Soccer players facing scrutiny

They don't have uniforms, or practices, or a team name. So the mostly Latino Waltham residents who play a friendly game of pickup soccer at the town's Lowell Field are wondering why they're being required to get a permit.

Carlos Vidal, a real estate agent who lives and works in Waltham, is one of 10 or 20 men who meet at the park to play soccer. He said informal groups of adult players are there each weekday, usually just after working hours.

The city has decided that Vidal and his fellow players constitute an "organized group." As such, there can be no games on the field without first obtaining a $40 permit good for 2 1/2 hours of play.

Last Monday, Vidal said, police approached and asked if they had a permit. They didn't have one, so they left, Vidal said. Police officials did not return a call for comment before deadline.

Vidal said the group is really the opposite of "organized" -- there's no fixed schedule or roster of players. Most players don't even know one another's full names, he said.

"There's a guy from Mexico. What do we call him? 'Mexico.' If I wear blue shorts, I'm 'Blue,' " Vidal said.

What links them is the game and the fact that they all live in the neighborhood.

Vidal said he wonders whether city officials would be more understanding if they were meeting for pickup basketball games instead of soccer.

The game became controversial a few weeks ago, when some neighborhood residents complained about adult use of the soccer field to Mayor Jeannette McCarthy. She said she was told that a man had "disrobed" in front of a girl, that female youth soccer players were being bullied, and that some players were drinking alcohol on the field.

Vidal said he's never seen anyone doing any of those things, and would call police himself if he did. He thinks the complaint about someone disrobing might have come from one of the players changing out of his work clothes and not realizing that he was visible to people on the field.

Barbara Starmer was one of the neighborhood residents who complained to McCarthy's office. She has lived opposite from Lowell Field since she was 5 years old, and often removes trash from the fields.

She said the adult soccer players left a mess.

"Don't get me wrong. I love to see people use the field, because that's what the field is there for. But when you have at least 100 foreigners . . . ," said Starmer, with a sigh. "I'm not prejudiced, but my belief is that if you live in a country, you should not try to change that country. You should join that country."

Starmer said she is talking about the crowds of men speaking Spanish or Portuguese that use the field early in the evenings. She doubts they are Waltham residents. She said they play loud music and change clothes in their cars where children can see them. She said that they have turned the music down when she asks, but she's tired of asking.

"They impose their culture in this neighborhood, but they live in America, and we shouldn't have to live with all of their music blaring from their car," Starmer said.

McCarthy said the real issue is that there just isn't enough space for all the people who want to use the city's athletic fields.

Lowell Field is also used by Waltham Youth Soccer teams in the spring and fall months, and by softball teams in the summer, said Sandra J. Tomasello, recreation director.

Tomasello said that according to the dictionary definition of the word, Vidal and his fellow players are organized, because they meet at around the same time several days a week. She said that people playing an informal basketball game or use of any other facility would also need permits if they met the same definition.

Tomasello said the soccer field was built to meet youth-soccer size standards. Errant soccer balls kicked by an adult may hit people or damage private property. The permits also help prevent overuse of the field, and ensure that if a group has paid for a permit, it has exclusive use of the field.

Vidal said he's OK with a rule requiring permits - as long as it's applied equally.

"I would never want to go and say it's a racial thing, because it's probably not - maybe they're just worried about the location for their families, whether they're white, black, yellow, blue," Vidal said. "But it's just a bunch of guys in the area who wanted to play soccer, and most of us happen to be Hispanic."