First Junior Game - Cantazarro and The Ferry

Loading the charter bus at 6:00 a.m. to head out to the game. Long  5 hour trip to Cantazarro, Italy on the mainland.

This is one of the ferrys that takes cars, buses, and even large trucks from Messina to the mainland.

Loading the ferry

The coast line of southern Italy

This past Sunday was another new adventure for me. We got up and loaded a charter bus to travel to the mainland for our first junior game. But in order to get to the mainland we had to take the charter bus on a ferry. Now this ferry crosses the ocean that has many unknown creatures living in it. Now if you know me, you know I don't do water so I stayed on the bus instead of standing on the rail watching - the Loch Ness Monster could have come out of there and taken me down. Well we did make it safely across and headed to Cantazarro to play our game. We traveled along the coast of southern Italy so the pictures show some of that. When we got into town the entertainment was waiting to see how the bus driver would get through the narrow streets. At one point, because there were cars on both sides of the street, we couldn't go up and we couldn't go down. So the driver honked his horn, someone came and moved a car, and we kept going. I looked out my window and there was maybe 6 inches of clearance on each side of the bus. Travel today was scary. Now my junior team is made up of young players with very little background in football, but they are eager and willing to learn all they can. Now football in Italy is different from Texas football - equipment and facilities especially. The field looked a bit rough - nothing like a Joe Newton field- but it wasn't until the other team came out in elbow pads, knee pads, etc. that I began to worry. There was more gravel on the field than grass so my guys came away from the game with some scraps for sure. We didn't fare too well, but the guys played hard and we will get better. It is a great group of guys to coach because they love the game and want to learn and get better. We were supposed to play 8 minute quarters but the first half lasted longer than an NFL game. But it was a learning experience. Headed back to the island and was ready for bed. Had been a long day.