Live Sport 7: The Referee/Coach/Player
This entry is a bit of a misnomer. It's about sport I participated in rather than just observed. I hadn't thought to include it, but when, a few blogs back, I mentioned the surreality of playing football against Prince William, instantly this other incident came into my head. Football, eh? Did I once referee a football match in front of 1000s of people? I did, didn't I? When I was 18. How odd.
Still, was this really worthy of its own entry, I wondered? But the more I thought about it, and all the memories came back and my mind started overlapping itself, I realised that if I got to the heart of this tale, I'd be saying more interesting things about sport and its role in our lives than I'd yet managed to do. I expect I won't manage, but I still think this one's worth writing.
Right, so, as I was saying, when I was 18 I refereed a football match in front of 1000s of people. Not multiple thousands, you know, maybe a couple of thousand. A lot of adults and an awful lot of children. Children from all the local schools up to watch the big match, sitting on the steeped banks of the Wundanyi football pitch. It was a really good pitch, I remember that, in excellent nick considering it had not had a drop of rain for several months and the whole area was in drought conditions. "I'd love to play on this pitch", I thought. As the players warmed up, I, the referee, an 18 year old with his first comedy goatee, did a few keepie-uppies. How did I get here?
Gap years. Yuck. I know. A self-indulgent arrogant post-colonial privilege of the lucky few. I don't disagree. I probably even thought it back then, but because I was impressionable perhaps, because I wanted to grow up a bit perhaps, I found myself heading to Kenya for 8 months (which would eventually be shortened to 6 1/2 months, but that's another story) on January 2nd 1997. Totally shitting it, to be honest. Give us our dues, we went in relatively deep. Small organisation, no real idea what we were going to do, no electricity, no running water, no certainty where we were going to live. My friend took the opportunity to teach at the Secondary School, I taught at the Primary School.
Now, don't imagine little prepubescents when I say Primary School (though, when I foolishly did a PGCE years later back in the UK, they would prove to be far more fearsome). Kenyan Primary School had 8 years and you started it when you could and if you didn't complete a year - for any reason - whatsoever, you just had to repeat the year. So a Year 8 pupil could be anything from12/13 to 18/19 - well, theoretically, there was no limit, but my oldest were 19 or so. ie older than me.
Then, as years later, I was not a good teacher, but the very fact of being a teacher and, dare I say it, being white, gave me a modicum of initial discipline I didn't deserve. "On no account tell them your age, Pike!" our hapless charity's hopeless trustees had told us, in one of the few bits of practical advice they'd given. You see, it was all about finding out for ourselves, experiencing the real Africa, all that shit.
Well, that initial respect began to wear off, and would have worn off a lot faster if, a few weeks in, I hadn't volunteered, or been advised, to take the boys down to the local pitch (this one was just a rough field often shared with scrawny cows, the only flat piece of land for a fair distance) for a bit of football.
They played barefeet in their school uniform. To start with, I just let them play. They were pretty decent, but a bit all over the shop. I wouldn't have to be Pep Guardiola to improve this a bit. Just a bit of skills work, a bit of instruction on positions etc.
They also couldn't tell teams apart, so I asked my mum to send a set of training bibs, an act of generosity which was still being talked about in the staff room for months to come.
After a few sessions, I split them into an A and B side and couldn't resist putting myself on the B team to make up the numbers. I refereed and coached a bit, played a bit, lazily to start with but, inevitably as it progressed with more effort and pizzazz. They loved the fact that I played and they loved the fact that I was pretty good. In the end, that would be the only real respect I got, not that I was older than them (I wasn't), not that I was a teacher (I, secretly, wasn't), not that I was a white man (thankfully, that oddly persistent deference disappeared after a while) but I got real respect because I was good at football. And my being good helped them to improve, and they really did. I still remember them - respectful Ibrahim Mwakio, the head boy Hesbon, Frank Kisaghi the most wordly and defiant, who sometimes openly mocked me though - because I was good at football - always warmly, and my favourite Zablon Mshambala, a year 7 pupil who actually was about the right age and the right size, about 13 and not much more than 5 ft, but the best of the lot by far, a proper little footballer. And what a name too!
We played a game once against the local Secondary School who shared the field - what a game that was. OK, it wasn't not 11 year olds against 18 year olds, as such a game would be in the UK, but it was probably on average 15/16 against 20/21. I played and refereed, played my heart out, we all did and with five minutes to go, I grabbed a goal to put us 2-1 up. What joy. Then, barely seconds later, the older lads broke down field, clean through, and I was last man. Knackered out, I just scythed hopelessly into the attacker. Still lying on the ground, I blew my whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. "Penalty!" Sheer laughter and bafflement, but it was, as they say, a stonewall. What else could I do? 2-2 it ended and everyone was happy.
