Questions and answers

No. Fall Ball uses the same two shirts your player wore in summer rec — one white, one red. Nothing to order, nothing to pay for, nothing to collect.

Home — WHITE Away — RED

On the Schedule tab the home team is listed first, and there's a white or red dot beside every Canandaigua team, so you can check on Friday night and pack the right one. Visiting clubs wear their own kit and have no dot.

Bring both anyway. Every team is home some weeks and away others — we evened it out deliberately so nobody wears one color all season — and it saves the morning if you grabbed the wrong bag.

We'll have one for you on the first Saturday. Nothing to do beforehand.

Ask your coach — there are usually spares in the storage shed. If you borrow one, please bring it back washed.

• Shin guards, fully covered by socks. No shin guards, no play — that one isn't negotiable.
• Cleats or sneakers. No metal studs.
• Water.
• No jewelry, watches or hard hair clips. Earrings have to come out; tape isn't enough.

No. Every coach gets a bag with balls, cones and the rest of the supplies — pick it up at the storage shed by the softball field. Players are welcome to bring their own ball to kick around before the game, but nothing is required.

Your team assignment went out by email, with your teammates and your coach listed. Rosters and coach names are not published on this site. If you didn't get that email, check your spam and then reach us through the contact form.

Through TeamSnap. Canandaigua families will get an invitation shortly — that's where your coach will message the team about the week ahead. Coach emails and phone numbers are deliberately not on this site.

If you haven't got TeamSnap access within a few days of the invitation going out, email the league and we'll sort it.

By birthday, with an August 1 cutoff — not January 1 and not the school year.

• U6 — born Aug 1, 2020 to Jul 31, 2022
• U8 — born Aug 1, 2018 to Jul 31, 2020
• U10 — born Aug 1, 2016 to Jul 31, 2018
• U12 — born Aug 1, 2014 to Jul 31, 2016

The full explanation, with typical grades and ages, is on the Rules tab.

Almost certainly not. Every group covers two years of birthdays, so about half the players in any group are at the young end. A July birthday puts you among the youngest; an August birthday puts you among the oldest. That is simply how a cutoff works, and it evens out as they move up.

The group is named for the age a player is under for the season, which is why a 10-year-old is in U12 and an 8-year-old is in U10.

If your player has genuinely landed nowhere near their birth year, that is a mistake and we want to fix it — use the contact form.

We're not able to. It's genuinely disappointing and we're sorry — but reworking rosters takes hours we don't have, and moving one player tends to unpick three others. Meeting new teammates is part of it.

On purpose. Small rosters mean every player gets real minutes instead of a long afternoon on the sideline.

The trade-off is that a couple of absences leaves a team with no subs, so please tell your coach if your player can't make a Saturday.

Six Saturdays at FLCC, September 12 through October 17. Most weeks run 9:00 am to about 2:00 pm. Use the Schedule tab and filter by your team to see all six of your games at once — and check the field map so you know which pitch is which.

There's a cross-country meet at FLCC that morning and we have to be clear of the fields by 10:30. So week one only:

• U6, U8 and U10 — 8:00 am, finished by 10:20
• U12 — afternoon, from 1:00 pm

Every other Saturday is back to the normal 9:00 to 2:00.

Give yourself ten or fifteen minutes — more on the 12th. There's a walk from the lot to the fields, and games run back-to-back with only fifteen minutes between them, so a late start pushes everyone behind you.

A few divisions have an odd number of teams, which would leave somebody with a bye every week. Rather than give anyone a week off, one team plays twice — and which team it is rotates through the season.

There's about a 30-minute break between the two games. Both show on the schedule, so check your times before you leave the house.

It depends on the division — the exact halves, quarters and half-time for each are in the format table on the Rules tab, and every fixture on the Schedule shows its own finish time.

Every game has a number, 1 to 102, running in time order across the season. If you need to report a score or tell us a referee didn't turn up, quote the game number and we'll know exactly which fixture you mean.

• You can drive up and drop off grandparents or anyone who can't manage the walk, then park in the lot.
• Please don't leave a vehicle sitting by the fields, and keep the lane clear so the next car can pull through.
• Drive at walking pace. There are small children between the cars and the fields all morning and they don't look before they run. Hold your kids' hands in the lot.

Yes. Rain is not a cancellation. Neither is wind, cold or mud. Dress for it and come — the kids mind it far less than we do.

Lightning is the only thing that stops us. If the referee or a coach sees it, the field gets cleared — everyone to their cars.

A game stopped for lightning is over, not paused. We won't delay and restart: moving one game moves the whole day, and there's nobody on site to re-plan it or tell 300 families about it. If it's called, consider your game finished and head home.

If lightning is on the radar early enough, the league will email a cancellation. That won't always be possible. On a bad-looking morning, check your email and TeamSnap before you set off.

Yes, if the two coaches want to arrange it between themselves. Any time outside our Saturday slots works — FLCC is usually free all day Sunday and on week nights after school, and there's nothing to book. The two coaches referee it between them; the league can't assign an official outside the normal day.

Nobody is obliged to make a game up, and nothing is counting.

Yes, and roughly evenly. No one sits two periods in a row. That's the whole reason the rosters are small.

U10 and U12: yes, and standings are kept — three points for a win, one for a draw.

U6 and U8: no. Scores aren't recorded and there are no standings at those ages.

Coaches match player for player. If the other team has six, we play six — and the goals can be moved in to shorten the field if that helps. Nobody should be made to play short just because the other bench happened to be full. It's a rec league; the kids have a better hour that way.

No deliberate heading at U6, U8 or U10 — that's a US Soccer safety rule, and the other team gets an indirect free kick. At U12 it's legal but we don't coach it. No slide tackling at any age.

A coach or a parent picks up the whistle and the game goes ahead — it's more approachable than it looks, and the alternative is kids standing around. Then please tell the league, so we're not paying for a game nobody worked. If we don't hear about it, the payment usually goes out.

Please don't. Questions go through your head coach, quietly, at a stoppage.

Most of our referees are teenagers, some working their first games. In a rec league there is genuinely nothing worth arguing about — the result won't be remembered by Tuesday, and how the adults behaved will be. Referee abuse will cost you your place in the league. We'd rather never mention that again.

Coaches and spectators on opposite sidelines, behind the marked line, and off the goal lines entirely. Cheer for effort, for both teams. And please take your chairs, cups and wrappers with you — FLCC lets us use these fields.

Yes — four teams are still running on a single adult. You don't need a badge or a playing background. At these ages it's mostly cones, making sure everyone gets on the field, and being cheerful about it.

Use the contact form and we'll pair you with a coach who'd be glad of the company. The same goes for joining the Board or helping in any other way — we haven't turned anyone away yet.

Yes — it's encouraged, but it isn't mandatory. Holding a midweek session is up to each coach, and no team is required to have one. Coaches don't need permission and don't need to tell the league. The FLCC fields are open during the week.

There's no booking system for now. If it turns out half the league wants the same patch of grass on a Wednesday evening, tell us and we'll put one online.

Thirty-two parents volunteered this fall. Where a division didn't have enough head coaches, we put two assistants together rather than leave a team with one adult — they split the week and cover each other when life gets in the way. Every coach is on the team their own child plays for.

Tell us through the contact form. It's easy to change and we'd much rather hear it than not.

Volunteers, all of us, the coaches most of all — doing this around jobs and our own kids' schedules. It's our first year running the league this way, so please bring some grace when something is imperfect.

And please tell us how it goes: what worked, what didn't, what you'd change. Constructive criticism is genuinely welcome, and so is the good stuff. Both help us build something better for next year.