Needing A Good Kick Up The Backside.

If there is one thing I really cannot tolerate about how things go in this fair isle it's the fact that complaining is a sport where Bajans would have great Olympic prowess but doing is still a work-in-progress. Few people seem to realise that grumbling and groaning alone changes diddly squat.

"Come on, Jonesy! Do you want me to come on and kick it for you?" one of my football coaches used to scream. I get the same feeling when I read about the disasters of the national soccer team. Maybe I should drag my 50-plus year old body out and give them all a good kick up the a***.

As a former footballer, coach, referee, etc.--said it enough times now--I know a bad set up for developing football when I see one. So what is it about the way that things don't get done here that leaves the national team crying the same tears into their glasses of milk as they did a few months ago? (see Nation News report). Captain Norman Forde is blaming the team's inadequate preparation over the past three weeks for their winless performance and early exit from the Digicel Caribbean Championships Finals

Wasn't it a mere few months ago that the Bajan team was complaining about how they were badly prepared for their matches against the US in the World Cup, when they got thumped by something like a cricket score (see Convince Me Please). Some lame stories about how the Americans practised with balls while the Bajans had to practice with coucou rolled up in paper mache. Injustice! Which part of "not learning any lessons" is not being taken seriously? Pathetic!

The team, called the "Tridents", and those who manage and organize its football need to have those three prongs shoved up somewhere sensitive. The team trains on a piece of land (the YMCA field) where you would not even grave cows. Their warm-up match before playing Jamaica was their own under -17 national squad. Result? Don't ask. The referee robbed the team. Please. Imagine Michael Phelps racing against his gold fish in his mum's pond in preparation for the Olympics. Imagine Usain Bolt running in some hobnailed boots against a blind donkey in Trelawny in preparation for his quests in Beijing. Make sense?

I'm sure that Bajans would like to have some sporting success but they don't seem to have a clue about how to go about making improvements to a shoddy situation. Afterwards, the litany of excuses would embarrass a schoolboy who had just tried to tell his teacher that his pet weevil had eaten his house and that his homework was buried under the now rotted house. Who cares if another team like Grenada is better or not on paper? The match is played on grass. Duh!

As many good coaches say, "Just do your job!" If not, give us all a break. At least they did not manage to disgrace themselves totally, like some of the players in the following video:

Don't kick me. I'm down already.

I have to be honest and say that I was too absorbed by the first round of football in the Euro 2008 finals in Switzerland and Austria to really pay more than a passing interest in the possible fate of regional teams in the World Cup 2010 qualifiers that started over the past weekend. I also have to be honest and say that I know a bit about football and could not see any reason to focus on the local scene over what was on offer in Europe. I could not even find local coverage of the game; maybe I missed it or it was pushed out by the Test match.

I now hear cries around the island in Barbados after the national team got a proper pounding in Carson, California, going down heavily to the US 8-0: "Why dey sen wi boys to Califourneeya an spen nearly US$ 250,000 so dat dey could heng dey hed in shame?"..."Is jus greedy officials who luv fi shop, travel an get big up, an too proud to forfeit."..."How di team go win wen we na ha no facilities...no practice...ha fi borra any and anybody who can spell Bim fi play fi we?" Et cetera. Of course, Barbados had no chance of winning, unless the US decided to not play. The press there have had a field day, even suggesting that Bim could not even beat a local high school team--Ouch!--as is their right and usual: the US got its biggest ever international win; they scored their fastest ever goal (in 53 seconds), so Barbados in the record books.

Now, as of June 2008, FIFA ranks Barbados 121st; the USA is ranked 22nd, that's out of almost 200 countries (see the full table). The giants are Argentina (1st), Brazil (2nd), Italy (3rd), and Germany (5th), each of whom has won at least two World Cups and won 14 of the 18 tournaments between them (see list). So, Barbados followed the form book. They should not cry as much as little Bahamas--about the same size in population--who rank 167th, but got spanked good and proper by Jamaica (ranked 98th), 7-0 on Sunday and 6-0 last night, when they also played the "away" leg in Jamaica out in the bush in Trelawny, and I guess got lost on the way. The region wont be setting the world alight anytime soon, despite the heroics of Jamaica and Trinidad (ranked 89th) in making it to the finals dances and doing pretty well to show that whether reggae or soca rhythms drive the team, they can win' up good enough to not be shamed. Mind you, some of the Soca Warriors must have been liming too much to allow Bermuda (ranked 139th) to beat them in Trinidad. Spare a thought for Aruba, Anguilla, and Montserrat, who rank bottom at 199th with Papau New Guinea. No, we are not really on the world map for football.

