The 'I' in Equipe
The ‘I’ in Equipe.
The late Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said that football isn’t a matter of life and death, it’s ‘more important than that’. Patent nonsense obviously and it neglects basic needs like food, breathing, the vertical sharp crease on a pair of sta-prest. But to an eight year old it’s pretty much spot on.
Maurice is obsessed with football and has been dreading, since around Easter time, the end of the football season but in the same way looking forward to the big end of season tournament in Chateauroux where the best of the teams from the departement all get together and compete for...well, nothing really. Just for the fun of doing so apparently. There’s no ‘competition’ as such, just another opportunity for the under 8’s, still playing four a side here, of the area to hone their levels of vision and technique without competitive burden. This may be why continental teams are more technically developed, as the cliché goes, but there’s certainly no lack of ‘edge’.
The only problem with these jamborees is that, this being France, nothing starts until after lunch. Nothing. It’s a little known historical fact that the German invasion in 1940 was an early morning fixture planned in the full knowledge that France wouldn’t be ready until about three in the afternoon, and even then might need a nap before retaliating. The football tournament wasn’t scheduled to finish until about 11 at night! That’s too late for me when I’m not working let alone almost every eight year old in the area and though I was keen to support Maurice – as my dad always did with me (though at sensible times) – I went with a certain reluctance. In fact we all went, as we decided that this would be an ideal family day out and Natalie, Samuel, Thérence and I all went to lend Maurice our support.
The weather didn’t help. All week had been glorious sunshine and though possibly too hot for football was certainly better for the spectators than this dark, grey permadrizzle. Every other spectator had clearly checked the weather forecast though and as hundreds of us all began to converge on the venue it was clear pretty early on that I was the only one in ironed trouser shorts, beige Clarks’ Wallabies and a cycling top. I was bloody frozen right from the start. I blame the banks. The whole thing was sponsored by Credit Agricole, and if you get a bank involved these days there’s bound to be trouble. And you couldn’t miss them, handing out their little corporate goody bags to the eight year olds from their pitched sales caravan and drowning the place out with loud music, Cumbawumba’s ‘We Get Knocked Down...’ seemingly, and ironically, on repeat.
Even then the football didn’t get under way until about five in the evening which meant nigh on anarchy as about 300 eight year olds went from polite, sedate training exercises to whacking the wet footballs at each other and hitting each other with sticks. It’s a wonder there weren’t more injuries before the whole thing kicked off as these mini, wanabee footballers proved to be just like their older, professional counterparts and steadfastly refused to behave and gave way destructively to boredom.
Finally it began and we had high hopes.
Maurice is a good player in a good team, nobody can really remember when they were last beaten, and though there were no trophies or titles to be won it doesn’t mean that the results didn’t matter. They did. But they started badly, a dull 0-0 draw, which was played out in the teeming rain and in which they seemed to have forgotten how to pass the ball. They played like they didn’t know each other and in the next one they played like they didn’t even like each other and were beaten which left them in shock.
They had a ten minute break before their next match and time for some soul-searching. A couple of them were in tears, unused to defeat, while various parents offered explanations for the poor displays, ‘pass the ball’, ‘look up’, ‘stretch the play’, ‘it’s too cold and wet’ – the last one was mine. Samuel however has become something of a student of the game and was taking each player away in turn and having a chat, clearly more in favour of ‘arm around the shoulder’ style of man management rather than carrot and stick. Plus being only 12 himself, he could speak their language.
The next game, as the rain improbably got harder, was a much needed victory but against the most unathletic looking bunch of children I think I’ve ever seen and some of whom would clearly have been much happier eating a football rather than kicking it but it was a victory. A much needed victory, something to build on. At least it would have been something to build on if the entire tournament hadn’t been put on hold for dinner!
“What?” I asked, by now absolutely soaking and my beautiful Wallaby shoes now looking more like Possum roadkill, “We’ve only just started!”
For the next hour and a half hundreds of us huddled in cars or under umbrellas eating a frankly needless picnic while the kids ran around, wasting their energy for the second half and stuffing their faces like the finely honed athletes they are. All except our team who’d been taken off by Samuel, or Moore-inho as he’s been dubbed, to ‘work on some set pieces’.
