Flemingdon Park Dept: Only 50 metres away, on a piece of artificial turf too small to qualify as an official field, teenage boys in Muslim skullcaps run drills, while seven-year-olds in hijabs chase after soccer balls. Unlike the mostly-white Tigers, there isn’t a single fair-skinned child in sight in this community league, which is run by the Flemingdon Park Parent Association, according to Globe And Mail. The sport, it turns out, has exposed the thorny issues that arise when groups from wildly different backgrounds are forced to share a small piece of land and on a recent night, a caravan of cars winds five kilometres from affluent Leaside to the coveted swath of grass that is Flemingdon, located on Don Mills Road. Out of Range Rovers and BMW sports utility vehicles hop the Leaside Tigers. The children pour onto the field – divided into six soccer pitches – trailed by parents carrying fold-out chairs, BlackBerrys strapped to their hips. To an outsider, the sight of these parallel worlds – separated only by a shopping plaza – seems bizarre. Since the Tigers practice in an area densely populated with children raised in soccer-loving regions such as South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, it makes sense that their league would be swarming with kids from the half-dozen apartment buildings towering above the pitch. Why not one league for everyone? As
reported in the news.
Related Webpage
@t soccer pitches, sports utility vehicles
18.6.10
