is good and we support all who want to do that. People who participate with us must be willing to subscribe to the rules agreed to and set before the game by all participants.
We believe games are good because they satisfy the innate social desire of all humans to belong. They are pursued by different people at different levels of intensity, which should be intrinsically tolerated by the participants.
We believe that games are good because they involve all types of society, and by bringing us together that this social interaction encourages interconnectedness. That is why we believe there is always room on our bench for one more.
We believe in the power of one person to have a positive impact on our world and thus we remain always open and vigilant to including and supporting the next.
We recognize that organizing games is not an activity of great importance, like organizing schools or parliaments or other activities. We see this activity as supportative of society and something done recreationally.
We insist that the game be respected. When we organize games we show this respect in putting down lines on the field; erecting corner flags; keeping the fields neat.
Most importantly, we insist that players shake hands at the end of the game. This simple act reminds everyone that what occurred is over and it was only a game.
We are aware that we deal with the fire of human emotion exhibited in public forums. Thus what we are dealing with is always imperfect and subject to events which can threaten the peace of the whole. People who come to our games should remain ever vigiliant to restrain their expressions towards others, as what we are doing is self regulating,and it is impossible to constrain everything.
We believe that rules should be kept to the minimum. Rules to govern other people's behaviour are usually self servicing.They require people to enforce the rules; they require people to interupt the rules; they require courts to rule on the rules where there are differences. No house league, which by definition requires the volunteer help of many people, could possibly survive in containing and ruling on the ideas of people to eliminate or constrain others from the group.
Moreover in house leagues, usually only a very small group want to organize things, and allowing the introduction of rules apart from rules which set out how the game is to be played, invariably leads to the tyranny of small groups.
We believe that recreational soccer clubs should be small and local. As those clubs become bigger problems of control and the risks attendant to that control make a greater demand on time than volunteers can handle. Greater size does bring the possibility of greater options being offered, but the participants have to constantly review what the objectives of the group are and who they are serving. Often, in groups, the desires of the highly competitive participants become the objective of the group, since those are the individuals who have the drive to take over things. The loss is that the desire of the great number of people who simply want to come and play a game is replaced by the drive of the minority.