As we trudged back to the pitches, the music got louder with Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ being favoured this time, the rain stayed relentlessly on its course and I spotted someone with a Test Match Special umbrella. I can’t think of a more potent symbol of Englishness than a Test Match Special umbrella and mentioned this to Natalie who was attempting to wheel Thérence’s buggy through the mud.
“Oh,” she said, “He’s probably English, why don’t you go and talk to him?” I mean really, isn’t that the kind of thing a parent says to their child on holiday if they feel said child is too much of a loner or they just want to get rid of them for a bit? I declined, I’m not the sociable type anyway and especially not when I’m shivering and soaking wet.
The football kicked off again but the break had been unkind to Maurice’s team. Their manager seemed to wash his hands of them too and it was left to Samuel Moore-inho to read the riot act. I don’t know what he said to them, the promise of a better contract, win bonuses, no idea, but it worked and they romped home in the last two matches, played in almost darkness, with Maurice scoring three goals.
“Come on then.” I said, “Let’s get back to the car or we’ll be stuck in the car park for hours...”
“But Daddy...” Maurice interrupted and even in the late gloom I could see his lip wobbling, “...fireworks.”
There really was no point in arguing and besides which I couldn’t get any wetter and miraculously the rain had relented just in time for the Feu d’Artifices. I have no idea why everything in France has to end with a fireworks display but it does. Some say it goes back to the revolution but if that’s so I’d have preferred a beheading myself; drag out Madame La Guillotine and show this DJ that Van Halen never was, and certainly isn’t now, acceptable in polite society. It also irked me that Maurice, along with Natalie, Samuel and Thérence insisted on standing at the very front! It’s a firework display! We could stand a mile back (i.e. nearer the car park) and not miss anything. It was though, even I have to admit, pretty spectacular.
It was a very French day, the dominance of meal times, the non-competitive competition, the fireworks and to cap it all, as it took an hour to inch out of the car park, my soaking and squelching shoes worked the pedals and felt less like clutch control and more like treading grapes. And I was expecting Maurice to be a bit down that that was it now for a few months but no, like his brothers, he was fast asleep.
Book reminder! Click here.
The late Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said that football isn’t a matter of life and death, it’s ‘more important than that’. Patent nonsense obviously and it neglects basic needs like food, breathing, the vertical sharp crease on a pair of sta-prest. But to an eight year old it’s pretty much spot on.
Maurice is obsessed with football and has been dreading, since around Easter time, the end of the football season but in the same way looking forward to the big end of season tournament in Chateauroux where the best of the teams from the departement all get together and compete for...well, nothing really. Just for the fun of doing so apparently. There’s no ‘competition’ as such, just another opportunity for the under 8’s, still playing four a side here, of the area to hone their levels of vision and technique without competitive burden. This may be why continental teams are more technically developed, as the cliché goes, but there’s certainly no lack of ‘edge’.
The only problem with these jamborees is that, this being France, nothing starts until after lunch. Nothing. It’s a little known historical fact that the German invasion in 1940 was an early morning fixture planned in the full knowledge that France wouldn’t be ready until about three in the afternoon, and even then might need a nap before retaliating. The football tournament wasn’t scheduled to finish until about 11 at night! That’s too late for me when I’m not working let alone almost every eight year old in the area and though I was keen to support Maurice – as my dad always did with me (though at sensible times) – I went with a certain reluctance. In fact we all went, as we decided that this would be an ideal family day out and Natalie, Samuel, Thérence and I all went to lend Maurice our support.
The weather didn’t help. All week had been glorious sunshine and though possibly too hot for football was certainly better for the spectators than this dark, grey permadrizzle. Every other spectator had clearly checked the weather forecast though and as hundreds of us all began to converge on the venue it was clear pretty early on that I was the only one in ironed trouser shorts, beige Clarks’ Wallabies and a cycling top. I was bloody frozen right from the start. I blame the banks. The whole thing was sponsored by Credit Agricole, and if you get a bank involved these days there’s bound to be trouble. And you couldn’t miss them, handing out their little corporate goody bags to the eight year olds from their pitched sales caravan and drowning the place out with loud music, Cumbawumba’s ‘We Get Knocked Down...’ seemingly, and ironically, on repeat.
