...but African football does feature Eagles and Cranes. The national teams have some great nicknames. Indomitable Lions is the best. That's Cameroon.
Anyway, this is my work at the moment. From home, not out of Africa. I've been to North Africa - Algeria, Morocco and Egypt. We lived in Algeria for a year or so and my dad lived in Egypt. Then in 2010 I went to Johannesburg for the World Cup.
I stepped out of the plane and the air was different... dust... the smell of the dust itself... A romantic idea: I scented my primal home! No, not that, but I knew I was not in Kansas any more. Or, indeed, in Northamptonshire.
I didn't get to see much as I was working. I did the tour of Soweto. Nelson Mandela's house. Drank this local beer with men who lived there. You pass the cup around the circle. It was a bit like the funny Kvass or whatever beer in Russia... I was humbled. I wanted to connect. I wasn't sure how. Apparently, the guy from work I was with and I were among the very few tourists to drink from the cup on the second round. You see, they gave us the cup first, then it went round the circle and we were offered it again. Most people, apparently, politely refuse. D and I drank. It was part of the circle of trust. We all put our lips on the same rim. drank the same brew. We shared ourselves. Briefly. At my college there was a similar tradition. Some great silver goblet, not a plastic cup, but passed around the table. They called it the Loving Cup.
But I mention all this because watching these teams from nations where life can be so hard, where there are wars and poverty and corruption and hardship and AIDS and yet... they play football. They compete to play on the greatest stage.
And people love it. It means something. Despite all they have to bear... or do not have... people love it.
This programme, it's the qualifying games for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. And, you know, maybe my job matters. So that people, wherever they are, at home or away, can see their nation compete without guns. Can see their young men fit and strong. Can see their colours and their flags raised without the weight of all the everyday trials and tribulations.
There's something I'm trying to get at... the combination of the very frivolity of play despite difficulties demonstrates... such spirit. I sound patronising. I am a privileged outsider. What do I know? Yet I drank from the Loving Cup. I shared something, however small, in Soweto.
I do know that there are millions in the continent's countries with lives similar to mine. But there are many millions who do not have and cannot have a fraction of what I think I deserve.
Oh, how do I say this?
I think that what I want to say is that those who dismiss sport as a waste of resources - as something that should be shelved to pay for more doctors - they are missing something. People don't just what to survive. They want pride and passion. They want fun and competition. They want all the blessings that are wrapped up in the concept of play. They want to be able to afford to care for something that doesn't matter.
And who dare deny them that right?
Pass the Loving Cup. Allow people to share the game of football without condemning its frivolity.
Comments