We only had one session planned, but it was our longest one so far at 1 hour and a half for the session, and it was scheduled to be down at the Waterfront, where they had 2 AstroTurf pitches that we were using.
After Lourens met us at Berghof, we jumped in the car and followed him to a little car park, which hidden behind we found the 2 AstroTurf pitches next to a small clubhouse type building. After getting out the car we met a guy called Aaron, who started telling us about his company called African Passion (AP). Which essentially uses football and sport as a way of motivating kids to do well at school. He was telling us that he gets reports sent to him saying whether the kids are attending their classes and passing them. If they are doing both then they are invited to play with AP, which Martin and I thought was a great idea.
While having a look around, all the players got changed into their various coloured kits, all supplied by Aaron and AP, Martin and I started to notice something about the players.
Half of them had no shoes whatsoever.
The few that did, were absolutely battered.
I thought to myself, surely they're not going to play seriously in barefoot, when others are wearing metal studs?! Sure enough, they did. One of the kids with studs accidentally stepped on my foot and that hurt like mad, and I was wearing boots, so I'd hate to experience that completely barefoot. It's amazing how passionate these kids are to play.
We had a quick introduction with the kids, where we explained who we were and what we were doing, then we split the group up so I took 4 teams of 5, and Martin took the other 3 teams.
We started off with possession and passing exercises, where the teams had to keep possession from their opposition for as long as they could. After that we got straight into a mini tournament, where each team played each other, before the winners from my pitch played the winners from Martins pitch, on my pitch, and Martin hosted the runners up game.
After that Aaron came up to us and gave as a third of a Gatsby (assuming that's how it's spelt) which is a traditional South African sandwich that was filled with chips, meat and lettuce, along with what tasted like Nandos sauce. It was absolutely delicious. Although a third of a Gatsby was stupidly big for a sandwich so I'm intrigued to see what a whole one would look like.
After that we headed home to round off your week. We were meant to have a day off tomorrow, but Joe invited us to watch his son's football match, which we're keen to do, then afterwards we've been invited to see our Bothasig kids play in a local tournament, which will be nice to see. It's also Joes birthday tomorrow, so happy birthday for tomorrow, Joe!!
Harry
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you have any comments/feedback, leave it here! You can do it anonymously if you want to, but we'd prefer to know who's commenting so we can get back to you!