This week we had an interesting encounter with a member of Lakehill Soccer Association who tweets as @lakehillsoccer with regards to our new training tops.
Now normally this site is dedicated to satirical and humourous articles as they relate to Lakehill United and our team. We claim no official content from Lakehill Soccer as this site, at times, is grossly inappropriate for many of the members of our beloved soccer club. Our target audience is ourselves, and the humour that entails, is only meant for the enjoyment of both past and present members of Lakehill United.
BUT, this article will take a decidedly unfunny approach as we deem it necessary to respond to the inaccurate and ill-informed attack we received last week from @lakehillsoccer.
Before we lay out the Twitter exchange in full (and in doing so, will likely not cover ourselves in glory), we feel it is necessary to make two critical points:
- The author of this article is the same person who tweets for our Twitter account (@LakehillUtd) and authored the response tweets to @lakehillsoccer before blocking him from our Twitter account.
- We checked with the Executive of Lakehill Soccer Association for several pieces of information in this article, either directly through members or through the website (links are provided in this article where appropriate) and have found out that @lakehillsoccer is not officially a Twitter account for Lakehill Soccer Association.
Also, before going any further, let's show you our new top:
New top front
New top back
As you can see the new top is predominantly black with the Lakehill crest on the chest and "LFC" on the back. There is also a number on the front which we have covered in the first picture for this article.
Now, we will provide the Twitter exchange from Wednesday night in it's entirety:
This conversation jumped around a bit, we believe it is represented in the correct order but had to piece it together since some of the comments were replies to specific tweets.
Get all that? Good. There are several themes to the attack by @lakehillsoccer which we would like to speak to. These include, if we have interpreted correctly, the following points:
- Teams that wear black training tops, must play for Gorge
- The club has a policy against putting the crest on black training tops
- Since Lakehill United has had the crest embroidered on a black training top, we do not care about the club, nor do we have a sense for the club.
- @lakehillsoccer is a fan of ours and officially or not, has some sort of club role in pointing out non-compliant training tops.
Now in order to present our facts derived from real research (not made up or imagined @lakehillsoccer), we'd like to articulate our counter-argument around these four themes. We are also going to present our findings in reverse order (i.e. we will speak to point 4 first etc.) in order to make the most compelling and emphatic riposte.
Point 4: @lakehillsoccer is a fan of ours and officially or not, has some sort of club role in pointing out non-compliant training tops
This particular point possibly made us laugh the most, especially when doing our research, we realized that @lakehillsoccer is not on the Lakehill Soccer Association Executive (we did find out he was at one point which makes his own ignorance about club policy even more embarrassing) and does not tweet officially on behalf of the club.
He states things like, "I'm a @LakehillUtd fan" and tells us to "#respectthebrand."
Perhaps we are ignorant ourselves in the way fans act and behave but I know we certainly would not attack the Vancouver Whitecaps over their choice in warm-up tops. As a big fan of Arsenal, I would not be upset if they wore a blue sweatshirt at their training sessions (Arsenal's predominant colours are red and white).
The righteous tone of the tweets implies someone who believes that to be a fan of ours, is to attack us over our choice in training top.
In fact, under the auspices of a "sense of club" @lakehillsoccer seems to undermine his very point; albeit an incorrect one. Which brings us to Point 3.
Point 3: Since Lakehill United has had the crest embroidered on a black training top, we do not care about the club, nor do we have a sense for the club.
Building on our previous point, let's take a different look at the logic behind @lakehillsoccer's comments.
- @lakehillsoccer clearly believes he speaks for the club
- @lakehillsoccer is arguing for a single sense of club pride, club unity if you will
- @lakehillsoccer believes that by attacking teams that in his opinion, are not showing pride in the club, is the best way to achieve club unity.
Er...ok...that makes a lot of sense. If you read that and could not decipher the related logic, don't worry, you're not the only one.
Now here is an opportunity to come clean for us here at Lakehill United. This is not the first time we have interacted with this individual. In fact, over the last four to five years we have probably spoken directly with @lakehillsoccer in person, half a dozen times. Each time, we have been overwhelmed by the negativity and righteous nature of this person.
And it turns out, we are not alone in this thought process. We did some digging and in talking to several individuals, they too have had similar experiences.
So here is a free tip to @lakehillsoccer: perhaps in trying to achieve a sense of club, be inclusive, positive, humble, and above all else, nice.
Let's switch gears for a moment and talk a bit about Lakehill United's "sense of club." From talking about our beloved Foot, to having several players who have played their entire soccer career at Lakehill Soccer Association, this assertion is ridiculous and offensive. In fact, I have red AND black training tops that have been a part of Lakehill longer than @lakehillsoccer.
