FAMILY MATTERS by Jude Dobson

If you have a youngster playing a summer sport, it's all coming to an end about now. If you have a youngster playing a winter sport, that's all starting about now, too. The net effect is that if you have a child who does both, you'll be running between the two for the next few weeks.
It astounds me that the sign-up for winter sports is in February, but after a few years of club sports, I am less surprised by it now.
I felt like an old hand recently at a  parents' morning tea telling a mum who was thinking about soccer for her son later in the year, that the sign-up had been and gone in mid-February. The surprised look on her face reminded me of the time I remarked to my sister-in-law that our son might like to start cricket.
It was a September some years ago and, as a mother of two older boys, she advised me the teams were already sorted and practising. My last-minute scramble got my boy into a team as there were a few other mothers also new to the  sign-up routine.
Thereafter, there's no chance of missing the sign-up as the emails flow to warn of the impending switch-over.
The need for getting things well sorted ahead of the first games is understandable, but it still seems remarkably odd on a hot, sticky day to be taking your lad fresh off the cricket pitch straight to the rugby clubrooms for the season weigh-in.
As I looked at his grass-stained long whites, it seemed a lifetime away to be thinking about scraping mud off his black shorts. I looked at the sun-baked, hard ground of the rugby field as the lads chucked their new rugby balls around, and recalled that on that very patch a couple of years back I took a photo of the rugby team plastered in mud from head to foot. In some cases, the colour of the fluoro mouthguard was the only identifying feature.
At least with rugby I just receive emails that say where and when to deliver the lad. With cricket, I've been the team manager for a few seasons and, as happy as I am to do that, I am also very ready to kiss that duty goodbye for terms two and three.
Right now, I have two teams to steward and am spending an inordinately long time at the keyboard either looking up where we play, or who we play, entering scores, figuring out where we sit on the table, working out from everyone's other commitments when the team can actually fit in an extra practise, and just generally being the communication "glue".
Otherwise, I seem to be in the laundry making those whites live up to their name. Being worn three or four times a week, they suck up their fair share of Napisan and Sards Wonder Soap. They make the scraping of mud from black shorts seem easy. It can be a mission at times, particularly on those days when a plastic sheet on the back seat post-game is essential.
Drat. I have just read that the school rugby uniform includes white shorts. I am truly hoping it is a misprint, but I suspect not. Where's the nearest bulk buy store for laundry chemicals?