Again, nothing I did in all the time I was there, supposedly doing good/God's work, resonated and endeared as much as that moment. Respect and admiration and humour was self-evident. Somehow, it was one of the truest moments of open human community and communication I've ever known, my being skilful, fair-minded and absurd all at once. If only I could harness that.
You know that old Camus t-shirt saying - "Everything I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football" ... obvious nonsense, but if he'd say something like "a lot of the moments I observed kinship and obligation and nobility most keenly and purely were on the football pitch" I'd be entirely on board.
So it went on. My boys were getting good, really good. There were to be trials, first local trials and then a regional match. The way they did it was not as a knock-out tournament. It was more divide and conquer. After one match, they'd pick the best of both teams and then send that team on to another match against another combined team, and then do that again.
My lot were way better than the rest. Sadly I wasn't a selector otherwise I'd have just kept on picking my 11, whereas some got left behind. I remember in one of the trial games, still refereeing, a boy from another local school did a couple of shocking challenges and lashed out, and I'd warned him, and I really had no option but to send him off. He pleaded with me not to and I saw the fear in his eyes. "Jesus, this kid's going to get caned 'cos of me" I realised, but by then it was too late. That was, horribly, how a lot of the other undermotivated and underpaid teachers kept their respect and discipline.
So, the big game, up in the town of Wundanyi, on that lovely pitch, all the kids from 8 schools on the sidelines plus loads more townsfolk there for the day. I think about five from my team had survived the process, Zablon and Hesbon and Frank amongst them. This was, sadly, the end of the line, no further step up, no pro scout there to check it out.
I refereed, fairly I think, though I had to ignore one of my linesmen who had no understanding of the offside rule. I think Zablon got a couple, it was close to start with but ending up being about 6-2. The boys I'd coached, the boys from Maynard Primary School, were the best players on the pitch, easily. There was I, callow, quiet, sunburnt and homesick, 18 going on 16 and I was in charge of this whole scenario. I was the ref with instant respect and I was the coach who'd produced worldbeaters. Football had, briefly, all too briefly, elevated me, taken me beyond myself
When I was doing my PGCE years later and floundering, as my respect from these tough little inner city kids drained away, I knew that I wanted to play football with them, show them what I could do, but somehow the opportunity never came up. Not till right at the end when I was pretty broken, to be honest, and even then, though it was a ship that had sailed, I saw it in their eyes, their opinion of me changed for the better. Too late by then.
So it's been, in so many situations. I've used being capable at sport as a shield, as a means to be some kind of man. Again, I remember playing some representative cricket when I was 15 or so for something like Middlesex South, and my team mates, gathered from all the local clubs, were a right bunch of young upstarts, all proper facial hair and chat, and I was a shy quiet public school boy a bit out of his depth and I got a fair bit of mockery, not always that nice, but as soon as I started bowling my sharp, accurate left-arm spin, it went. Just support and respect. It may not be just but it's true.
I was in that odd position, growing up, where I was a bit of both. In American terms, both nerd and jock. Surprising how rare that is. The boys (I can only talk about boys in this matter) who are good at sport so often coincide with the confident, popular kids, it's hard to know if it's chicken or egg. I was neither confident or popular but I did sport - sometimes this gave me the worst of both worlds. As I faded out of rugby, I found myself playing a sport I didn't like increasingly poorly with team mates who seemed to despise me. Right then I didn't fit in anywhere and I wished I could be as far away from sport as possible. In the end I had to get a doctor's certificate to prove head injuries could affect my migraines and do Voluntary Service instead of something physical to get out of playing rugby. What bullshit.
So, sport played badly in an uncomfortable context can drain the confidence, sure, but not, nowhere near, the extent to which playing it well can instill confidence and gain respect. That's always been my experience. So often, if I've felt I wanted to impress people or avoid contempt, I wanted them to see me play sport. Hell, it didn't always work, but perhaps the key thing was, in itself, that that was how I perceived it. Sport put me higher up the hierarchy, it bolstered my ego when it needed bolstering.
Perhaps I should have been a referee. They often give the impression of being little men who need an ego boost, so go into something where they can control the destiny of thousands of people and millions of pounds. That sounds horrid, but you know what I mean ... I think the amount of respect they're able to hang on to is testament to how well the top ones do their job. But I do wonder if any of them have ever had as fine a moment as when I scythed over a striker in the box and blew for a penalty against myself. That takes some topping.
