Still kicking

Savas Trellopoulos is the soccer version of a traffic cop.

On a recent Sunday morning in Andover, the 56-year-old Trellopoulos - who coaches high-level youth teams - barked instructions to his Lynnfield teammates from his sweeper position. A few barked right back at the Revere resident.

"It's frustrating at times, but it's my fault for trying to be a coach at the same time I'm being a player," said Trellopoulos, a native of Greece. "I have high expectations and I know everyone's trying."

There are some who welcome his advice and suggestions and some who, well, don't.

"That's a very fair way of putting it," Jim Finegan said with a laugh. Finegan is the manager of the Lynnfield Senior (50 and over) entry in Division 3 North of the New England Over The Hill Soccer League.

"At the end of the day, we're all friends and can go out for a beer together," Trellopoulos said.

There are accents of all kinds flowing in the chats between players. Lynnfield's roster includes not only homegrown players from all over the North Shore, but others who hail from Algeria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, and Turkey.

"Everyone has their own idea of how best to play the game," said Finegan, 55, a Lynnfield resident. "We have spirited discussions and some of the players are very vocal and opinionated. But when the game is over, we're all friends again."

For most, Sundays in the fall may mean a time to cozy up on the couch with a brew to watch the NFL. But for the 204 teams and 4,896 registered players in the Over The Hill League, ranging in age from 30 to 75, it's time to recapture their youth.

"We're all kids again once we put on the jersey," Finegan said.

The New England Over The Hill Soccer League is a four-star tribute to baby boomers' desire to extend their athletic careers. There are four age brackets: 30-and-over, 40-and-over, 50-and-over, along with 58-and-over, added in 2004, and several levels of play in each age group. The league operates in the spring and the fall; playoffs determine division champions and the regular-season winners in each division are promoted and the losers relegated to a lower division.

The growth of the league, which began play in 1981, shows no signs of abating: 10 teams were added this year, and the organization is believed to be the largest amateur sports league in the United States.

Foreign-born players tend to dominate at the older levels, but the over-30 league, for example, is heavily populated with US-born players from the collegiate ranks, a testament to the gains the game has made at the college level.

On this particular Sunday morning in Andover, communication between teammates is just one of the problems in Lynnfield's 3-0 loss to an Andover team that is one of the oldest in the league, led by German-born forwards Cord Ohlenbusch, 71, and Helmut Floesser, 63, and 67-year-old London native Ted Dipple, who runs his own soccer school.

Ohlenbusch, who has been with the league since its inception, took some ribbing after whiffing on a good scoring chance before assisting on the third Andover goal.

"I'm trying not to get fat," said Ohlenbusch, who said he is also skilled at "not getting hurt."

Remarkably, the actual highlight of his season occurred the day before, when he and other members of the MIT alumni soccer team held the current varsity squad to a 2-2 tie.

Some American-born players on the Lynnfield team only started playing the game when they were well into adulthood, accounting for some of the friction that can occur when they try to meld with their foreign-born counterparts.

"The foreign-born players tend to play a more-structured game than some of us who came to the game later in life," said Finegan, who didn't start playing until 40, when he found himself coaching his children in the sport.

Steve Scoppettuolo, 52, of Peabody, a midfielder, didn't take up soccer until he was 44. The electrical engineer had played soccer recreationally in high school and played several other sports but knew he needed to learn more when he started coaching his children.

He also plays in a noontime pickup league in Cambridge, where he works on his ball skills, hoping to bring them more in line with some of his teammates who have played the game all their lives.

"They just have better instincts and vision," he said. "I think they get frustrated at times when they expect everyone to play as well as they do."

There are also many players such as John Senk , 55, of Lynnfield, a self-described "mucker and grinder" who came into the sport playing for a club team at the now-defunct Wang Labs.

Senk, a veteran of both hockey and street hockey, is, at 6 feet and 215 pounds, a physical presence at fullback. He found he had a passion for the game and has overcome both a sprained knee and the usual bumps and bruises. Late in the Andover game, he laid out Andover striker Tony Dileo, who took a while to get up.

The logistics of running such a huge league are daunting. A recent note on the league website said that every game in the past week - except for three - had had a assigned referee, apparently an upgrade from the week before.

In many communities, a certain percentage of the roster must be made up of town residents to receive scheduling priority for fields. In Lexington, which has a complex of artificial turf fields, the number is 70 percent. Many teams play wherever and whenever they can.

"There's enough work here for a full-time person," sighs league president Julian Dunlop, 59, who lives in Kensington, N.H., and plays for the Seacoast team in Division 1 North of the Senior League.

The work of the many volunteers involved in the league means that costs are held down. Teams pay only $400 a season to register for a 10-game season and two playoff games.

Dunlop, a native of Scotland who played soccer in school in Britain, notes the irony of the Over The Hill League existing in this country, instead of the soccer hotbed that is his homeland.

"If I were still there, there would be nothing for me," he said. "There are no organized amateur leagues past the age of 30."

In 2004, the league expanded to include a 58-and-over league for the first time and now the league is thinking of adding a 70-and-older division, according to John Nourse, a league director and coach of the Andover Gold team in the Senior Division.

And that's very good news for Marton Toth, 71, of Tewksbury, who left his native Hungary after the revolution in 1956. He played for club teams in Hungary - he remembers the winner receiving a keg of beer - as well as a team in the US Army and now plays in the Veterans (58 and over) league.

He first joined the league in 1979 when it was just getting organized - "We didn't even keep score back then" - and has been playing ever since the league started formal play in 1981.

Toth, who has a balky knee, said he plays with his brain more than his body these days. "I feel better if I play than if I don't play."

Finegan feels much the same way, even after a 1-0 loss to Nashua Absolute II on Oct. 14 dropped his club's record to 2-3-2, good for a tie for fourth in Division 3 North. He noted the doctors, lawyers, and engineers who populate the league have to return to their jobs on Mondays. "If I don't get hurt, great. If we win, that's a bonus."

Rich Fahey can be reached at faheywrite@yahoo.com.