09/14/2014   English German

  Edition # 108  
San Francisco, 09-14-2014


Figure [1]: These recreational soccer players can play for free on the city-owned astroturf field.

Michael Once every week, I'm playing a pickup game with a team of fellow amateur soccer players. Whoever has time to play can reserve a spot on a dedicated web site, and a volunteer takes care of registering the game for a fee with the Recreation and Parks department of the city of San Francisco. It's always great fun to play, and there's even a video of my goal scoring techniques available on Youtube!

Maintenance of all city soccer fields is the responsibility of the San Francisco "Recreation and Parks" department. Sure, there's grass fields in Golden Gate Park that are open for free play, but they often suffer from a lot of pot holes that put players at risk. For the nicely even artificial "astro turf" fields, however, the city wants residents to pay to play. Now, until a few years ago, there used to be a cement surfaced field at the corner of Valencia Street and 20th Street in the Mission neighborhood. Until late at night, this field was in heavy use, because its use was free of charge. Mostly residents of South American origin used to play there passionately, showing off the typical South American street soccer that's very fast, with a lot of dribblings and demonstration of mind-boggling tricks by individual players. Passing the ball is not valued as much and often players try to score instead, even if it's virtually impossible from their angle. You might remember some teams from the last world cup playing in this way.

Figure [2]: Free Play on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening.

As I said, the public cement field in the Mission district used to be wildly popular until late into the night, and the South American players adapted the rules from their home countries to fairly share the field: If there's a new team of five to seven players approaching, and the field is already in use by two teams at maximum capacity, the newcomers yell "Reta!". According to the South American backyard soccer rules, the new team then gets swapped in immediatly after one of the teams on the field scores a goal. The scoring team stays on the field, and the losing team must get off the field to make room for the new arrivals. The rotation continues every time a team is scoring a goal, winner stays, losing team gets off and makes room for a swapped-out team, or if there's new arrivals, they get swapped in next.

Figure [3]: On Tuesdays and Thursdays the parks department rents out the field for 27 Dollars per hour to paying teams.

But when the cement field was remodeled with artificial lawn a few years ago, the city determined that "free play" was now limited to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, whereas on Tuesdays and Thursdays, paying customers could rent it for $27 per hour for exlusive use. I guess it makes sense to somehow recoup the money for the remodel, but quite predictably, the regulars ignored the inconspicuously posted signs and kept playing, including on the days where the field was rented out. When the paying customers arrived at the scene, waving their permits (Figure 3) around, and demanding to use the field, the kicking and screaming began.

Figure [4]: Allegedly the root of all evil: The Google Shuttle.

And if the paying players are white software tech workers, while the field is occupied by Latino residents from the neighborhood, the latter are quick to point out that the newcomers have no business telling them what to do. I've witnessed chaotic games where two paying teams were playing on the field, while a third group of obnoxious troublemakers were kicking their ball around as well in the midst of it. The San Francisco Recreation and Parks department obviously likes pocketing the renting fees, but either doesn't have the guts or is simply too lazy to employ someone to make sure that everyone plays by the posted rules. One time, a busybody youth trainer refused to take his 20 children off the field at the agreed-upon time and threatened that if we insisted on our guaranteed play time, he'd capture the whole scene on video to send it to the local newspaper where it would make a nice story titled "Rich White Techies Take Playing Field From Underprivileged Kids".

But since San Francisco software companies are in hot water these days anyway, because they're being accused of displacing the local residents, caused by greedy landlords, who are kicking out low income families, then drive up the rents and let techies move in, it's prudent to operate with caution. Otherwise, sooner or later, the hippie tech bus protesters will get tired of blocking the shuttles (Figure 4 und Rundbrief 02/2014) and will occupy the soccer fields to prevent sport lovers from playing! Anyway, on this memorable evening, we just caved in and let the douche bag proceed. In the meantime, we've switched to renting less controversial fields, hopefully, San Francisco's Recreation and Parks department will get their act together one day.

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