Still, was this really worthy of its own entry, I wondered? But the more I thought about it, and all the memories came back and my mind started overlapping itself, I realised that if I got to the heart of this tale, I'd be saying more interesting things about sport and its role in our lives than I'd yet managed to do. I expect I won't manage, but I still think this one's worth writing.
Right, so, as I was saying, when I was 18 I refereed a football match in front of 1000s of people. Not multiple thousands, you know, maybe a couple of thousand. A lot of adults and an awful lot of children. Children from all the local schools up to watch the big match, sitting on the steeped banks of the Wundanyi football pitch. It was a really good pitch, I remember that, in excellent nick considering it had not had a drop of rain for several months and the whole area was in drought conditions. "I'd love to play on this pitch", I thought. As the players warmed up, I, the referee, an 18 year old with his first comedy goatee, did a few keepie-uppies. How did I get here?
Gap years. Yuck. I know. A self-indulgent arrogant post-colonial privilege of the lucky few. I don't disagree. I probably even thought it back then, but because I was impressionable perhaps, because I wanted to grow up a bit perhaps, I found myself heading to Kenya for 8 months (which would eventually be shortened to 6 1/2 months, but that's another story) on January 2nd 1997. Totally shitting it, to be honest. Give us our dues, we went in relatively deep. Small organisation, no real idea what we were going to do, no electricity, no running water, no certainty where we were going to live. My friend took the opportunity to teach at the Secondary School, I taught at the Primary School.
Now, don't imagine little prepubescents when I say Primary School (though, when I foolishly did a PGCE years later back in the UK, they would prove to be far more fearsome). Kenyan Primary School had 8 years and you started it when you could and if you didn't complete a year - for any reason - whatsoever, you just had to repeat the year. So a Year 8 pupil could be anything from12/13 to 18/19 - well, theoretically, there was no limit, but my oldest were 19 or so. ie older than me.
Then, as years later, I was not a good teacher, but the very fact of being a teacher and, dare I say it, being white, gave me a modicum of initial discipline I didn't deserve. "On no account tell them your age, Pike!" our hapless charity's hopeless trustees had told us, in one of the few bits of practical advice they'd given. You see, it was all about finding out for ourselves, experiencing the real Africa, all that shit.
Well, that initial respect began to wear off, and would have worn off a lot faster if, a few weeks in, I hadn't volunteered, or been advised, to take the boys down to the local pitch (this one was just a rough field often shared with scrawny cows, the only flat piece of land for a fair distance) for a bit of football.
They played barefeet in their school uniform. To start with, I just let them play. They were pretty decent, but a bit all over the shop. I wouldn't have to be Pep Guardiola to improve this a bit. Just a bit of skills work, a bit of instruction on positions etc.
They also couldn't tell teams apart, so I asked my mum to send a set of training bibs, an act of generosity which was still being talked about in the staff room for months to come.
After a few sessions, I split them into an A and B side and couldn't resist putting myself on the B team to make up the numbers. I refereed and coached a bit, played a bit, lazily to start with but, inevitably as it progressed with more effort and pizzazz. They loved the fact that I played and they loved the fact that I was pretty good. In the end, that would be the only real respect I got, not that I was older than them (I wasn't), not that I was a teacher (I, secretly, wasn't), not that I was a white man (thankfully, that oddly persistent deference disappeared after a while) but I got real respect because I was good at football. And my being good helped them to improve, and they really did. I still remember them - respectful Ibrahim Mwakio, the head boy Hesbon, Frank Kisaghi the most wordly and defiant, who sometimes openly mocked me though - because I was good at football - always warmly, and my favourite Zablon Mshambala, a year 7 pupil who actually was about the right age and the right size, about 13 and not much more than 5 ft, but the best of the lot by far, a proper little footballer. And what a name too!
We played a game once against the local Secondary School who shared the field - what a game that was. OK, it wasn't not 11 year olds against 18 year olds, as such a game would be in the UK, but it was probably on average 15/16 against 20/21. I played and refereed, played my heart out, we all did and with five minutes to go, I grabbed a goal to put us 2-1 up. What joy. Then, barely seconds later, the older lads broke down field, clean through, and I was last man. Knackered out, I just scythed hopelessly into the attacker. Still lying on the ground, I blew my whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. "Penalty!" Sheer laughter and bafflement, but it was, as they say, a stonewall. What else could I do? 2-2 it ended and everyone was happy.
