Passion for soccer trumps all
ABOUT two decades ago, when I was at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, I clearly remember seeing two banners as I wondered about the fanaticism of the stoic Indian cricket supporter.
One read “Until I see God, I will settle for Sachin” and the other “Commit all your sins while Sachin is batting, they will go unnoticed because God is also watching”.
And decades later, in the only country with the highest concentration of Indians, we are witnessing the same unheralded fervency, support and commitment from South African Indians for two of the world’s greatest soccer clubs, Liverpool FC and Manchester United FC.
The modus vivendi (agreement) of the soccer faithful has a huge impact on the family and social life.
Weddings, funerals and religious functions are boycotted for a television front seat. Amid patriotic hoopla, wives and girlfriends, faithful acolytes, also add some glitz and glamour as they adorn original branded jerseys.
On match day, babies and little toddlers show off their best too. The multithroated roars and jarring platitudes can be corrosive and vituperative as the acid-tongued spew out vulgar invectives that can be more venomous than a Natal green mamba.
Liverpool supporters this season have risked everything for a hunch that seems so right, so accurate, so prescient; that to do otherwise will be to betray everything they believe in.
Their resurrection, like a phoenix from the ashes, after years of hostile humiliation and painful exile, have their supporters itching for the champagne corks and silverware.
On the other hand, the Man United naysayers and proselytisers are trying to assimilate the changed dynamics of the situation they find themselves in, a kind of c’est la vie (that’s life).
If uncertainty about the future was measured in bricks, United supporters would become the Great Wall of China.
José Mourinho continues to babble like a pilot on a grounded aircraft, assuring passengers that he was about to take off any minute.
The love for the game seems to flourish among our middle class. However, the hoi polloi (the masses), deeply divided by insular fealties, will find fertile ground in every competing sport, and in soccer, widening the chasm created by these two clubs. For now, the football wallahs have had a peep into the psychological window of football and believe it is still early days in the campaign. KEVIN GOVENDER Queensburgh