GONE ARE THE DAYS, WHEN BOYS WERE REAL BOYS

Fabian Mudhegu-Sports Reporter

In the last decades, growing up as an African boy child was something full of great and adorable experiences.

But in this World nothing is permanent, culture evolves, lifestyles change, technology has taken over, fashion rules the roost, diseases are causing people to stay indoors, youngsters are
getting involved in activities way above their age, the internet has removed children from the playground.

Yes!! Nowadays children do not know that soccer or football was played with a plastic filled with old newspapers and tiny sponges. The football pitch would be an off-season maize field behind granny MaSithole’s house.

Boys would come and kick the ball all day long imitating their old stars such as Peter Ndlovu, Nhamo Shambira, Shackman Tauro, Stix Mtizwa, Henry McKop, Peter Nkomo and many more.

When boys went to play their football match there were several rules that were to be followed and below, are some of the football rules that almost 90% of African boys experienced especially in their childhood stages dating back to the early 80s before the introduction of smart phones and computer games.

Below are the rules.

1. The fat kid always plays as a goalkeeper.
2. The owner of the ball decides who is in the team.
3. If you didn’t participate in the ball repairing you were given a match ban.
4. The guy who’s never picked was to fetch the ball from the trees or bushes when it got stuck or from under the car or tunnel so as to play in the next game.
5. When the owner of the ball got annoyed, the game was over.
6. When you hit your toes against a stone and blood oozed, you quickly covered the area of injury with soil as a form of first aid and play continued.
7. You were not allowed to dribble the owner of the ball too much, this would lead him to stop the game and take away his ball.
8. No matter how many goals you scored, the winner would be determined by the last team to score.
9. There was no offside rule.
10. There was no referee.
11. There is a foul only if is serious.
12. The 2 best players were not allowed to play in the same team. They were the ones to choose their players.
13. If you are chosen last it was a humiliation and you would remain in defense.
14. If there is a penalty the goalkeeper is replaced by the best player in the team.
15. The best player on the field was always in the same team as the owner of the ball.
16. There was always a house yard where when the ball mistakenly fell into, everyone knew that the game was over. Anyone to kicked the ball towards that direction was a victim of team friendly abuse.
17. To distinguish between the teams, one of the teams took off their shirts.

18. If a team caused three consecutive corners, a penalty was given.

19. The game ended when it was dark and it was impossible to see the ball, all disperse in groups teasing one another until home to face further punishment from our parents.

Africa is our home!!

Zim GBC News©2023