This wasn’t the ball that the soccer players were expecting to find.

A ball python indigenous to Africa was found Wednesday afternoon near a soccer field at Cherry Beach in the Port Lands.

Ian Harvey was playing soccer with a group of friends when their ball was kicked out of bounds. The player retrieving it came across the snake.

“It was on the rocks, warming itself, probably,” said Harvey, who said the snake was about a metre to 1.5 metres long.

The players called the City to notify animal control. Some passersby said they had seen a similar snake in the same area before.

“If the City receives a complaint, they investigate it,” said Tammy Robinson, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto. “Staff attended Cherry Beach on Aug. 8 and 11 after receiving a complaint about the snakes, but found no trace of them.”

Harvey said another player placed the snake in a bag and had it picked up by a city employee. The City of Toronto did not immediately respond when asked what happened to the snake.

“The key concern was not us, but there’s kids that play there,” said Harvey, who has written for the Star in the past.

“There were coaches from a couple of kids’ teams who said ‘we need to do something about it,’ which is prudent.”

Ball pythons are known to curl up in a ball when stressed or frightened, hence their name. It’s the most popular pet python in the world, according to Reptiles Magazine.

The snake is non-venomous, and is a constrictor.

“It obviously doesn’t belong here, and it needs some tender loving care, so let’s make sure we get that,” Harvey said.