I watched some of the video highlights from the Barbados game, and you can too. It's not X-rated. Barbados never looked likely to repeat the US's "miracle on grass", when in the 1950 World Cup group games, the US beat England 1-0, that after the Americans had lost their previous seven international matches by the combined score of 45–2.


But they did better than did the team of Long John Silver impersonators--one of my favourite sketches from Monty Python.


I also did a forensic analysis of the US team, their tactics and their personnel. Look what I found. They have secret signals. See how the hands all set the same? I never see no signs like that before, and I suspect that it may also mean that they are some aliens sending back to their planet the DNA of the Bajan players, which was then converted into that of tortoises. Everyone knows the US can' play real football, so how they win? Not because they spend billions of dollars and develop scholarships at university and set up a good league and get their players onto major teams in Europe. They good at basketball, baseball, American football, and win world championships only when they don't compete against anyone else but have east coast versus west coast. What? Play foreigners to know that the US is better than them? You cannot be serious!

They also had twice as many players on every ball. How the referee did not notice that? My views on FIFA's ability to organize and deal with officials are not worthy of printing, so here we have another lapse.

They can fly. That boy, Landon Donovan, fast but when you have wings on your feet, there's no Achilles heel on the team. For sure he's not using those ""blade runners" used by South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius--maybe Barbados needs those, though. See how the Bajan boys' feet glued to the ground? In a few years time I'm sure that we will hear that the game should be given to Barbados, so if the US win the World Cup, Bim can look forward to having it awarded to the island, just like Marion Jones' Olympic medals.

Now, people here going to get all huffy that not enough money going to the sport, and, and.... Same old blah-blah about everything except cricket. But they better get real. Football is not a passion in Barbados; cricket is. People don't duck work to go watch football matches; they save that for cricket. Politicians don't speak in footballing metaphors; they use cricketing terms: They say "The honorable member for St. Peter is batting on a sticky wicket, and if he not careful I will have to send him to silly mid-on, if he continues with this nonsense." Rather than, "I think that the member for St. John has just scored an own goal with his recent remarks and I will have to show him the red card if his performance continue to be so foul." People don't flock to stadiums or fields to watch football; they do that for cricket.

Barbados does not care about sports other than cricket. I just spent 10 days in a medium sized French town that has a population of around 80,000 people. They have more football pitches provided by the mayor/municipality than there are pitches in the whole of this little rock. (They also have more tennis courts, rugby fields, swimming pools, cycle paths, buses, trains, shopping malls, supermarkets, etc.) The town, not strange for the country as a whole, votes for people who are interested in developing its youths and social standing and provides a range of facilities to ensure that. So, enough of the bleating and the crocodile tears. You reap what you sow. Very few Bajan players have enough opportunity to play on a decent field unless they make it to the national team and play abroad--the national stadium is being refitted to make it meet FIFA's standards, remember). It does not take much to realise that the standard here is too low, and that unless kids get a chance to play in better structures and on better facilities they will continue to suffer at the adult and higher levels. One Bajan player has managed to make it to a world class league (playing for Wigan in the UK premier league, though they just got relegated thanks in part to an own goal from him).

So, let's forget about the football. Put all of the sport eggs into cricket. We and Windies can rule the world there. No mind that none of the players can get into a university with the sport. No matter that it takes sometime up to five days to get a tie. No matter, no matter. Now send a US team down here for a cricket match. 8-0? Do they know how to count to a 1000 in runs? You wait!

Here we go!

If you do not like football, shame on you. If you think that the only sport to follow is cricket, more shame on you. If you are not following the last phase of the race for the Barclays Premier League, even greater shame on you.

I was a football fanatic--player, spectator, coach, referee. I used to spend much of every Saturday either playing, watching, coaching or referring--not all at the same time and in the same place, mind you. Even after I discovered family life I was able to keep up with this diet. When I went to the US, I watched less, but played, coached and refereed more. Then I played less, coached and refereed more. Then I coached more and refereed less. Then I stopped it all.

