World AIDS Day Kick-Off!

Although the idea was mine, I initially had some reservations about holding a football tournament for the village. Tall tales from the foreboding I had warned of a quick descent into village-wide rioting following a botched tournament in Tanzania organized by a group of well-meaning English girls. Plus whenever I had played at or watched the games at the village pitch, it seemed every goal was debated furiously because there’s no net. The combustible nature and competitive spirit of a Ghanaian, especially when village pride is at stake, puts even my Dad playing charades at Christmas to shame. In an insular little place like this, perceived wrongs on the football field can fester like sores till a blow-up is inevitable. But, it’d be a laugh so why not?

The organization didn’t begin well. If I ever work for the UN Security Council, I doubt I’ll see a more tensely debated meeting. All the rules I had presented were scrutinized by eyes labouring under furrowed brows. As with everything here, a bargaining process then began. For instance, I wanted the games 7-a-side, as this would mean more goals, less penalty shoot-outs and more results within the 15 minutes each way time allowance. The captains couldn’t understand this at all. We compromised on 9-a-side. Other issues clearly harked back to previous fighting between the groups, in particular that of finding an unbiased referee. This led to several shouted comments across the room in the kind of local language we haven’t been learning in our textbooks. It seems one of the teams, the Old Boy (OB) Stars, had been the Juve of the village buying favours and influencing people in the past. ‘Course, they hotly defended themselves and it was only my intervention to say that if we did not find a suitable outsider to ref, then I would, that curtailed a pre-match barney. Blimey, I thought, what have I got myself into here? Not even a ball kicked in anger and already recriminations, verbal assaults and the Humjibran equivalent of pizza being thrown between the managers. Next issue was over the prize. On the basis of assurances from the boss Clement, we confidently announced that a ‘brand-new leather ball’ would be given to the winners of the tournament. However, when we looked in the storeroom, all the balls we had were either slightly used, not leather or had a puncture. The problem stems from the fact that many of our balls had been confiscated by the police as ‘evidence’ following an incident when one of the villagers had copied our keys and had been squirreling our goods on the sly. We called the cops but the boss hogg, who “is the only one that can handle the balls” had gone traveling, so we were left with a slightly scruffy-looking red Patrick ball as the prize.

Anyway, the day rolled around and I donned my whistle, stopwatch and cards and went out to do battle, I mean referee. Among the teams represented were my boys, the Terror Squad, Parliament, Footwear, Old Boy (O.B.) Stars and a GHEI All Stars team that my fellow teacher - and complete donut - Thomas organised. In fact, all the ‘stars’ of GHEI weren’t from GHEI at all, Thomas had paid handsomely for a set of ‘ringers’ (people not from the village) and students from the local school on the basis that the kids we teach are too scrawny to play. Mind you, after a quick look at the other teams I could see his point. Anyway, in the clearing Harmattan fog, I blew the whistle to begin the tournament on a dusty stretch of ground laughingly referred to as the football field. As the sun burnt off the mist, I officiated over the sad exit of the Terrorists at the hands of GHEI All Stars (which they complained bitterly about), Parliament at the hands of Footwear (which they complained bitterly about), Ampomah at the hands of Gye Nyame (which they complained bitterly about) and so on. You might detect a certain pattern here. It seems Humjibrans know how to kick out the jamms when they win but when things don’t go their way they don’t half spit out their dummy. Pretty much every team that won that day came to hug and congratulate me on my good refereeing and similarly every team that lost shouted abuse and claimed a fix. I guess it’s no different on any park anywhere in the world but then again it’s not everywhere that machete are so readily to hand.

A pretty big crowd soon gathered and then the DJ with his 12 foot stack of speakers appeared. Over a booming bassline, some guy gave over-excited commentary on the matches. The Terror Squad had reacted badly to losing but showed it in a cool way by jogging round the pitch with their flag knocking on their metal percussion instruments. All good clean fun. Anyway the games rolled by at a frenetic pace until the final which was due to kick off at high noon. The teams that made it through were OB Stars, the favourites, village first 11 and instigators of mass pitch invasions to celebrate every goal; and the GHEI All Stars, which meant more people claiming it was a fix. I just hoped OB would do me a favour and win comfortably so as to avoid me hanging from the nearest pine tree. Perhaps I needn’t have worried though, since there had been whisperings that OB had roped in a player from outside the village with knowledge of a certain kind of ‘African medicine’. The level of belief in witchcraft or juju, as its known here, warrants a separate entry, but let’s just say sides in the highest national league have confessed to using it. Just look at the size of the brute though, he’s the giant standing to the right of the picture, superhuman powers or not its enough to put the creepers on you.

The game kicked off and OB quickly took control. The expected pitch invasion came as they scored the opening goal. However, the game started to turn as GHEI started to move the ball around quickly enough to keep out of the way of the bigger OB players. Surprisingly though, the fouls were coming from GHEI, and in particular my fellow teacher Thomas. I gave him a yellow and ticking off. It was quite pleasurable because he’s quite annoying, but then I give him the same kind of hassle at work and he gave me the same kind of reaction. He pleaded forgiveness and then went on doing the same things anyway. It was at this point that GHEI made a break, I was up with the game and clearly saw the big OB defender handle the ball in the area. I blew the whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. Pandemonium. The pitch became a melee. Players squared up to each other; kids kicked up the dust enjoying the anarchy; the headmaster of the primary school screamed something intelligible, and it looked as if every spectator took the opportunity to wander on to the pitch. I remember taking 5 seconds to just watch it all while an OB player shouted at me. Then I started blowing my whistle. That didn’t do too much good so I decided to sod the dignified approach and literally went round kicking people up the arse till they got off the pitch. After about 6-7 minutes, calm was restored and a GHEI player stepped up and scored the pen.

The game rumbled on into the second half and tempers were becoming increasingly frayed under the midday sun. Mine included. After several warnings, I grabbed Thomas and told him that if he so much as looked at an OB player in the wrong way I’d send him off. So seconds later he goes and kicks someone as they take the ball past him. Hugely pissed off that a colleague could be such a prat, I ran over showed him the red card then shoved him over and told him what I thought of him. I have to admit to enjoying this piece of gung-ho refereeing and might try it in the office more. Anyway the OB started turning the screw but the crowd seemed to backing the underdog GHEI and they almost scored twice from breakaways. Then OB scored what used to be called a ‘wimbledon goal’. Nothing to do with lawn tennis but all to do with the tactics of a team that grabbed groins, never scored outside the 6 yard box and are thankfully no longer in existence. Maybe it was the memory of that FA Cup Final goal in 1988 but before I knew what I was doing I had blown for a pretty minor foul on the goalie. Giving a penalty is one thing but disallowing a goal, well refs have been stoned by baying crowds for less. It took Mr Pano to defend me from one of the OB ‘stars’ as, metal bowl full of bread balancing on his head all the while, the team tried to make me do a D’Urso, as the scummy mancs would have it. One thing you’ve gotta do, even if it’s a crap decision, is stick to your guns. However, the OB players were starting to slink off the pitch saying it was a fix when I ordered the kick to be taken. There’s something about a player running towards your goal with the ball that makes anyone wake up and realise the ref’s serious. Anyway OB started playing and saved my bacon when minutes later they scored. 2 token minutes later I blew the whistle and even got hugged by the celebrating OB team. Funnily enough though, everybody else seemed a bit gutted as their whinging hadn’t exactly covered them in glory.

Never mind, it was over and time to start the procession down to the Community Centre for the World AIDS Day celebrations.