Over the years, this team has helped out this club whenever possible. We have guys coaching their own kids at the club, we helped lay underlay for the turf (twice), we have provided volunteers to the girls' Fall tournament, we've moved goalposts at the start of the season (and at the end), we've participated in fundraisers, and generally assisted wherever we can in supporting the club. Even through the last year and half without an official Lakehill kit, we have been fervent supporters of the club.
We are proud to be part of Lakehill soccer
What we are not proud of, is individuals mis-representing themselves as spokesmen for the LSA and attacking teams within that club under the guise of being a fan.
Bonus History Lesson: Here is a bit of history for @lakehillsoccer as he likely does not know the evolution of the Reds supporter faction within the club. The original seeds of a supporters club at Lakehill were brainstormed by three individuals - Darold Schubert, Al Reid, and myself. At the time, there was no clubhouse at Reynolds Park, and the name of the supporters group was unofficially between "The Redheads" and "Red and White Army." As it came to pass, I had to step away due to family commitments but much to my pride, both Al and Darold followed through, creating the term "Reds" and the clubhouse at Reynolds Park.
Point 2: The club has a policy against putting the crest on black training tops
We're willing to bet that this will be the most contentious point we'll make in this article; after all @lakehillsoccer seemed quite emphatic that there is a club policy in place which prevents the use of the Lakehill Soccer crest on black training tops.
There isn't. We checked.
Oops. I guess @lakehillsoccer didn't count on that. Turns out that this bunch of soccer players have half a brain and are quite capable of reviewing and researching the clubs policies which are on the official site.
Here's the link to the Club's Senior's Policy and Procedures Manual:
This policy was revised on May 2008 and states on page 8:
"In the interest of Club uniformity, all warm-up apparel purchased by teams must be predominately red, white and black."
It states the same in the youth policy if anyone is interested and the club's constitution does not speak to the use of the crest.
Not content with this research, we went back through the executive minutes which are also posted on the club site. We went back to and included minutes from 2009 on wards (we figured that anything older than that should be captured in the Policy and Procedures manual).
We found only two passing references to uniforms and colours.
Section 4.2 under new business states "We usually replace uniforms every three years the current Umbros have lasted well for 5 years, Dave sent out a request to our three min local suppliers for their suggestions, so far two have responded. Discussion over our preferred go forward strategy. Board likes the idea of a standard Lakehill design and going towards red shorts with white Lakehill logo"
Old Business states a carried motion with regards to a second strip (not warm-up top): "Motion for 2nd jersey (the jersey is to be white with red trim, black shorts and red socks or red shorts with white or red socks. The 2nd jersey can only be worn at home if there is a referee conflict. ALL IN FAVOUR CARRIED"
We weren't satisfied with this research and decided to ask a friend of ours on the Executive at Lakehill Soccer. His response was that there is no official policy with regards to training tops having to be predominantly red with white and black trim although the Executive felt that this should be a general guideline. Fair enough, we'll take that under consideration next time. But that is far from the "club policy" @lakehillsoccer cites which quite frankly, doesn't exist.
Point 1: Teams that wear black training tops, must play for Gorge
Ah yes, the pinnacle of a great club-centric argument. Draw comparisons to a rival club in order to somehow prove a pathetic and incorrect point.
We've heard this one jotted out before and quite frankly, think it is more than a little far-fetched. It is more than demeaning to our club supporters, parents, players, and volunteers to suggest that black training tops with the Lakehill crest will confuse them into believing we play for the Gorge. People are generally intelligent, and quite capable of reading the two pretty big clues on our tops (the crest and the LFC embroidery). Consider the alternative of not putting the Lakehill crest on the training top; that might be a bit more confusing, no?
We truly believe that people make this comment without actually engaging their brain. It is a bit like going into a workplace and finding people following a process that is completely wrong. When questioned on it, the standard response is: "we do it because that is the way we have always done it." Same thing here, Gorge wears black, that team is wearing black, that team MUST be Gorge. Use your brain.
We've also seen teams from Prospect Lake, Bays United, Vic West, Cordova Bay, Cowichan, Juan de Fuca, Nanaimo, Comox, and almost every Lower Mainland club wearing black training tops, coats, tracksuits, etc. Surely the influence of Gorge does not extend across the Province?
Finally on this point, we'd like to offer the following picture of Christine Sinclair from this summer's Olympics in England:
Christine Sinclair plays for Gorge?
That is correct, Christine is wearing a Team Canada black training top (black isn't even on our flag). We hope that @lakehillsoccer hasn't read this far down the page because at this point, he's really going to lose it.
So that's it. We normally wouldn't feel the need to respond to people who attack us, rather preferring a simple block on Twitter, but in this case, we felt that it was necessary.
As far as we're concerned this matter is closed however any future ill-advised comments directed at us by @lakehillsoccer will be reported to our actual Executive of the club.
Normal service to resume shortly.
