Sports - February 3, 2010

Sign me up! - It was registration day for the Essex Optimist Recreational Soccer League this past Saturday at the Essex Centre Sports Complex. League registrar Jo-Anne Spitse, left, fills out a registration application for a parent registering her son. President Robin Tilley, centre, looks on. The league will hold two more registration days on Feb. 13 and 27.

“Family and fun” equals local soccer league

By Kevin Wickham

It’s all about “family and fun” according to John Spitse, vice president of the Essex Optimist Recreational Soccer League.

This past Saturday, at the Essex Centre Sports Complex, the mixed league held their second of four registrations for the upcoming soccer season.

The final two signing dates are Feb. 13 and 27.

The registration fee for players is $60, which includes $20 of raffle tickets, and a chance to win five monetary prizes in June. Players must have turned four years of age by Dec. 31, 2009 to be eligible for the youngest division. The league stipend covers shirts, socks, games, referees and field maintenance.

Since its inception in the late 80s, the league, which kicks off its house league season on April 17, plays all its games on weekends at the four-field Essex Soccer Complex on Fairview Avenue. Last season, the league had 515 players and 26 teams in their four youth divisions. A new age group, the 19 and over adult league, which plays on Sunday, was added last year.

The youth division is made up of four age groups: under seven years old, under 10, under 13, which play Saturdays during the day, and an under 18 division, which plays Saturday nights.

The three-month house league schedule ends in June, followed by a travel team selection in August. Players have to play house league to be eligible for the all-star teams, which play under the banner of the Sun County Soccer Club, competing in an interlocking schedule with other Essex and Kent County teams.

“There are two tournaments, the Colasanti Cup, put on by Colsanti’s Tropical Gardens, and at the end of the year, we have a wrap-up tournament,” said Spitse, whose better half Jo-Anne is the league’s registrar.

New to the league this year is a dispersal draft of players in the under 10, 13 and 18 age groups. It was done to balance the rosters and create parity amongst the teams.

“I think it will help everybody. It will be something new. Every year we try to get more balanced teams,” said Spitse, the idea maker behind the draft concept.

All the players will be rated, with age, gender, and if they play travel, used as the criteria to balance the rosters.

Robin Tilley, in her 11th year as president of the non-profit organization, became involved in the volunteer league a dozen years ago when she joined the Optimist Club. Her husband Jim runs the soccer complex canteen. Her children, Jeff, 18, and Melissa, 16, both played in the league and continue to be involved.

Robin, a quality control specialist in her day job, said she continues to be involved in amateur sports “because there’s nobody that likes kids more than me, from the time they spit up till the time they mouth back. It’s a good feeling to be there every week. I’ll probably be doing it when I’m in my wheelchair,” she said this past Saturday.

After countless hours of coaching, determining rosters and pulling together equipment for the league, Tilley told a story about what it means to be a volunteer.

“This little boy comes to us and he’s like four, and he wants to play but we were so full. At that time we were having about 550 kids a year so it was hard. So I couldn’t take it anymore, so we gave him a shirt and it was too big for him, I swear to God it was down to his ankles. His mother told us he slept in that shirt for weeks and it took all she had to get it off of him, and he was out there with grass stains and playing in the mud, and I thought, that’s why we do this!”

For more information on EORSL, visit their website at www.eorsl.com