Called

Every year that we have lived here there has been a touch football game in the field next to our house on Thanksgiving weekend. We have come to expect it on Thanksgiving Day morning. The event occurs regardless of weather. It has been played in deep snow and achingly cold weather. It has been played in sunshine and balmy breezes. Thus we were a bit disappointed this year that either the game did not occur or it was so brief that we missed it. Not to worry, apparently. The game has just been rescheduled to Saturday and it went off again this morning.I walked over to BestBuy to look around at stuff. While walking I realized that the time has come and after letting myself into the garage upon returning home I did it.

Feeling like a B level actor on a prime time TV doctor show I today ended that overwrought scene they often have where the pretend doctors stand around and try to decide which of them is going to "call it". Today I called it.It has snowed twice, it is cold, the season is over. So there in the basement with my bicycle gear laundry drying on the wooden stand in the background stand my two LOOKs. The season is over.

I found this video on the FC Nantes website. It is a Flash video and despite my best efforts, including visiting Blogger help, I could not find a way to embed a Flash video in Blogger. But I recommend giving it a look. It is the goals scored (all seven) by FC Nantes in their recent French Cup victory over ASC Romagné.

Romagné - FC Nantes : Les buts nantais

There is a button in the lower right of the viewer which will expand the video to full screen. I recommend this because the goals can be pretty hard to see if you do not go full screen.

A couple of things make the video, to me, really fun. First is the really charming moment at the beginning where the ASC Romagné team is posing for what for them is a football life highlight, a team photo before taking to their home pitch to play one of the storied teams of French football, a professional side with eight French league championships and three French Cup championships in its list of honors. The Romagné team is an amateur side and all of the players are amateurs, they all have jobs. It is a little like some men's league amateur baseball team like the Dundas Dukes lining up to play the Saint Louis Cardinals in Dundas. This is a big, big moment for ASC Romagné and for its fans. In the end, the FC Nantes professionals and the game officials join Romagné in the photo to make the moment even more memorable as the fans visible in the background applaud.

The other is the view of field as the goals unfold. It bespeaks the charm of the French Cup and similar competitions like the English FA Cup where amateur sides can find themselves drawn at home against one of the big teams. Whereas FC Nantes plays in a nearly 40,000 seat fully modern stadium, Romagné has a covered grandstand on one side of the field and on the opposite side beyond the running track it looks to me like they have rented some of those aluminum two or three step bleachers such as the ones often seen in this country at playgrounds or softball fields. In some places the fans look to be merely standing on a slight hill with no bleachers of any kind available. What you get in the video is a football pitch and a view of late fall in France, complete with the changing leaves on some pretty, orange trees.

Allez Romagné, allez Nantes, vive la France.