Village Girls vs. City Men

I woke up on Saturday morning and saw a message from my colleague, Raunak, informing me about a French Embassy hosted charity football tournament taking place at The British School in central Delhi. Since I knew that we didn’t have a team registered I wasn’t that interested in heading down there to just watch other past their prime people play football. Then he told me that the young girls from the YUWA India program would be there and playing in the men’s division and I knew that it was something I couldn’t miss.


I’m so happy I took the trip down to the tournament. It was a perfect afternoon full of fun, food, football and the future. I ran into a number of friends down at the grounds and was simply amazed by how many people in Delhi are enjoying their weekends on the football pitch contributing to various charities while representing corporates and NGOs. The US Embassy even had a team and I realized that somehow or another I’m really missing out on a whole other side of Delhi living.

My jealousy and insecurity lasted for a bit, but quickly vanished as soon as I heard the YUWA girls were playing on pitch #3. I went over to the pitch to see an incredible site. These 10-12 year old skinny village girls were playing against 30-35 year old well-built city men…and both sides were playing hard. I was mesmerized by the fact that the only people who didn’t think it was crazy that these girls were up against monsters were the girls on the field.

It was quite a humbling day for me. I feel small compared to people like YUWA India founder, Franz Gastler, who has committed his entire life to live in the village to train and educate these young girls. I also feel small compared to the YUWA girls who didn’t complain about lack of nutrition, lack of proper infrastructure, 3rd class travel from Jharkhand to Delhi or the fact that all 20 of them were staying together in a 1 bedroom Delhi apartment; they just saw a pitch, goals and a ball and got out there played hard. Very hard and with a sense of passion you don’t see in most professionals footballers these days.

Its days like this when my choice to spend the rest of my life working in football development is validated, yet I’m reminded that I can be doing so much more to make a difference. These reminders are nice every once in awhile.







Comments

  1. JamFebruary 22, 2012 at 8:54 AM

    Thank you for sharing this-what a beautiful example of passion and purpose.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 Cities, 3 Football Academies

Image
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to visit a few of the top youth football Academies in India.  It’s always interesting to see first-hand some of the blood, sweat and tears football administrators are investing into the future of the sport in the country.  Not to mention, I love experiencing different cultures, norms and idiosyncrasies in each place I visit (there are many).  I won't get too deep into my personal adventures and challenges of traveling through West Bengal and Punjab in the insanely hot month of May.  I'll need to save those for another blog.   I've included the places I’ve visited with some pictures. Pailan World School (Kolkata) http://www.pailanworldschool.com/ Workers putting in artificial turf for the new FIFA Youth Academy Chandigarh Football Academy http://chandigarh.gov.in/dept_sports7.htm The hostel where the CFA players live YFC Rurka Kalan (Rurka Kalan, Punjab...
Read more

Liverpool International Football Academy Coaches – Ray Curtis and Michael Rice

Image
The last half of 2013 was one ongoing conversation about the proposed partnership between Liverpool Football Club and our client DSK Group.  We all knew that only good could come out of this relationship, however we also knew that the level of good would be contingent on the coaches which Liverpool FC selected to represent the Academy in India.  This point couldn’t be hammered home any harder as I’ve seen countless projects fail in India due to the international club’s inability to identify the right type of coaches to make the trip to India. It’s not that these coaches lacked technical expertise or coaching ability, actually that’s never the case, it’s that they lacked a positive attitude and patience.  I actually wrote a post about this which can be found a few months back.  The coaches selected to run the Liverpool International Football Academy DSK Shivajians, Ray and Michael, were handpicked by a trusted member of the Liverpool FC international programming...
Read more

Barcelona

Image
A few months ago my client at Conscient Football and I were discussing options for an "Exposure Trip" we were planning for a group of Delhi based youth footballers.  The obvious locations came up; Manchester, London, Milan, Madrid, Munich, etc... But then Barcelona was mentioned and it was obvious that the meeting was over right then and there. There were no other options.  Barcelona is located in the country that just won the most recent FIFA World Cup, is home to the best football club in the world and home to the best football player in the world.  Why would we take the players anywhere else??? So fast forward to May 12th.  I'm at Indira Gandhi airport in Delhi with 3 other staff members meeting with 27 sets of parents and assuring them that their little princes will be fine.  I'm holding passports, collecting forms, smiling widely, shaking hands and doing my best to exude confidence and responsibility.  Somehow we get the 27 players thr...
Read more