Soccer players may need a new home

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Soccer players may need a new home
There are 16 of them, and they have been playing indoor soccer in the winter in the gym at CAMH for so long that none of them can remember exactly when they started. They have grey hair now. They play indoors to keep their skills sharp for the summer season.
They are mostly English. They played football when they were kids,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], with the same intensity as kids in Canada play hockey. They support Liverpool, Fulham, Manchester United and Toronto FC.
They reckon they have been playing in the CAMH gym for 30 years. They are like brothers,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], attending each other's birthdays,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], taking vacations at each other's cottages.
CAMH says that,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], because of all the changes,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it can't offer the lads their usual gym time next fall. The only slot available for them seems to be Saturday mornings.
Saturdays don't work. They are family men. They have weekend obligations. And so, just like that, a 30-year tradition may end.
I went to the gym the other night to watch them play. In the locker room, suiting up,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Steve said, "I've been coming here 15 years." Jimmy said,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], "Since 1984. Do the math." The math for that is 28 years.
Jimmy also said,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], "I played in my village when I was growing up." His village? "Glasgow." He still supports the Rangers. "That's another tragedy."
The gym is not free; each man pays $120 for his share of the time. They have a rule,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and I think of it as the Glasgow rule: if any man has been laid off,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the others cover his fee.
The indoor game is four-on-four, depending on who shows up. Some of the lads pulled on white jerseys; others wore dark; that's how you know whose side you're on. I saw scars and knee braces.
And I heard their sneakers squeak when they took to the wooden pitch. It is,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], of course,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a gym; there are basketball nets at each end. Mark said, "If you kick the ball and score a basket, you get a free pint at the end of the night."
The game started slowly. Are they good? Chris took a pass and, square to the ball, let it go between his legs; at the last second, when the ball was behind him,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], he deflected it with his heel to another man; perfect.
Then Jimmy toyed with the ball in the corner, standing on a line parallel to the mouth of the net; he bent one in like Beckham, if Beckham were an older fellow with a brace on his knee and another on his wrist; the cheers were jeerish, and funny.
I also saw Rob get tackled and go down, or perhaps he stubbed a toe on the hardwood. He landed hard. Someone said, "Oh, oh, damage to the floor."
Steve came off, breathless. "It's gotten so our wives and girlfriends don't expect us home Wednesday nights." That may change.
They suppose they could find another place to play in the fall,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but they reckon that,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], wherever it is, they'd get put on the end of some long list and wouldn't get their preferred time.
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