'Football is available to anyone who can make a rag ball and find another pair of feet to pass to.'
- David Goldblatt
Football in Africa is a necessity. It is sacred. But it is not represented by the shining lights and the fresh green grass in the splendid stadiums in South Africa. To the contrary: it are the schoolboys and their rag balls that are the symbols of what football really means.
I myself am only slightly interested in this game of running after a ball and then kicking it away again, and I am not at all interested when people tell me that “football is war”. But when I came across a photo series of Jessica Hilltout I thought maybe I should pay a little attention to it. But in an other way than by watching the World Cup.
Take a look at the following pictures:
It is not the World Cup that can convert me to football, it are the boys and girls on the streets; running, sweating, laughing, falling, yelling and sometimes fighting. In Africa as well as in Belgium or any other country in the world.
I love this post and the pictures you present! Definately football, as other sports like running in Kenya, unite people. Football becomes also a distraction from your own reality, healthy enterntainment.
Thank you Hanna!
That is why football is so powerful, the kids in those photos can essentially play the same game as what we watch in the stadiums of South Africa.
Football is one of the main things that people around the world have in common.
I wonder how people who care about development issues can exploit this?
This is like kids in Invictus movie from director Clint Eastwood.
@Hanna: Nice and crisp post. Great pictures indeed.
@Ian: Have a look at how malaria is being tackled with football: http://unitedagainstmalaria.org/
These are really great pics Hanna, thanks for sharing!
@Ian & Bart: Homelessness can be tackled with football too. And there’s even a worldcup!
http://www.homelessworldcup.org/
http://www.devex.com/articles/tackling-homelessness-with-a-soccer-ball
Wow! That’s a big contrast with the World Cup, but far more poignant. This is what football is all about, not high powered, over-paid ‘professionals’ who make headlines for boozing and philandering rather than football.
Thanks for highlighting it.
yes Hanna,
Very good thoughts. I totally agree with you. What a meaningful post. It’s a big contrast to the grandness of the World Cup.
Let me just add that you hit it right with the first paragraph Hanna. “It is sacred. But it is not represented by the shining lights and the fresh green grass in the splendid stadiums in South Africa.”
Thanks!
It’s just so important that all children can play their own World Cup, no matter how poor they are.
I understand that there is a huge contrast, but would it not apply to many other regions of the world? I saw kids from minorities in Budapest struggling to fight their way through live full of prejudice and self-victimizing culture of their parents, together with the actual lack of resources. I know, it might be not as drastic as in Africa, still so much work has to be done all across the globe!:/
Of course it an be applied to many other regions in the world! It’s just very clear now in Africa because of the World Cup. But you are totally right, Sylwia!