More Than Just a Game Page #7

Warder Malan,

give us a ''lile booser'' please man.

Hey, very nice.

Now go, please.

Careful, prisoner.

Jus now l'll oss his ''booser''

ino he ground, under my shoes...

and you...

l'll have you for calling me man

and no boss, hey.

And hen we will see who is ''going''

and who's no!

-l heard ha old guy in C2...

-Mpofu?

Mpofu, yeah.

He's go high blood pressure

because of his whole proes.

Everyone ges high blood pressure and

depression here. l's like ashma and TB.

Bu you can' ell me we're also

geing TB and depression

because of he Alanic Raiders.

Hey, guys, l don' like i. The whole

hing makes me very, very unhappy.

Wha is wrong, is seing down guidelines,

agreed o

in a democraic and organised way.

And hen changing hose guidelines

a he las minue?

Comrades, please.

Leave his hing ou on he soccer field,

or he disciplinary hearing where i belongs.

-Please, i is very disressing.

-Bu ha is he poin, comrade.

This is somehing ha affecs

every aspec of our lives.

-Do we have o ake posiion on...

-Enough!

Go no ell me wha o do. Leave i alone!

This is causing mayhem,

high blood pressure, you name i.

Those who are angry,

those who don't reIate,

they don't taIk to one another, and so forth.

Laughter, ridicuIe, turn to anger,

it turned to emotion,

it tended to divide us now.

l was serious. We couldn' accep he fac

ha we'd been beaen by his lousy side.

Genlemen.

l have here my repor on he aciviies of

our club, Gynaspurs Fooball Club,

over he period January o June, 197 1 .

And l had inended o read

he enire documen o you oday

before l make i available o you

for your perusal.

There are various adminisraive

improvemens l waned o share wih you.

And here are also players

whom we should single ou

as having improved dramaically

so far his year.

Bu righ now l hink l would like o sar

on he second page of my repor

wih an issue ha has been weighing

very heavily on all of us

and ha has cerainly depressed me

personally since i ook place.

Why do we play soccer?

Or any spor for ha maer?

Go we play o win? Do we can

say we hrashed such and such a club?

For poins, for diplomas and rophies?

No.

Le us remember ha our sporing aciviies

here on he island

are mean and aimed a making

our say here less unbearable

and less inolerable han i is.

Le us no allow hem o become he causes

of more frusraion, ension and discomfor

han hey already are.

Dome of us migh say,

''Noble ideals and big alk

''which have no bearing

on he real siuaion.''

l would like o answer hose people

wih a quesion.

lf we had no noble ideals,

would we have been here oday?

Do he guys appealed o us

hrough he commiee srucures.

They hreaened us in all kinds

of manners and ways.

They appealed o our senimens as poliical

prisoners, as sporsmen, as comrades.

l didn' work, bu you see,

he hing is we, as hings wen on,

we fel we had o back down.

We knew we had o back down.

l was becoming unpleasan for everybody.

And we waned o hrow in he owel,

bu we jus didn' know how.

Anhony, wha have you...

There was his old man

in my club, Makaleni.

He was he chairman of our club, Manong.

Makaleni was no a highly educaed person,

bu he was very ariculae

and a very good adminisraor.

And he undersood people.

And paricularly, he undersood

how o deal wih people's weaknesses.

And he knew my weakness.

Wha do you have o lose?

You've go nohing o lose.

-You can ell hese...

-Mnumzana, please.

l's an impossible posiion, i's impossible.

l only seems impossible

because you are so young, Anhony.

Bu humour a foolish old man like me

and lisen.

You've go nohing o lose.

You led hese men away.

Now lead hem back o us.

Yeah, yeah, bu, Mnumzana, i's no jus me.

There's a commiee even his, you know...

No, no. Find a way, find a soluion.

And lead hem back o us.

Lead, Anhony, don' jus play.

Lead, Anhony!

Where are you going, Anhony?

Back.

Because hey were good soccer players,

we needed hem.

Here, by he 1970s, l'd obviously

grown older, a lile slower also.

We coninued playing soccer, of course,

bu some, or a lo of us, had moved

into more senior administrative positions.

For insance, l'd become a soccer referee,

and had become par of my club execuive.

For us i was an era coming o an end.

There was, of course, sill a number of

hardcore lifers, bu hey were geing older.

For hose of us who arrived in he '60s,

we were being released.

l was quie somehing,

he idea of being free.

l was 19 when l go o he island.

And now l was in my mid-hiries.

Yeah, l hink, as l said, ironically, for me,

he saddes day was when l lef he island,

because l lef so many people.

Bu when we look back, l hink i was

a good experience, a very good experience.

My firs houghs were,

''Where am l going? Wha's i like?

''l'm used o where l am now

and l'm going o a new world alogeher.

''Am l going o fi?

''My family, who are hey any more?

Go hey sill know me?

''Go l sill know hem?

My friends, are hey sill alive?''

All hose hings wen hrough my mind

very quickly.

Today you find a Iot of peopIe taIk

about the suffering on Robben IsIand.

Yes, there was a Iot of suffering,

but I think there's too much focus on that.

And that sort of thing worries me.

The peopIe who reaIIy suffered, I beIieve,

were the famiIies we Ieft behind,

the wives and the chiIdren.

It was very, very, very emotionaI.

The idea of going into the ship and going

back to the mainIand and going home.

June '76, he sudens' uprising, righ?

Those are somehing ha were inspiring us.

They were making us more sronger.

And we feIt that Iiberation was just

very near.

Those were students,

they were Iike soIdiers in schooI uniforms.

They fought braveIy, you know,

against the poIice.

And they were arrested in droves

and were sent to the isIand.

Young peopIe who were coming in were

very enthusiastic footbaIIers themseIves.

Do hey needed no encouragemen

in erms of

keeping and adhering o he srucures

ha had been pu in place.

We feel quie pleased someimes

ha a leas we lef somehing

ha could guide people

or make people undersand

how we tried to Iive our Iives.

And I think, hopefuIIy,

that shouId be the sort of thing

that shouId get peopIe to understand

the way forward, in a sense.

One couId say that we passed on the baton,

we passed on the Iegacy to them,

we passed on the game.

l was more han a game.

The 2010 FIFA WorId Cup

wiII be organised in South Africa.

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