Once upon a time in Varsity

After recently looking at my statistics, I was ashamed to find that I have only posted 6 times on this blog this year. Very pitiful numbers indeed, now before I present several carefully thought out reasons *excuses actually* for this worrisome state of affairs I thought it would be a great moment to be honest and just say that I’ve just been too lazy to sit myself down and write down all the weird stuff that floats around in my head.

This particular blog is a collection of soccer related escapades that took place in Varsity. Very few people knew my name in Varsity; usually I was referred to as Alex’s cousin. Yaa’ll remember Alex from Once upon a time in Otshipanda (click here to read), my very popular and unmistakable cousin, he’s a yellow type so you can’t really miss him even if you were so drunk that you can’t tell left from right *it’s a mean thing to say, but I couldn’t help it*. On several occasions people expressed rather stupefying comments, such as “The two of you are always together, are you like brothers or what?” or “You follow Alex around so much, is he like your role model or something?”. Such blond and inconsiderate remarks if you ask me is the reason I didn’t talk that much to people, such things I expect from high school kids, not varsity students.

Anyway let’s get to the good part shall we, after a first year spent pursuing a dream of becoming an engineer was ruined by chemistry 1B and several other factors I won’t mention, such as lack of sleep, lack of thinking on my part coz I just followed my mates from high school...uhmm.. I am mentioning aren’t I? Sorry for that. That year Alex and I decided to sign up for a soccer team (yes I know we look like a bunch of chess nerds, but we can play). I believe it’s still known as Deportivo La Unam, that season they signed up almost 70 players (yes, it’s possible for a team to do that but only in Varsity). I will not waste time by describing in detail the shambles that went on that year, I mean we really did not have a coach, the captain picked the team and usually selected his friends to start, our defence was marshalled by a white boy..uhmm.. I went into detail didn’t I? Sorry guys, my sincere apologies. We left Deportivo at the end of the year and decided to start our own team the next season (Alex appointed himself as Coach to emulate Alex Ferguson of Manchester United, with varying results though).

Civillians FC was born as a noble concept to give talented players a fair chance to play soccer, that is why we mostly on signed up Kwambi’s (Namibian tribe that does not mince words) and Kids that went to Dobra (catholic high school), it’s not like we discriminated it’s just that Kwanyama’s (The most sarcastic Namibian tribe) never take anything seriously and kids that went to school in Windhoek (Capital of Namibia) treat sports like a popularity contest. This is where the fun starts, we had everything we needed, and we had a colourful kit with a rainbow of bright colours to distract the opposition, a talented midfield, a defence that made mince meat of the league’s best strikers and a squad of cheerleaders clad in lingerie *I’m sure by now you noticed the part about the cheerleaders is not real and is purely my imagination running wild again*.

 

Unfortunately we did not have the foresight to sign a goalkeeper; it turns out that you just can’t take any skinny kid and stick them in goal like Manchester United have done with David De Gea *if you’re a girl and you don’t get this joke, it’s okay*. So Alex picks up the goalkeeper jersey and a pair of gloves and shove’s them in my face, I look at him like an insulted Damara (the most violent Namibian tribe) or better yet a pissed off Mexican, I was like “Hey Ese! The f**k you giving me that s**t for!” (Okay maybe I’m exaggerating again, but you get the point, I was not happy), but it’s a job someone had to do and since I had the quickest reflexes and I was the craziest in the bunch, I took one for the team (literally, because I got banged up a few times).

For those who think being a goalie is easy, you should know that it’s not, you actually must be able to catch something *Cue David De Gea* and actually must be prepared to smash into whoever is stupid enough to try and score against you, and you must know that once or twice you will be clattered into, kicked and break a finger or something along that very painful line. I remember that I dropped a few balls in our fist few games, in my defence I was still adjusting, I can’t see my own hands at night, my gloves had less grip then a hand fumbling around to unhook a girl’s bra and these new soccer balls are so lightweight that they move in the air like fake Brazilian hair. But after that I was a quite decent stopper, my memory recalls a game that we lost 2 – 0 to Barclays FC (yep, only Namibian’s can name a club after a British bank), most people who saw that game will testify that we should have lost by 12 – 0 if I had not kept the opposition at bay single handed with my incredible reflexes.

Not content with stirring up controversy and manhandling match officials, but you can’t blame us for getting upset if an idiot referees like Howard Webb at a Man United game (Ladies if you don’t get that joke, just understand that it’s time to learn some soccer facts). We were implicated in a controversial scandal (I must state that allegations to follow were never proved), we were alleged to have forged signatures on transfer forms for two of the most talented players in the league, and I believe some teams were jealous that we got those two players to sign for us *starts playing “Jealous dowwwn!, jealous!, jealous dowwwn (singing)*. Anyways the league could not prove the allegations; they just fined us instead N$100.00 per player and suspended our players for two games (and I repeat, the league could not prove the allegations, just because they gave us a fine does not mean we did something wrong). Despite the massive hating that the other teams did (we had more haters than that girl Linda who won all those NAMA awards), we managed to finish in fifth position on the log (the league had 15 teams that year). We also won awards for being the best new team in the league, the most disciplined (I think they were oblivious to the fact that we roughed up referees) and the most well administered club. We had fun and we did our own thing on our own terms.

Away from the soccer field came the interesting existence that is hostel life, for those of you who have never been to a hostel of any kind, I can tell you that it’s rough, it’s like going to military boot camp (and there I go over exaggerating again). But the one thing that I loved were the friends that I made, people who you form a lifelong bond with. We were known as “Die Oompies”, don’t ask me why because I didn’t come up with the name, if they had given that task to me I would have come up with something way better. Peter was and is still the pessimistic one, Simon was and forever will be the man with the latest gadgets and then there was Imms, who was and still will be a charismatic, enigmatic character with a liking for a good party. But that in itself is a story for another time.

Note: NAMA is short for Namibia Amateur Music Awards or something like that (i hope no musicians catch feelings over this one)

LiveJournal Tags: Soccer is not is not the most important thing,it's much more than that - Bill Shankly.