Countywide : Players Get a Kick Out of Soccer Field

Teams from Huntington Beach, Long Beach and Capistrano Valley played the first night soccer game this week at the still unfinished $500,000 Garden Grove Arena Soccer Park.

When it was over on the brightly lighted artificial turf, the Arsenal, a team of high school students and young athletes from south Orange County, battled LOFF, a group of mostly young professional people, to a 2-2 tie.

“I loved it,” said Lisa Day, 28, a systems engineering manager in Garden Grove and captain of the team that also includes her husband, Charles, a banker; a brother, Billy Brunner, who is a mathematics and physics teacher at Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley, and a sister-in-law, Dawn, a computer specialist.

“The field is great. It is in better shape and a little bigger than any I’ve ever played on. I’ve been waiting for something like this for a long time,” Day said.

Day said the name of her team, LOFF, stands for Lame Old Fat Folks. But the players, ranging in age from 18 to 35, belied that description. They practiced together for the first time Sunday before playing their inaugural game Monday.

Day became aware of the facility when she saw a banner advertising the soccer park while driving on the Garden Grove Freeway. She called the number to sign up for the season and got busy rounding up co-workers and family members to form the team.

“I love to play soccer with my husband and brother,” she said. “Sometimes on all-women teams, people take the game too seriously. This is more family-oriented. It brings the fun factor up.”

When the soccer complex becomes fully operational sometime next month, it is expected to attract more than 100 adult teams and about 65 youth teams throughout Orange County and its environs, according to Tom Schwartz, 31, one of the owners and vice president of Indoor/Outdoor Soccer Park Inc., which operates a similar facility in Poway in San Diego County.

The large regulation field that was used Monday is 200 feet by 85 feet. The smaller, 90-by-50-foot field for players 4 through 12 isn’t expected to be ready until Saturday, when opening games are scheduled.

The main attraction of the complex is that it is regulation size, has boundary walls that make for more strategy and faster play and is brightly lighted for nighttime competition, Schwartz said.

The soccer complex, which includes a 1,800-square-foot office building with a pro shop, concession stand and restrooms and bleachers, is located just west of the Bolsa Grande High School football stadium and north of the Garden Grove Freeway.

It will be able to accommodate activities ranging from soccer clinics for children to professional competition, officials said.

Under terms of a 20-year lease, Garden Grove will receive rental payments of at least $1,500 monthly for use of the land.

Players can call (714) 890-0259 for more information.