By that time I had arrived in Africa, where football is really like a religion and youngsters play like they did when I was a boy in London--anywhere, with anything; a few people or a full team. It was passionate and fluid. The imagination and oddities of the situation developed skills that cannot be taught: how to bounce the ball off an object and get the rebound; learning to bounce off concrete (never easy); learning not to fall on concrete (it could be the last fall of all). I had played in Africa for a short while, in the rarified air of Malawi. I was in my late 20s and people there could not understand why I had not retired; all their best players stopped around the age of 26. I had been told that a player peaks at around 28, and there I was, so I was still playing.

I never thought of myself as a veteran then, that privilege came later. I remember going through tough years, not much later, when I did retire (unhappy with a lot of things). So, I spent a year of misery not having anything to do with football. Then an old friend, in his 60s, who had played for Millwall as a full professional asked me to come and play veterans football. "You can be our ringer, as you're not yet 30." I loved it. I was much quicker and fitter and all of a sudden I was a star, and much abused for that. I scored lots of goals, made lots of goals, saved lots of goals by running more and doing more than anyone else on the team. My mentor, seeing me smiling after yet another Sunday morning game, told me to never stop playing if my legs had movement. His secret to a long playing life was simple: no sex (not even with your wife), and a round of golf before every game. No comment. I tried to stay with football a long time and stopped playing in my mid-40s; ironically I went back into training to come to Barbados to play in the Wanderers Masters Tournament and that was a real shocker to my system but a great thrill. But after that, I gracefully hung up my boots. Now, I just try to encourage my youngest daughter to kick and head; her sister who is in England has just spent a season discovering varsity level football and the thrill of the team sport at a higher level

All that aside, I now sit ready to see the top two teams in Britain (yes, Scotland's Celtic and Rangers are not in the same league--literally), Chelsea and Manchester United,play to a possible "double" of awesome proportions. They are 1 and 2 in the Barclays Premier League, and they are both in the finals of the UEFA Champions League, to be played later this month in Moscow. I was never a real Chelsea fan, but always loved their style in the 1960s through 1980s, with heroes such as Charlie Cooke, Peter Osgood, Ron Harris, Peter Bonetti, Alan Hudson, Ray Wilkins, etc. Many of my best school friends were fans of the Blues and we hung out a lot in the Chelsea area. I also loved Man. U--especially in the era of Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, and George Best. Now I love them again, with Christiano Ronaldo showing me things on a field that you only do to showboat.

So, here we are. Chelsea beat Man. U last week to draw level on points, but Man. U have better goal difference. Two games to go, both tough. I will be nail biting and go to the finish. My money is on Chelsea, and they will win by a point. We will see in a few days time if my prediciton is right. I think that Man. U will get their revenge in Moscow. Honours will be even? One game at a time and later this morning I hope to see West Ham put the nail in the coffin for Man. U, as they have done before. Come on you Hammers! Chelsea play on Monday, a holiday in England. So exciting!

Getting a bad break

A lot of people in Barbados might not be aware of an horrific incident in England last week. During a football match between Arsenal and Birmingham, Martin Taylor of Birmingham tackled Eduardo da Silva on the shin bone and broke his leg. The video and pictures below are not mine nor are the views in it, but the images made me wince. As a former player, I knew that I was always one tackle away from a bad injury, yet somehow I got away with nearly 35 years of high level play with no breaks, torn hamstrings, many ankle sprains, and one removed cartilege (worn out joints late in my career), and now knees that need a lot of care but still function quite well. My worse experience came from mild concussion after a goal keeper and I collided and I crashed head first into a goal post.



You can see from discussions in The Times that opinions in England are really divided about the "crime", the punishment, how to try to eliminate such occurrences, etc.

A lot happens on the field and the only authority that matters is the match referee (aided by his assistants). However, referees have enormous discretion, and their actions are really only governed by the administrative bodies--FIFA and The Premier League, for example. Action taken on the field often does not seem to fit the offence (yellow or red card to cover all offences, some relatively minor (entering field without permission) some major (spitting or hitting an opponent), but that is a weakness of how football has developed, and its unwillingness to break its traditions. It does not have graduated penalties (e.g., yardage losses (like in American Football) or time in a "sin bin" (as in ice hockey or rugby), or a host of officials to cover the playing area. It uses technology to a very limited extent to review plays during a match or afterwards to correct mistakes or confirm decisions. Calls for that to change have been met with somewhat lukewarm responses.

I also know that if you play at a high level in England coaching there involves learning how to tackle very hard, and how to tackle "at the limit" of legality--it's a fine line.

