Burmese Tigers (Blog#10)

(Source: Aung Khine Min)

'Burmese Tigers' is a soccer team that I created last summer to compete regionally with other Burmese teams around the state. I personally recruited Burmese men who reside in Lowell between the ages of 18-25 to play for the team. It was very difficult to get the men involved in the team because they had work, and obligations at home which take precedent. Therefore I had to scrape together what I could with the guys and tried to work out a schedule that was flexible for all. Our goal was to win the state tournament for the four cities that had Burmese communities. The cities are: Boston, Lowell, Lynn, and Worcester. You see, the problem was that we wanted to play Burmese soccer, not the English or the American soccer; therefore we didn't want to participate in other tournaments that were being organized by the state or other organizations. The main reason why we didn't want to participate in state-organized by tournaments is because of health issues. The state and organizations require all players to have health insurance and if a player gets injured, they will probably make a big deal out of it. We didn't want that. But of course, we had proper equipments such as: cleats, socks, and shin guards. When we play soccer, we don't whine, we don't complain because the referee didn't care, it was pure soccer combined with a lot of fighting techniques. The conditions of the field did not allow us to play barefoot which we all preferred because cleats get heavy and they might cause injuries. But in America, I guess we had to conform to the social norms. It was really hard getting the uniform. Because I was the captain of the team, I had to organize fund-raising and budget handling for my team; we didn't have a real manager so I had to fill in. My position was a right half-back. We only had 11 players exactly so we couldn't afford to lose any players; therefore we were very careful in playing other teams. On the 26th of August, the tournament took place in Lowell. The scores and the match-ups are as follows:
1. Lowell 4 Vs Lynn 1
2. Lynn 3 Vs Worcester 2
3. Boston 4 Vs Worcester 1
4. Boston 4 Vs Lynn 3
5. Lowell 3 Vs Boston 2
6. Lowell 5 Vs Worcester 1
We won the year's tournament although they couldn't afford a tournament we were very honored and respected by every city. We will be doing this again this summer and I look forward to organize and participate in the soccer tournament before I go off to college.