Even then the football didn’t get under way until about five in the evening which meant nigh on anarchy as about 300 eight year olds went from polite, sedate training exercises to whacking the wet footballs at each other and hitting each other with sticks. It’s a wonder there weren’t more injuries before the whole thing kicked off as these mini, wanabee footballers proved to be just like their older, professional counterparts and steadfastly refused to behave and gave way destructively to boredom.
Finally it began and we had high hopes.
Maurice is a good player in a good team, nobody can really remember when they were last beaten, and though there were no trophies or titles to be won it doesn’t mean that the results didn’t matter. They did. But they started badly, a dull 0-0 draw, which was played out in the teeming rain and in which they seemed to have forgotten how to pass the ball. They played like they didn’t know each other and in the next one they played like they didn’t even like each other and were beaten which left them in shock.
They had a ten minute break before their next match and time for some soul-searching. A couple of them were in tears, unused to defeat, while various parents offered explanations for the poor displays, ‘pass the ball’, ‘look up’, ‘stretch the play’, ‘it’s too cold and wet’ – the last one was mine. Samuel however has become something of a student of the game and was taking each player away in turn and having a chat, clearly more in favour of ‘arm around the shoulder’ style of man management rather than carrot and stick. Plus being only 12 himself, he could speak their language.
The next game, as the rain improbably got harder, was a much needed victory but against the most unathletic looking bunch of children I think I’ve ever seen and some of whom would clearly have been much happier eating a football rather than kicking it but it was a victory. A much needed victory, something to build on. At least it would have been something to build on if the entire tournament hadn’t been put on hold for dinner!
“What?” I asked, by now absolutely soaking and my beautiful Wallaby shoes now looking more like Possum roadkill, “We’ve only just started!”
For the next hour and a half hundreds of us huddled in cars or under umbrellas eating a frankly needless picnic while the kids ran around, wasting their energy for the second half and stuffing their faces like the finely honed athletes they are. All except our team who’d been taken off by Samuel, or Moore-inho as he’s been dubbed, to ‘work on some set pieces’.
As we trudged back to the pitches, the music got louder with Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ being favoured this time, the rain stayed relentlessly on its course and I spotted someone with a Test Match Special umbrella. I can’t think of a more potent symbol of Englishness than a Test Match Special umbrella and mentioned this to Natalie who was attempting to wheel Thérence’s buggy through the mud.
“Oh,” she said, “He’s probably English, why don’t you go and talk to him?” I mean really, isn’t that the kind of thing a parent says to their child on holiday if they feel said child is too much of a loner or they just want to get rid of them for a bit? I declined, I’m not the sociable type anyway and especially not when I’m shivering and soaking wet.
The football kicked off again but the break had been unkind to Maurice’s team. Their manager seemed to wash his hands of them too and it was left to Samuel Moore-inho to read the riot act. I don’t know what he said to them, the promise of a better contract, win bonuses, no idea, but it worked and they romped home in the last two matches, played in almost darkness, with Maurice scoring three goals.
“Come on then.” I said, “Let’s get back to the car or we’ll be stuck in the car park for hours...”
“But Daddy...” Maurice interrupted and even in the late gloom I could see his lip wobbling, “...fireworks.”
There really was no point in arguing and besides which I couldn’t get any wetter and miraculously the rain had relented just in time for the Feu d’Artifices. I have no idea why everything in France has to end with a fireworks display but it does. Some say it goes back to the revolution but if that’s so I’d have preferred a beheading myself; drag out Madame La Guillotine and show this DJ that Van Halen never was, and certainly isn’t now, acceptable in polite society. It also irked me that Maurice, along with Natalie, Samuel and Thérence insisted on standing at the very front! It’s a firework display! We could stand a mile back (i.e. nearer the car park) and not miss anything. It was though, even I have to admit, pretty spectacular.
It was a very French day, the dominance of meal times, the non-competitive competition, the fireworks and to cap it all, as it took an hour to inch out of the car park, my soaking and squelching shoes worked the pedals and felt less like clutch control and more like treading grapes. And I was expecting Maurice to be a bit down that that was it now for a few months but no, like his brothers, he was fast asleep.
Book reminder! Click here.
No comments have been added yet.
