LEWISTON – To the kids on the field at Montello School on Thursday night, it was just another season and just another practice.

For parents and coaches in the Football League for Youth, the new season began with the kind of drama and disappointment they have become accustomed to.

On Wednesday, the former league treasurer was indicted on a charge that he stole more than $1,000 earmarked for the league. A day later, a buzz was going through the crowd of parents at Montello, but it was a low buzz. They have endured such things before.

“It’s getting so I have no faith in any of it,” said Pamela Knight, whose son was on the field practicing. “Whenever there is a problem in the league, it’s the kids who pay for it.”

Last year, players did not get a banquet at the end of the year because money became an issue. Questions about how league money is handled have arisen for years.

Parents pay at least $75 to get a child into the league and as much as $125 if they have more than one child in the league. Those parents want to know where the money goes.

Some said Thursday that there have always been suspicions and rumors about financial misdealings but few concrete facts.

That changed Wednesday when Matthew Alexander Wooten, 40, of Tall Pines Drive, was indicted by an Androscoggin County grand jury on a charge that he stole money from the league – $1,602.75, to be exact.

“You’re not taking from the adults,” Wendy Shirland said. “You’re taking from kids. There’s always some kind of drama.”

For Nathan McCarron, back as president of the league this year, it gets worse. He said several individuals and businesses who had promised funds or supplies to the league backed out after reading about the charge against Wooten.

He partly blamed that on discrepancies in police accounts of what Wooten did with the money and how he was caught.

Police said Wednesday that Wooten had used the stolen money to pay bills. They said he confessed when questioned by a police officer.

Wrong, said McCarron. He said bank statements and other evidence showed that Wooten went on a spending spree – making 20 transactions over 45 days – and bought a BlackBerry with league money.

“This is not a man paying bills,” McCarron said.

He also said it was not police who uncovered the theft, but himself and other members of the league.

“We’re the ones who did the legwork. We’re the ones who confronted him,” he said. “The story in the paper makes it sound like it was the good grace of the police that saved us.”

The league lost more than $1,600 in the theft and now some of the support from the community is disappearing, McCarron said. In spite of that, he huddled parents and coaches next to the field Thursday night to reassure them.

“At this point, the league is in good shape. We’ve been able to overcome,” he said. “We will have a banquet. The kids will have a party at the end of the season.”

Getting cheerleader uniforms will take a few more weeks than originally planned, McCarron said, but there should be few other problems as a result of the theft.

“This is a bump in the road,” he said.

McCarron served as head of the league years ago, but stopped in 2004. He said troubles in recent years prompted some parents and coaches to approach him, asking if he would take on the role again.

This year is his first back and he plans to smooth some of those bumps, for the sake of the parents and the children on the field.

Pamela Knight hopes it can be done. After the troubles she saw within the league last year, she wanted to give it up altogether. Her son talked her out of it.

“He really wants to play football,” she said.