This Is Not About World Cup Soccer, It Is About My World Of Soccer

By Anthony Buccino

Turns out that at 17, I could fit into my dad's last WW2 US Army shirt. That's what I wore to play in that soccer game. I can see it in the photo of us in front of the bus. That wasn't our bus. We didn't have t-shirts, so what would make you think we had a bus to take us to the game in Brookdale Park?

Soccer and my life intersected twice. The first time was when I signed up to join the high school soccer club in the summer of 1971. The second time was when I got two free tickets* to the Meadowlands stadium to watch soccer great Pele play.

By the time of the second event, I had a steady gal and between us, you could fit everything we knew about soccer in a penny whistle and still have room for the pea.

But I could relate to soccer from our high advantage in the highest seats in the stadium on the hottest day of the year. It was a lot like ice hockey, only different.

First of all, there was no ice. That was a good thing on such a hot day. Secondly, there were a lot more players on the field and none of them had sticks in their hands, nor any padding on their bodies, private or not.

We sat through most of that soccer game at the Meadowlands and left a bit early to beat the traffic. When we got home, we saw the soccer game was still playing on TV. My steady gal gave me an unsteady look, we could have stayed home and watched it in the air conditioning? No wonder somebody gave you the tickets for free.

That was the only professional soccer game we ever attended. But to this day, we can say we saw Pele play soccer in East Rutherford.

As hot and sunburned as that adventure played out, it had a better ending than my high school soccer career.

We gathered on the soggy bog field behind the high school on hot July nights and fell in awe of the three or four Italian kids who, though they spoke no English in school or on the field, tapped, tipped and trained that big round ball from toe to foot to knee to head to shoulder and past us in our amazing wide-eyed wonder faster and better than we could whip a hardball around the infield after a perfect double-play.

This iconic blurry photo shows the luck and legacy of this ragtag collection of would be soccer stars. Belleville High School Soccer Club, October 1971.

With my new license in hand, I borrowed dad's Chevy wagon and drove Jerry and Jay to practice. Afterward we hit McDonald's (about half a million served?) and call it a night. By August I had gotten a part time job (that would last 12 years) and we made it to as many practices as we could.

By the time the season opened, the games were played after school when I worked. And when Jerry joined me part-time, neither one of us made it to any of the soccer games we trained so hard to play in. Not only would we not play in any of the games, we lost track of the players who did and never got to watch any of those games played in 1971.

That was until we learned that Columbus Day was a work holiday and we could actually make it to our first soccer game.

In those days, club teams were happy to get a coach, some balls and a place to practice. Just stay out of the way of the real teams, seemed to be the mantra.

So, as you may tell from the blurry team souvenir photo taken prior to departing for that Columbus Day soccer match in Brookdale Park against some long-forgotten opponent, we didn't have uniforms, we didn't have soccer shoes, and we didn't have team t-shirts.

Turns out that at 17, I could fit into my dad's last US Army shirt from his stint World War II. That's what I wore to that soccer game. I can see it in the photo we took in front of the bus.

That wasn't our bus. We didn't have t-shirts, so what would make you think we had a bus to take us to the game? We had to provide our own  transportation to the soccer match.

This time, Jerry drove the family Pontiac Battleship Cruiser he took over when his folks got a new Mercury Bulgemobile. Three players sat in back, Jerry drove, I sat in the middle and another player to my right.

We headed up the hill to the old blinking light and while Jerry stopped the aircraft carrier we were riding in, someone in the back seat thought it would be funny if he swung his sweat pants over the driver's face as he was driving.

Jerry reacted by stomping on the gas to get us across the intersection, just as a car came at us from the right. I grabbed the wheel and tried to turn us away, but the other car hit our front fender.

Again Jerry gunned it, this time with the pants off his face. He drove through the intersection and pulled off onto a side street. We all got out and were surveying the damage.

Nobody was hurt, we didn't even think of that. All we could do was look at the rumpled damage. Jerry drove us all to his house.

I went next-door to borrow my mom's car to take the rest of us to the game. "Yeah, Jerry had an accident. We're all right. But we're late. We're going to miss the game. Can I borrow your car, please?"

By the time we got ourselves together and found where the team was playing, the game was virtually over. None of us late arrivals played. And I'd say most of us never think much of that game or that accident all those years ago.

But here's the weird part of the story, if you've followed along this far, when I got back from the game that I never played in, Ma asked about the accident and I couldn't or wouldn't explain what happened. I guess it was a guy thing.

So, that's when she said I couldn't use her car again until I told her what happened.

Me, I was a stubborn, stupid teen guy and wouldn't expand on the details. That's why the next day, after school, I walked home and then hopped on my Schwinn and rode it from Belleville to Moonachie and my part-time job, a distance of about seven miles.

Riding my ten-speed bike that far was something I had tried one weekend afternoon. It wasn't too bad. It's not like I used the bike to train or something for soccer, but I could ride and coast and make decent time.

When I finished my shift I rode home in no time at all, except for one thing. Around the corner from my house I ran into a girl in my class and she was sitting on her front step and we got to talking. Before long, I ran out of witty things to make her smile, the sky grew dark and so I headed home, about three hours after I left work.

I walked into a pile of buttons my mother had made while waiting for me to get home at a decent time on my bike from so far away.

Needless to say she wasn't too happy that I stopped and chatted with a girl for hours while making my poor mother worry if I had run into a truck on the highway, or slipped into the Passaic River or was abducted by aliens.

This is not about World Cup Soccer, it's what I think of every time I catch a glimpse of the World Cup Soccer competition on a TV: Pele and my wife, club soccer, a car accident, a pretty girl and Mom. Sometimes it's a blurry picture, sometimes it's not.

First published NJVoices on June 23, 2010. Edited for this site.

© 2010 by Anthony Buccino

* My nephew insists we had THREE tickets and brought him to the game. He says he still has the T-shirt we got him. He would have been about 6 or 7 years old.

Dr. Andrea Buccino
6 Pompton Avenue
Cedar Grove, N.J.

Certified sports chiropractor

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