Soccer took over Goleta’s Girsh Park on Saturday as the Santa Barbara area chapter of the American Youth Soccer Organization kicked off its season after being sidelined last year by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hundreds of boys and girls and coed teams have been training for weeks for the season.
The majority of games will be played at Girsh Park as countless fields around the community remain closed to outside groups because of the pandemic. The UCSB Recreation Fields, as well as school fields in the Goleta and Santa Barbara school districts normally host games.
Girsh Park has agreed to help out AYSO and its hundreds of teams.
“Girsh Park has agreed to allow AYSO to play nearly all of its games and practices on our grass fields,” said Ryan Harrington, executive director of the park. “Normally, we only host the AYSO 10-under and UCSB hosts the older kids. Due to the UCSB closure, we are hosting all the divisions seven days a week.”
The park is also home for the Santa Barbara Soccer Club and hosts matches of the adult Central Coast Soccer League.
“The grass fields at Girsh Park are going to receive extreme wear and tear, but we believe the community needs to be recreating,” said Harrington. “It’s more important than ever to get our kids on the field, and Girsh Park is here to help.”
Santa Barbara’s Amador Castro was at Girsh Park to watch his granddaughter, Camila, play for the Pink Flamingos in their AYSO opener. Castro has been part of the AYSO program in Santa Barbara since its beginning in the 1970s.
“I’ve been involved in soccer myself since way back, probably 60 years ago,” he said. “I always played soccer and I got involved in AYSO from the beginning. Even before AYSO started, we had only two teams at La Colina Junior High and Santa Barbara Junior High. I used to coach Santa Barbara Junior High and then AYSO started here locally.”
He said all of his kids have been involved in AYSO. His grandchildren play and now his great grand kids are getting into the sport.