Having also been a long time spectator from my youth, then coaching youth and adult teams, plus and a qualified referee I have seen most things that the sport has to offer and can understand the spread of views. Football is perhaps the most emotional of games for players and spectators. I think it remains the only professional sport that has sparked wars, when El Salvador and Honduras went to war in 1969, after a football game was the final spark between two countries with very different political outlooks and a lot of tension between them.

No conclusions from on this incident, which sparked Arsenal's manager to call for a lifetime ban for Taylor, but then he backed away from that. The offending player got an immediate red card and will face a several game suspension. I feel for Eduardo, who will have to wait nine months to recover. He will miss playing for Croatia in the Euro Championships later this year, which was probably on his calendar as a high point. Now he can look forward to just watching on TV. That's a really tough break.

Africa United

What can unite Africa? The African Union cannot do it. The United Nations cannot do it. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and African Development Bank cannot do it. Poverty cannot do it. Wars cannot do it. So what can bring this huge continent to seem that it is at one? Football!

I wont go into the statistics on the African Nations Cup, which is held every two years--this time in Accra, Ghana (fitting having celebrated 50 years of independence). The official web site contains a lot of such information. What I know is that the continent is often broadly at peace during this period. In Guinea, unions were due to launch another unlimited national strike but it was suspended so that people could focus on watching the games; they have been rewarded because the national team has put itself in position to qualify for the next round.

When you look at the teams playing this time round you see something amazing about football: it seems to transcend economic, social, and political woes. How else do you explain that Sudan qualified from the same group as Tunisia (albeit with the presence of weak rivals such as the Seychelles and Mauritius)? That war-torn country takes its place nobly with the likes of North African football powerhouses (Egypt [most final appearances and most championships], Morocco, Tunisia). It sits proudly with the west African dancing stars (Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal). It eats from the same plate as the once officially racially divided (South Africa). It sits lowly but no less deservingly with the countries rising from or still mired in economic and political woes (Benin, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Zambia). Its desert poverty does not compare with the diamond richness (Namibia).

For the period of the matches most eyes on the continent will be focused on one thing only: men chasing after a ball with the hope of kicking it into a net. Ironically, if teams do well people go crazy; but when they lose they go crazy too. Governments do not mess with the teams' arrangements. Budgets that were empty for schools and medicines suddenly find cash to help teams travel or to pay for television rights so that the people can watch. From my experience in Guinea there wont be a shortage of electricity during he times when games are televised. People wont be watching in huge plazas with Jumbotron screens. They will be huddled around small screens, ears glued to radios, even listening to coverage by cellphones. People will gather mainly in shack bars and little hut restaurants. Those settings don't matter.

If the national team is playing the reactions are stronger. They get strongest when the team plays neighbouring rivals: Nigeria-Ghana; Guinea-Senegal. People will take to the streets to celebrate the wins. But they will find reason to celebrate losses too. I remember during the last championship when Guinea had been eliminated. Many people had expected qualification and planned parties. Within hours of losing the key game, rumours circulated that the team had qualified on a technicality. The people went wild and even though within a short time the news came that no such change had happened, they partied like crazy anyway.

The African Nations Cup has taken on more importance in recent years because it has now become a showcase for the continent's talent. I came across it foot-to-foot when I played in Malawi during a tour; then in my late twenties players were shocked that I had not retired. They saw the pace and trickery of their style of play as too much for someone over 25. The high quality and special style of African players had been long known and exploited in some western European countries (France and Belgium, especially), which had used colonial contacts to make a good link with this "talent factory". With African teams qualifying for recent World Cups and doing very well the world's eyes were opened wide. National teams now get invitations to play friendlies with the major international soccer powers like Brazil, Germany, Argentina, England and Italy. Many players have taken up offers to play in the English Premier League where they are more than just household names but a strong part of the backbone of many teams (Chelsea being perhaps the best example). Now their need to leave to play in their continental tournament each two years puts their clubs under pressure.

The path had been laid by amazing players such as Liberia's George Weah (whose talents found their way to AC Milan, where he scored an all-time great goal by running almost the length of the field and beating almost every player to score--watch the video). Cameroon's amazing performance in 1982 in qualifying for the World Cup, and how they thrilled in Spain, laid another platform. Cameroon showed that they were no "one hit wonder" when they qualified for the 1990 World Cup, where they beat holders Argentina and then Romania before qualifying for the next round as the only team to ever do so with negative goal difference. In that round they nearly beat England, and had playing their veteran player and inspirational "lion", Roger Milla, who was 40 but played like a teenager. The world now knows Drogba and Eto'o, Adeybayor and Jay Jay Okocha thanks to the long uneven road travelled by their precedessors, who had to endure limited opportunities given by FIFA for them to shine on the biggest world stage.

