I have played soccer in Massachusetts for as long as we have lived here, some 14 years now; first on the over-40 Concord team, then the over-50 Concord team, and now on the Lexington over-56 team. In all that time, I have never witnessed a fight between players that resulted in injury.  Most are merely shoving matches with lots of trash talk. When the final whistle blew this morning in our tied game against Peabody, an opponent who felt he had been fouled by one of our players stuck him in the face resulting in a cut that required 10 stitches to close.  Our guy fought back to defend himself and both were issued red cards. I suggested we photograph the injury so that assault charges could be substantiated and to seek to have the offending player permanently banned from the league.  I watched the whole fight transpire from the sidelines where I spent the second half of the game benched with a strained hamstring.