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Everybody wanted to be a part of the Wyman’s Cup on Saturday evening in Deblois. The soccer match was set for 6 p.m. between a team of Mexican migrant workers who have spent the last month harvesting fruit for Jasper Wyman and Son, the blueberry processing company, and the Americans, a pickup group of Washington County locals who like a good game once a year.
But before the respective captains shook hands in the middle of the field at the Wyman complex in Deblois, the Hondurans on the sidelines brought up a point.
What about them? they asked. This year, for the first time in seven summers since the Wyman’s Cup tradition commenced, there were enough Hondurans to field their own team.
That, or they just hadn’t spoken up in the past.
The Hondurans waited. Soon, a solution was struck that injected a new level of international relations.
The Hondurans would play the winner of Saturday’s match on Sunday evening.
Better yet, Sunday’s impending rain meant the Hondurans could enter their game rested. That contrasted with how the Mexicans prepared on Saturday, having spent about 12 hours raking fields or stacking boxes at the Wyman warehouse.
The Wyman’s Cup never before had been so complex, or so popular.
Once meant merely as an informal way to pass an evening as the blueberry harvest on the barrens came to a close, Saturday’s goodwill game of soccer suddenly became a semifinal.
It also became bigger than Ed Flanagan, Wyman’s president, ever wanted.
As the Mexicans and Americans played to a 3-2 score – the Mexicans won – Flanagan glanced around.
The 300 Hispanic workers Wyman hires for the summer and houses in rows of blue cabins nearby lined the field. They played Mexican music and cheered for their own, as expected.
But how the drivers of about 100 cars who pulled in to park on the grass and watch had learned about the game was a mystery. Coming up the 12 miles from Cherryfield on Route 193 to arrive at the faraway field, they went about setting out blankets and lawn chairs and cracking open beers.
“It’s like a Fellini movie,” Flanagan said.
A group of friends in their 20s arrived, most of them dressed in black with hats, scarves and long dresses. They were heading later to Machias, where the Machias Grange Hall was holding a costume ball in conjunction with the weekend’s Machias Wild Blueberry Festival.
But first they stopped at the soccer game. They ordered takeout Mexican food from the two Mexican families who annually set up competing field kitchens for the migrant workers each August and shared in the international camaraderie.
The evening made for a scene that even Stephen Kinghorn never imagined.
The former soccer coach for Narraguagus High School, Kinghorn of Steuben spent six summers overseeing the Wyman warehouse and camp complex. Now he works for the University of Maine at its experimental blueberry farm in Jonesboro.
Back in 2000, Kinghorn put an idea into action – the Wyman’s Cup could be a game between the migrants and some of his former high school players. Casual but serious, it always was staged on a weekday evening – or whenever the end of the harvest drew near.
This time, Wyman’s officials realized that field work was finishing up sooner than they expected, so the game was quickly called for Saturday evening.
Darrin Hammond, the current field manager for Wyman’s, called John Look last Tuesday and told him the game plans. Look made about 30 calls to his soccer-playing friends to get about 15 who were available to play for the American side.
Look, 25, lives in Columbia Falls and works in Ellsworth for The Home Depot. Having played in all six previous Wyman’s Cups, he presides as the Americans’ informal captain.
Josh Paul, 28, of Addison and Mike Peterson, 29, of Harrington have played every year for the American side, too.
Kinghorn spotted Look after the game. The two talked about old times.
“Johnny played for me [at Narraguagus] in 2000,” Kinghorn said, slapping his former player on the back.
“No, I didn’t,” Look corrected, “because I graduated in 1999.”
Kinghorn made sure from the first game in 2000 that a Wyman’s Cup trophy was presented to the winning team. Last year, Flanagan added T-shirts for the teams – green for the Mexicans and white for the Americans. He passed them out to players again Saturday.
The trophy didn’t appear at game’s end this time, because that would go to Sunday’s winner of the game between the Mexicans and the challenging Hondurans.
The Mexicans celebrated anyway, and three of them brought out an oversize Mexican flag. To the spirited, nationalistic whooping and whistling of others, they proudly ran with it around the field for a victory lap.
Saturday night, after all, belonged to them.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY BRIDGET BROWN
Julia Hernandez (from left), her daughter Nicole Herrera, 16, and son Hector Herrera, 19, cheer on their fellow Mexicans during the Wyman’s Cup soccer competition.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY BRIDGET BROWN
American player Saben Rossi of Cherryfield cools off at halftime.
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