It's a Goooaaaalllll!

I have alluded several times to my distaste of the game. I know the rudiments, don't be fooled. I know when a team has scored, when a person is offside and why a penalty is awarded. It does not mean however that I like the game. I don't! I detest the fact that 20 adult men can be chasing after one leather ball! For what reason and to what end? But almost all things that involve needless physical activity rile me up like that. Football however, is in a class of its own. I have had very many bad encounters and so I stay well away from it. 

That is, I try, until someone mentions that it's Nigeria playing....and then I lose my detachment. Only because I am passionate about all things Nigerian. This is why I am very upset when people go on about the team they support. Why can't people see that if they plough the energy they put in supporting Chelsea, Man U and such like into the Nigerian teams, those teams will not seem so glamorous? But its the way the cookie crumbles and so I stay well away,that is, until Nigeria is playing. And then I lose my cool.....

My heart can not withstand the stress, so I usually devise a method of 'watching' the match by staying abreast on Twitter and leaving the television on very loud so I hear when there's that signature shout of a goal. 

Which leads me to ask 'what was that those boys did the other day'? While I am thankful that they did not win (ask me why), I did not want them giving any other team a free ride. The reason I did not want them to win is, being a learned supporter of the Nigerian teams over the years, I have seen them time and again, win their first match in a competition of this sort and go to pieces. Whereas whenever they have started from a deficiency, they have managed to be inspired to greatness, so I am hopeful this is one of such times. I still remember with nostalgia, the great moments of football in the past all of which were the stories of Goliath and Nigeria as David and how it ended well.

Which reminds me of one of the reasons I stay well away from football. My mind is drawn back to one of my most embarrassing moments back in secondary school. Being very apathetic about physical activity, I managed to get through sports in school by being involved in only the non-competitive non-exerting sport of clapping. If there should have been a Chairperson of our Supporters' club, I would have been unanimously elected it. Do not get me wrong, I participated in the stretching, practice runs and trials but always got left behind. Why would I spend my days getting embarrassed by jumping all over the place only to get my *ss whopped and handed to me in a sling? Not interested! So I usually went to games with a good book, curled up as much as I could and mentally created a shield that made me invisible to all but the most determined of sports teachers.

Until this one day......

We were in the sixth form, preparing for our finals and in that period in secondary school where the school knows you are there & would just like to be rid of you as soon as possible without actually expelling your behinds and the students walk huge circles around you in a bid to ensure your frustrations at all those highfalutin words you use is not taken out on them. The students needed to find entertainment and so they suggested a novelty match, yes! That should do it, get everybody in some sunshine and make them run around for a bit but make it comical. Which is why I made the team in the first place. Anyone with their head screwed on right would NEVER have thought to include me in any 'team'. 

My embarrassment at making the team was not enough, I was about to suffer shame, the type unknown to man. Our opponents? First form boys. What?! 'Why boys?' I wailed. Forgetting the fact that they were about a third of our heights and sizes even back then. All I saw were boys against girls and in my mind, the balance tipped in their favour already. All eyes were on me as I am sure not many people had ever seen me break a sweat on the field in my time in the school. Add to this, the fact that I was labour prefect, not for meanness, but for getting things done.

Anyway, we reach a compromise, the boys get to tie one hand behind their backs and engage us in a match of football. Us being sixth form girls. Match began and from the first dribble, I just knew a disaster was in the offing. I did not know why but I knew me and physical exertion like that could never end well. Anyway, to cut this winding story short, we could have won, but we didn't and it was all my fault. But as Yoruba people would say, I was, 'guilty with reason'.

No one introduced me to members of my team prior to the match. When in a run, everybody looks like the same size and shape, my visual acuity reduces with physical exertion! 

No one told me what rules we were supposed to be bound by, even FIFA tells you what's what!

No one told me that only one side of the pitch belongs to my team, such that when the opportunity presented itself and I had the ball next to the goal post, the only thing I remembered was the shout of 'GOOOOAAAALLLLL' and so I scored!

Alas, it was my own goal post and I should have been the last line of defence, but had dribbled my goal keeper to make our defeat happen.

Who knew I had it in me? 

And of course, I took off in a celebratory run, thinking I had done the near impossible until I noticed that almost all those on the sidelines were half bent over in laughter.

I recently shared this experience with my daughter and she laughed till she cried and brought back the memories for me and of course I knew I had to share! 

Will you stop laughing?!