Leaside-East Toronto Soccer
Club
193 Randolph Rd, Toronto,ON, M4G 3S6, Telephone 416 481 6425 Email John@leasidesoccer.net
Philosophy
We believe that playing a game is good and we support all who want to do that. People who participate
with us must be willing to subscribe to the rules agreed to and set before the game by all participants.
We believe games are good because they satisfy the innate social desire of all humans to belong. They are
pursued by different people at different levels of intensity, which should be intrinsically tolerated by
the participants.
We believe that games are good because they involve all types of society, and by bringing us together that
this social interaction encourages interconnectedness. That is why we believe there is always room on our
bench for one more.
We believe in the power of one person to have a positive impact on our world and thus we remain always open
and vigilant to including and supporting the next.
We recognize that organizing games is not an activity of great importance, like organizing schools or parliaments
or other activities. We see this activity as supportative of society and something done recreationally.
We insist that the game be respected. When we organize games we show this respect in putting down lines on the
field;erecting corner flags;keeping the fields neat. Most importantly, we insist that players shake hands at
the end of the game. This simple act reminds everyone that what occurred is over and it was only a game.
We are aware that we deal with the fire of human emotion exhibited in public forums. Thus what we are dealing
with is always imperfect and subject to events which can threaten the peace of the whole. People who come to
our games should remain ever vigiliant to restrain their expressions towards others, as what we are doing is
self regulating,and it is impossible to constrain everything.
We believe that rules should be kept to the minimum. Rules to govern other people's behaviour are usually self
servicing.They require people to enforce the rules; they require people to interupt the rules; they require
courts to rule on the rules where there are differences. No house league, which by definition requires the
volunteer help of many people, could possibly survive in containing and ruling on the ideas of people to eliminate
or constrain others from the group. Moreover in house leagues, usually only a very small group want to
organize things, and allowing the introduction of rules apart from rules which set out how the game is to be
played, invariably leads to the tyranny of small groups.
We believe that recreational soccer clubs should be small and local. As those clubs become bigger problems
of control and the risks attendant to that control make a greater demand on time than volunteers can handle.
Greater size does bring the possibility of greater options being offered, but the participants have to
constantly review what the objectives of the group are and who they are serving. Often, in groups, the desires
of the highly competitive participants become the objective of the group, since those are the individuals who
have the drive to take over things. The loss is that the desire of the great number of people who simply want
to come and play a game is replaced by the drive of the minority.