This thread quit being a straightforward description of the team's season and has become a hodgepodge of bitches, moans, bits, and pieces, with some soccer thrown in. Unfortunately, but appropriately it pretty well matches the general state of the soccer club and the people involved with it.
Brief history. The President/ partial owner of the sports complex was also the president/director of the competitive soccer club. (A large and silent investor was the backer for the complex) These were two separate entities but in the mind of the public they were inseparable. The President is a friend. He is a very flawed individual who is generally incompetent in the role of president for a large business. Some of us tried to help him along, but it just didn't stick. What resulted is those of us that stayed acknowledged that there would always be some annoying quirks to the companies but we were all family, so to speak. We always welcomed new people in and tried to help things grow.
A year ago it was decided that a Soccer Director was needed specifically to run the soccer program. S moved in from out of state to take the job. He quickly became a friend and joined one of the teams I play on. I, and others, have given him a variety of help during that year. We were excited that he had a passion for the program. As he became one of us he seemed to understand that yes the business had issues but it was profitable and some of the issues had actually reached the point of being a positive. Because of the laid back attitude and our desire to keep things friendly and open people treated the flaws as just part of the whole and looked past them. When a business is run like a business and the customer is just treated like a customer that product had better be flawless if you want people to be happy. When people feel like they are a part of something they will be more lenient. Anyway...
Three weeks ago, the President was fired from the complex. It was quiet and they presented it as a mutual parting of the ways so he could focus on the soccer club alone. But the word was leaked pretty quickly by S, the director. Now I knew that S never liked working for the President, but I didn't know that apart from the friendship he had with all of us, he'd been building a strong relationship with the silent investor. It turns out that he really threw the President under the bus and he is now the new General Manager for the complex. Uh, ok, I can deal with that. They're both friends, but it is business and can be cutthroat. I don't like it, but it doesn't really affect me so, ok.
Except now the changes are rolling in. Apparently the new coaches that came in for this new session are part of the change. A bunch of new referees have popped up to replace guys that have left too. That is a good thing, but overall the new guys are pretty substandard. The biggest difference is the attitude. Because I've been out with my knee injury and on vacation I was out of the loop for two weeks. I came back to find I wasn't in Kansas anymore.