Again, nothing I did in all the time I was there, supposedly doing good/God's work, resonated and endeared as much as that moment. Respect and admiration and humour was self-evident. Somehow, it was one of the truest moments of open human community and communication I've ever known, my being skilful, fair-minded and absurd all at once. If only I could harness that.
You know that old Camus t-shirt saying - "Everything I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football" ... obvious nonsense, but if he'd say something like "a lot of the moments I observed kinship and obligation and nobility most keenly and purely were on the football pitch" I'd be entirely on board.
So it went on. My boys were getting good, really good. There were to be trials, first local trials and then a regional match. The way they did it was not as a knock-out tournament. It was more divide and conquer. After one match, they'd pick the best of both teams and then send that team on to another match against another combined team, and then do that again.
My lot were way better than the rest. Sadly I wasn't a selector otherwise I'd have just kept on picking my 11, whereas some got left behind. I remember in one of the trial games, still refereeing, a boy from another local school did a couple of shocking challenges and lashed out, and I'd warned him, and I really had no option but to send him off. He pleaded with me not to and I saw the fear in his eyes. "Jesus, this kid's going to get caned 'cos of me" I realised, but by then it was too late. That was, horribly, how a lot of the other undermotivated and underpaid teachers kept their respect and discipline.
So, the big game, up in the town of Wundanyi, on that lovely pitch, all the kids from 8 schools on the sidelines plus loads more townsfolk there for the day. I think about five from my team had survived the process, Zablon and Hesbon and Frank amongst them. This was, sadly, the end of the line, no further step up, no pro scout there to check it out.
I refereed, fairly I think, though I had to ignore one of my linesmen who had no understanding of the offside rule. I think Zablon got a couple, it was close to start with but ending up being about 6-2. The boys I'd coached, the boys from Maynard Primary School, were the best players on the pitch, easily. There was I, callow, quiet, sunburnt and homesick, 18 going on 16 and I was in charge of this whole scenario. I was the ref with instant respect and I was the coach who'd produced worldbeaters. Football had, briefly, all too briefly, elevated me, taken me beyond myself
When I was doing my PGCE years later and floundering, as my respect from these tough little inner city kids drained away, I knew that I wanted to play football with them, show them what I could do, but somehow the opportunity never came up. Not till right at the end when I was pretty broken, to be honest, and even then, though it was a ship that had sailed, I saw it in their eyes, their opinion of me changed for the better. Too late by then.
So it's been, in so many situations. I've used being capable at sport as a shield, as a means to be some kind of man. Again, I remember playing some representative cricket when I was 15 or so for something like Middlesex South, and my team mates, gathered from all the local clubs, were a right bunch of young upstarts, all proper facial hair and chat, and I was a shy quiet public school boy a bit out of his depth and I got a fair bit of mockery, not always that nice, but as soon as I started bowling my sharp, accurate left-arm spin, it went. Just support and respect. It may not be just but it's true.
I was in that odd position, growing up, where I was a bit of both. In American terms, both nerd and jock. Surprising how rare that is. The boys (I can only talk about boys in this matter) who are good at sport so often coincide with the confident, popular kids, it's hard to know if it's chicken or egg. I was neither confident or popular but I did sport - sometimes this gave me the worst of both worlds. As I faded out of rugby, I found myself playing a sport I didn't like increasingly poorly with team mates who seemed to despise me. Right then I didn't fit in anywhere and I wished I could be as far away from sport as possible. In the end I had to get a doctor's certificate to prove head injuries could affect my migraines and do Voluntary Service instead of something physical to get out of playing rugby. What bullshit.
So, sport played badly in an uncomfortable context can drain the confidence, sure, but not, nowhere near, the extent to which playing it well can instill confidence and gain respect. That's always been my experience. So often, if I've felt I wanted to impress people or avoid contempt, I wanted them to see me play sport. Hell, it didn't always work, but perhaps the key thing was, in itself, that that was how I perceived it. Sport put me higher up the hierarchy, it bolstered my ego when it needed bolstering.
Perhaps I should have been a referee. They often give the impression of being little men who need an ego boost, so go into something where they can control the destiny of thousands of people and millions of pounds. That sounds horrid, but you know what I mean ... I think the amount of respect they're able to hang on to is testament to how well the top ones do their job. But I do wonder if any of them have ever had as fine a moment as when I scythed over a striker in the box and blew for a penalty against myself. That takes some topping.
Amazing. Can't quite believe I've never heard this story before. This latest series is a real treat.
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