Whether it be the shrieking cries of desperate and nervous parents urging their children to tackle harder, kick further, or run faster, or whether it is the hoarse vocal utterings of the coach that fill the air, nevertheless the children continue seemingly oblivious to the maniacal shouts of frustration from outside the bounds of the field.
I often wonder about how much the children hear while they concentrate intently on their game. I asked my daughter once, and she replied that she just blocks it all out and gets on with the game. Occasionally she will hear the coaches instruction, but naught else. Which is probably the best thing to do really. In the thick of battle there is nothing worse than having several people tell you what to do at the same time.
In the end the kids manage to do their best, and it leaves me wondering whether we are wasting our breath. As I listened to one of the men behind me (moments after screaming, whooping and squealing like a girl), say "I promised I would keep quiet from the sidelines today ... oh well", I considered that some people get so caught up in the emotion, that they cannot help but vocalise an exuberance beyond what we might consider sane.
One thing I do know, is that there is not many things better than seeing the beaming joyous smile on a child's face when they successfully perform a skillful maneuver, and are given praise from the sideline. They seem to become so proud and euphoric that they almost forget they are in the middle of a game, sometimes even as the ball goes flying past their wondrous face.
Other times something can happen on the field that a child does not expect, and this can have a similar effect. One little girl attempted to head an airborne ball, only to be nearly kicked in the face by an opposition player. The look on her face was of mixed terror and amazement, while she had stopped her dead in her tracks, and looked straight to the sidelines as if to say "WOW, did you see that! How close was that kick to my head but it missed!". She was not scared or upset, but rather she was utterly amazed.
Meanwhile, the play continued and the opponent raced off with the ball leaving her standing with a smiling, but dumbfounded expression.
The match was a tough one for my daughters team, but they managed to scrape through to a victory. The teams both gave their cheers, and children shook hands, and began to leave the field.
Then something caught my eye. Far off to the left of the field, apart from all the other players, was a child from the opposition's team lying on the ground. But he was not still. He was clearly rolling on the ground. Curiously though, he did not seem to be in pain, and as I watched him for a few moments longer I realised what was happening.
In a moment of sheer absent-mindedness he had promptly dumped himself on the ground, legs straight and arms outstretched above his head, and began to roll. I watched as he rolled probably twenty or thirty times. He didn't care that his team had just lost. He was not interested in a post-match debrief from the coach, nor his parents remarks at this moment. He simply wanted to roll. He probably did so for the smell of the grass, or the sense of nearness to nature that comes when in such close contact to the ground, or perhaps it was the feeling of happy giddiness of continual bodily rotation, or even the repeated alternating views of the sky - grass - sky - grass. It may have been one of these reasons or a combination of them, and perhaps he could not tell me why he did it, but watching him, I think I know.
I think it was simply for the joy of it. He had not lost his awesome sense of wonder of the world, and he did not care what anyone thought, and chose to express this sheer joy in one of the best ways he knew how; throw yourself to the ground and roll, roll, roll!
I think of how jaded we can become in this world, and sometimes it just takes a moment of observation of an absent-minded child at play to remind us of that joy and wonder that it is to live in God's creation.
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