African players can now earn unbelievable salaries and are commonly seen as superstars. Those who rise to those heights have left behind many who now hope to rise from abject poverty to see the glitz and bling of England, France, Spain and Italy. Some have ensured that their riches go back to not just families but to wider communities. Some have used their popularity to venture into politics, as did George Weah, who ran in the last Liberian presidential elections. African footballers can teach the world a lot. The stars come from an enormous well of local talent that often plays in disorganized leagues and in playing conditions that we would think laughable, but it produces talent. Many countries have used foreign coaches for their national teams, but many have also developed good organizations at the national level to sustain the move upwards (such as Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali). This is a sign of the maturity of these countries, who are leaving less to chance and talent alone. Their success has also allowed the world to see that amongst these players are many intelligent, articulate men, who do much to change the image of Africa. It also helps remind people that the continent is like a player or like a team. It has a good head (say the northern nations Morocco and Egypt). It has a strong midfield (say the two Congos). It has good right wingers (Eritrea, Sudan). It plays skillfully on the left (say Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria). It has good feet (say Zimbabwe and South Africa).

Unfortunately for me I wont be able to watch any of the games unless I find myself in Europe. I will follow the fortunes of Guinea and hope that they at least go to the next round. Our nanny got back from there yesterday and her face was beaming that the team was doing well and that the population had forgotten about striking for pay but focused on striking for goal. It's not a bad way to build hope.

Masters of the Universe

For several years, the Wanderers Football Club has hosted a Barbados International Masters Football Festival, now in its 11th year; to be eligible players should be over 40 years old. I came to Barbados in 2003 to play in these matches, never suspecting that I would be living here a few years later. I vividly remember the pain of having to get back into training and the shock to my system of having to play competitive football again in my late 40s. I decided after that tournament, and the birth of another daughter later that year, that enough was enough. So, I stayed away from most of the activities this year, feeling that now that I am over 50 I can hang up my boots for good, even though I love the game of football. So, this year, I got to sample the finals afternoon on Whit Monday, without any twinges or scratches or blisters or hangover.

It's a good piece of sports tourism for Barbados, with an estimated 300 visitors this year; local sponsors get good exposure from associating with it. As usual, a spirited crowd (full of Bajan distilled spirits, true) was doing its best to help the sponsors, players and officials. They got to take out their frustration on the officials, though showed some restraint when one of the refereeing teams was made up of all women. Some of the fans had also been in full training for the event and hoped to be able to continue their preparation for some time.

Teams had travelled a good distance, as usual, to participate, and the international representation came from Canada, the US, England, and Trinidad, for example; it was good that one of the finals was between a team from Toronto and New York.Teams came with their faithful followers, including a set of "WAGS" (wives and girlfriends, for those who did not follow the last World Cup) from Netherall, Cumbria, in England.

The final was between two local rivals, Black Rock and Benfica, which ended in a narrow win for Benfica, 1-0.
It was great to see some of the local stars, now in their later years, and if you don't know "Cracker" and "Coolness", then you'd better buy a ticket and come to Barbados to watch some of the regular season Masters football here.

Sure, we were there for the football, but it was also a good lime and the blog can't do justice to all the sense and nonsense that goes on around the games. And it's a lime which builds on friendships on the island, and stretches over the continents.Don't be fooled, though: there are some hot local rivalries, and any chance to take a cheap dig at an opponent or official is not wasted, especially from the side line after a few Banks have been drunk. But, it's also good to see that the event has a family flavour, especially with a lot of children present. People tend not to misbehave off the field, though on field, some players forget that they are 40 not 14. But the veterans get their love of the game early, and they try pass that passion on to their children.

I played football for 40 years, and also refereed and coached, so I love opportunities to be involved in the sport. I've passed my passion on. One of my older daughters also played football in the US, and also referees and coaches young girls there; she enjoyed sampling this little piece of Barbados during her short visit while on summer break from university. I may take a dip back into the football water in Barbados, though not as a player; perhaps as a referee or coach.