The dust has finally settled

20 Jul, 2014 - 01:07 0 Views

The Sunday News

WELL, the World Cup excitement fever has finally died down. I for one know that some married women, mistresses and girlfriends are breathing a huge sigh of relief, because we were made aware of their complaints. Some husbands couldn’t talk of anything else during the extravaganza and you know as the saying goes, one’s man’s meat is another’s . . .

But we were thrilled to see some women following the proceedings of the World Cup with so much enthusiasm and making predictions with some coming true and others of course being wild.

That was the hype of the period, seeing as soccer is almost everybody’s favourite game.
For some of us, who were totally engrossed with the World Cup, it seems like something is missing from the TV schedule. It feels as though a giant void has been made in the programme line up.

Yes, I was 100 percent engrossed, so much that I think I watched all the matches, and what fun I had!
But I do have to confess that I am not that much of a soccer fan . . . Well, some of you already know from my other articles that I played a little soccer at primary school, and then also a bit for a team at Emakopo, while I was a teenager.

I discovered that I was never going to become a Peter Ndlovu and that’s when I turned to poetry.
Turning to this field of poetry, after I discovered that I had two left feet, I also discovered that in poetry I felt much more at home and could command the best team.

Here I would not suffer from skinned knees or be substituted, as is the norm in soccer. I really despised being substituted!
Well, what can I say? I must also add that the rough play you find in soccer is not only limited to the soccer. If you were not a good player and made costly errors that maybe made your team lose a match, you would be subject to humiliation and mockery from team-mates.
It was really tough and believe me they really could rub it in.

It’s funny that some guys, who were good at soccer, always behaved as if they were more intelligent than everyone else.
But we have to give credit to those that played street soccer with balls made from plastics.

They really lit up our games on the streets or our little soccer stadiums in the bushes behind the township.
Playing soccer wasn’t just about kicking the ball but fashion too. The most famous was to tie a soft bandage around ones wrist or knee, even if one was not injured.

Of course the bandage had to be super clean. If it was dirty the girls would not even spare you a glance and would mock you for being untidy.
There were many other street soccer fashion trends too, like wearing one tennis shoe when playing, or turning up one sleeve of your t-shirt.
But, having to spot such trends spelt that you were exceptionally good at the game.

I experienced a very nostalgic feeling for the World Cup and it is all I have been talking about.
It seems that at my age I have re-discovered soccer again.

So don’t mind if you see me playing street soccer again, maybe I can still make it to the national team and play at the World Cup 2022.
But do we as a country have a chance with Fifa if say we were to go ahead and make a bid for it after Qatar? Well, I know that this one is going to raise a lot of debate, but I would love to hear the debate that would come out of MaDlodlo Beer Garden, because that is where the real soccer supporters can be found, right in the middle of the township. That is the undisputed powerhouse of soccer talent in Bulawayo.

Well, some will dispute this, but I think residents of Makokoba will support me on this one.
And actually, if we were to have World Cup matches in Bulawayo, the whole of Makokoba should be given free entry tickets, only if those people I likened to flies last week in my article — Nicknames — are made gate marshals.

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