What I think is ideal does not exist. Rec soccer year around. Its only like 10 games in the fall. Comp soccer is year round. So that was our only choice. Ideally for the littles (say ages 4-9) they could play year round rec. But that does not exist, at least not around here. Then go to comp around say age 10 if are serious. Year-round rec would be more pragmatic. Affordable for all. And the kids still get lots of touches. But I get it, its hard to find the volunteers. I mean, I'm not saying comp is not worth the cost. It really depends on the coach you get. But for most people they would prefer to pay less for less coaching (licenses) but still have the kids play a lot.
The roster size issue is one of the biggest benefits I've seen resolved with moving to a bigger club (at U10). My son's team has a roster of 9, but there are multiple teams for his birth year. If we're going to be short for whatever reason, we get guest players invited from the next team down. If a lower team is short, they can pull from our team or another lower team depending on who they're playing. We never end up with more than 2 subs for 7 v 7. And with the software and diligence about RSVP'ing for games, it doesn't seem like it's ever been a scramble for those from the club that have to ensure we have enough, but not too many.
The club my kid plays for never carries a lot of subs for their first teams. Mainly because they want roster flexibility to sign a superstar kid if he comes around... but also they don't want to have 12 for 7v7 or like 16 for 9v9 as they know parents are playing time conscious... We know clubs around here that carry the max... Parents and players don't stay there too long...
I coach rec and we generally have big rosters. But we cap them to ensure that even if everyone shows up, all players get to play at least half of the game.
Just for a point of fact... DD plays in a "5 a side" (like futsal, but on turf, walls are oob). 20 minute halves. Here's a typical day's schedule... Adding 5 minutes each half would mean last game kicking off at 8p. As a parent, I'm kind of glad.
I think they have training on Sundays so the court/field isn't available. Weekdays and you'll lose kid availability because of school activities.
In your town there is only one field? We have many indoor turf courts. Not too many futsal courts though. At least not near me.
This facility has the single field. There are two other facilities that have two each. Of course, each facility has it's own "league". Looking at another site, the time between games also looks like 50 minutes (so that would allow 2x 20 min halves, 5 min half, 5 min for team swap).
Indoor space especially around here in the winter is at a premium. There's 5 or 6 facilities I can think of off-hand within 30-45 minutes of me (a variety - boarded, non-boarded, etc.), but between all the youth soccer leagues, lacrosse, flag football, adult leagues in soccer, football, not to mention a wide variety of practices, there's not a waking moment in the weekend or after school hours during the week that every minute is unoccupied with something. I reffed 3 games yesterday at an indoor facility - all 25 minute halves, every game starting on the hour each hour. I had the first three games, starting at 9, but the other fields were already in use when I got there with a combo of youth and adult games. I'm sure they were going to be occupied until at least 8 or 9pm. I know a lot of adult leagues in our area don't even start until 8pm - often going until 11pm or later.
This is what it's like where we are -- last games on weekend nights start after 9:30 just to get them all in. And the list of activities competing for space is long and varied -- a dog agility group pays a premium at the facility closest to us to book up a bunch of what would otherwise be available time, per the owners.
I used to play Men's Over-30 indoor at a single-field facility. Because the weekends were taken up by youth games/leagues, the adult leagues were on weeknights. We played on Mondays. The last game kicked off at 11:35 PM. That was brutal.
Similar here. They at least put the oldest/slowest league (mine) on Fridays, I guess assuming the mostly over40-crowd wouldn't be big on late nights with work and school the next morning. I kind of liked the late slot on Friday nights, though -- play a late game, hang around and BS a bit, go home and crack open a beer and apply ice to whatever hurt that week ...
Back when I was still coaching indoor soccer, my county's single indoor facility had a schedule like that but they ran longer so teams regularly had 8 or 9PM games. The put the HS girls on Sunday evenings which meant all games were either 6,7,8 or 9 PM starts. The 9PM starts were grim.
When DS was playing indoor, the HS league played Friday/Saturday nights. I think the last start time was 11:45P. Maybe 11:50P. And DS wasn't driving yet.
11:35p?? I'm in an over 40 league and we absolutely dread our latest kickoff at 10p. I'll stop complaining about that after hearing of this 11:35p kickoff... yikes...
Ouch. I think the latest we had was like 10pm. Heck, I feel bad for the worker who has to close up after the game.
Did I mention it was 35 minutes one way? In all honesty, I *LOVE* watching my kids play. Even though it's at times frustrating (them as well as others), I really love watching them. 11:50P start? As long as it's Friday or Saturday night, I'm there.
My men's league had the final kick off at 12:40 am, on Thursday/Friday. Made work on Friday a nightmare. I have officially retired.
I do, too. My son seems to have played out the string overseas and is back home now looking for the next step in life. He still likes playing competitively, though, and is already back in touch with teams in the local Hispanic leagues. I'll definitely go to some games, and once again be the token gringo buying pupusas from the abuelas. He's 24 and I will still drive over to the next county on a cold weeknight to watch my boy play.
Well, it was over 30 instead of over 40, so there's that. I'm 55 now and there's no way in hell I could do it anymore.
Same age here, and I miss it (I stopped right before the pandemic). If there was an over-50 league where I am I'd do it, but I can't make it in a league with even pure-rec 20- and 30-somethings in it anymore.
I might be giving Over-30 7v7 another shot this Spring. Some guys I used to play with have put together a team, they say it's a low-key group of guys who don't sweat losing and we'll have plenty of subs. And the latest games start at 9:00. That's a big one for me--I really gotta get my sleep these days.
I don't play in league but my county has an organized drop-in(organized that you register for a 12 week session and staff create the teams ahead of time) that I play in most weeks. I'm glad to play at 8PM. In the early years of the program, our start-times varied. The latest we ever had was 9:30. The 9:30 games were interesting because often the folks that controlled the lights were there and shut them off promptly at 11PM