By Stephen Caruso

Was it a donnybrook, a brouhaha, a mêlée, a ruckus or just a dust up?

After the grown-ups got into an on-field altercation during a game for 8- and 9-yearolds last week, officials of the Riverdale Soccer Club still have no answers.

They've been besieged by conflicting statements as the club's board of directors prepares to meet today, Thursday, Oct. 25, to discuss new guidelines for parents and coaches.

The incident brought an abrupt postponement to the Oct. 13 match between the Riverdale Pharmacy Green Machine and the Koppell River Realty Azules in the league's co-ed 8- and 9-year-old division. No one was seriously injured, but feelings and dignity took a beating.

The teams were engaged in a tight contest when the coach of the Green Machine, Riverdalian Scott Segal, disputed several calls made by the referee - a 14-year-old boy licensed by the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Green Machine fans say they saw nothing untoward in Mr. Segal's questioning, but the Azules coach Riverdalian Juan Gomez thought the intensity of Mr. Segal's arguments was unsportsmanlike. "Scott was complaining that the referee was making wrong calls," Mr. Gomez said in an interview five days after the game. "I told him, 'You know how hard it is to referee. Let the kid do his job.'"

After that, Mr. Gomez said, things got heated. "He came up to me, pushed up to me with his chest, pushed me and started screaming in my face," Mr. Gomez said. "It takes an extra step to go that way, it just seemed out of the way, unnecessary. It's a kids' game, you don't have to go out of the way to get violent."

According to Mr. Gomez and parents from his team, Mr. Segal grabbed an Azule father who had come to his coach's defense, and suddenly coaches and parents were doing their best imitations of Don Zimmer and Pedro Martinez during game three of the 2003 American League Championship playoff series - tussling along the sideline of the dusty field.

Mr. Segal - whose version of events is supported by parents from his team - recalled the incident very differently. He denied that he was the aggressor, and claimed that Mr. Gomez was the one who initiated the chest-bumping exchange.