More Than Just a Game Page #2

Move, move, move!

It was the same routine every day.

''Kom, kom, kom.''

Grab cIothes and shoes and out.

The probIem was you had to grab any two

shoes, whether they were the same feet

or differen sizes, whaever.

l'm a size 10.

-Wha is his?

-Dize 10. Easy, man.

You know wha, l've go wo lef fee here.

Come on, man, you're he clever one here,

how abou you organise me a righ foo?

l hink Blues has go hree 7 s over here.

Wha's wrong wih Blues? He's he only one

l know ha has hree shoes for wo fee.

Hey, gens, l'm going o find a 10.

Hey, seriously, and no a 7-10, a 10-10.

Line, sop!

No matter how hard they tried

to crush our spirit,

we were prepared to survive.

We were prepared and determined

to execute our StruggIe.

Line, move!

Hey, Tony, his could be a 10.

l'm sure if you asked Gelpor nicely,

maybe he...

Negotiating, you know,

came out of necessity.

You had o negoiae in order o make

sense of life on Robben lsland.

Come on, move. Why is his aking so long?

Pu some speed ino hose legs!

The bigges misake he auhoriies made

was o pu us all ogeher in ha

slae quarry in prison.

If they intended to break us in that way,

they achieved quite the opposite

because different peopIe with different ideas

cross-poIIinated ideas and thinkings.

And when I Iook back at it,

peopIe became much more stronger

in their convictions and persuasions

than they wouId otherwise have been.

Dep forward hose men who

have a driver's licence.

Come now, men!

Lovely, lovely, come here.

There are your cars...your speed machines.

And now?

You've go licences, don' you?

You're qualified.

Grive!

I remember one of the warders, he said,

here in he quarry

we are going o be worked o deah.

We are going o be desroyed.

He had a slogan for he quarry,

he said, ''Daar maak jy groot kIippe kIein

en kIein kIippe fyn''.

''There you wiII make big stones smaII

and smaII stones tiny. ''

l was very hard in he quarry,

breaking he slae, you know.

When we remember the quarry,

we see it as a pIace that unified us

as prisoners

and it aIso contributed in

unifying us as sportsmen.

Robben IsIand is remembered as

some kind of university.

And he sone quarry, we remember i

as a main audiorium of ha universiy.

It was a decision we made that there

we are not going to aIIow

our vision of ourseIves to be bIurred

by the vision the Prison Department

and the authorities had of us.

And ha made us demand, no concessions,

bu privileges in erms of heir own,

very own regulaions.

Mass murder everybody.

We could no jus spend

one idle momen behind he cells

so we ended up organising games.

Which we played ou of he sigh of warders.

Chess and cards,

which we made out of cardboards,

or draughts, which was made out of

pieces of soap or even wood.

And of course there was Iudo.

We'd draw the Iudo board on a bIanket

with a piece of soap,

which was jus as well.

Wha is his noise?

Go you hink his is a holiday resor?

Ge up, ge up, wha have you go here?

Wha do you have? Dhow me! Where is i?

Why are you geing up?

Wha is his?

Why is here a chess board here?

No more games!

Le his be a lesson.

No more games!

And keep quie!

And we enjoyed those games,

but this was not enough.

We needed somehing more physical.

Hey! Dhu up!

And suddenly, soccer was a passion.

It was aII we couId think about.

It was aII we wanted to do.

We made soccer baIIs with anything.

Pieces of rag, paper, anything.

For us youngsters, it became a crusade.

Now we would organise our guys

o go in delegaions,

we would go o he senior warder.

We requested our request for soccer

to be considered seriousIy.

And?

We reques he righ o play fooball

on weekends.

Dpor is no a righ.

l's a privilege.

Ou.

We reques he righ o play fooball

on weekends.

No!

Geclined.

-We reques he righ o play fooball...

-...fooball on weekends.

Nee.

-We reques...

-...he righ o play fooball...

-...on weekends.

-Nee.

-We reques...

-Nee.

-The righ o play fooball...

-Nee.

...play fooball on weekends.

Uit!

We reques he righs o beer food.

-En?

-And we reques he righ

o play fooball on weekends.

No.

No. Ou. Ge ou.

We reques he righ o play...

Yes, yes, yes he righ o play fooball...

On weekends.

When he hell else would you play fooball?

Go you hink his a damned social club?

Of course on bloody weekends!

Ou.

Ge ou.

Nex.

-Naidoo, is somebody sill waiing ouside?

-No.

l says here one ime soccer ball

o be bough wih...

Wha's his word here, Naidoo?

Funds, sir, o be bough wih funds.

l'm alking o Naidoo.

When l'm alking o you,

hen you can answer.

Bough wih funds donaed

by he following players.

For a bunch of communiss,

you boys are quie flush wih cash, hey?

Tha 20c a monh you pay us

for breaking rocks can add up.

Naidoo, are you being funny?

Go you wan o make jokes?

Hey? Go you wan o...

come hen, make jokes...

Le's see if you're sill so funny once l've

chucked your ass ino soliary confinemen

for hree monhs.

The chaps simply wan a ball.

A proper ki, as soon as he guys

can organise he funds.

Moseneke, if he CO les you play,

and he's no going o le you play...

You boys are going o break -

you will suffer. You are oo weak.

You people are lile

piccanin scarecrows already.

Thank you, sir.

Boss!

lf you coninue o ask me

for his bloody supid hing,

you bloody learn o call me ''Baas.''

-Undersand?

-Yes.

Now ge ou.

Well, we had o show ha our approach was

indeed a very, very serious one.

Once we go going i also

gave rise o wha l would call a unied fron

ha cu across pary poliical lines

and across all age groups.

It was that united front

that the authorities couId not ignore.

And it was a reaIIy very powerfuI

instrument for us to get things going.

Go you hear wha hey are asking, Fourie?

Go you even read hese hings?

These guys are obsessed wih heir soccer.

Like lile kids.

Bu does Capain hink...?

They are dying in he quarry. How long do

you hink hey'll las?

Come on, Fourie,

we are no unreasonable men.

Give hem heir damned soccer.

They're asking so nicely!

We will invie he Red Cross o come

and observe he whole hing.

Afer all hey like soccer in Dwizerland,

don' hey Fourie?

l couldn' say Capain.

Well l know hey like chocolaes.

Do we'll give he geezer from Geneva a

few chocolaes, and a soccer mach.

Bu find a few guys who look a lile

muscular, okay? Healhy.

And speaking of healhy...

...his plan looks a lile ragic,

no so Fourie?

Yes Capain.

Bu can l ask Capain wha...

Fourie...

ln wo weeks...

...hree...

hey'll be exhaused...

...and his whole hing will be forgoen.

And insis ha we keep conrol of i.

We are giving i o hem, undersand?

They're no aking i from us...

ha's how i works.

Do Capain's answer is...?

Yes Fourie...

...my answer is yes.

Le hem build heir field and le hem play.

It was amazing.

In 1967, four years after arriving

on Robben IsIand,

we began to pIay soccer

on a smaII, makeshift fieId,

just outside our communaI ceIIs.

Everybody waned o play fooball.

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