We arrived in Addis Ababa with no idea if anyone from the contacts we had knew we were coming. Thankfully after a quick email, Fasil Abraham from the CRDA (Christian Relief and Development Association – www.crdaethiopia.org) rang us the next day and arranged to come and meet us where we were camping. The CRDA are an umbrella organisation that help over 350 NGO’s in Ethiopia with funding, resources, educational development etc. Tackle Africa had met them around 6 years ago but nothing had really materialised for future development in that time due to the political problems in Ethiopia. Anyway it was to be a really successful meeting as Fasil and his colleague, Belai, agreed that there was massive scope for HIV football projects in many rural communities around Ethiopia and wanted Tackle Africa’s help in co-ordinating this as much as possible. So far so good.
We then arranged a football match for the next day on a grass pitch (!!!!!) somewhere in Addis.................................................
We turned up at around 8am as it gets too hot to play much later than that. The opposition looked like they could handle themselves alright and looked tidy in the warm up. We already had our 4 players (myself – striker, JJ – Centre half, Ed- Centre Mid and Welsh international Neil Evans – right mid) sorted but needed their help in giving us some more players. We started the game with a player less and this was to get worse – more on that later.
It started badly as the home side took an early lead after a bad hesitation from our goalkeeper. At this point we feared the worst but we shouldn’t have because minutes later Ed has sent me clear and I smashed home the equaliser. The rest of the half was a stroll as 2 of the home-grown players and Ed took control of central midfield for our team and a lead of 4-1 at half time told the story.
The second half was far too easy for us as the home side crumbled under the long ball over the top. I bagged a further 4 goals (should have had more except for bad refereeing and one truly atrocious finish) and Welshman Neil bagged his first of the tour with a neatly placed header. This was before one of the most astonishing moments on a football field I have seen since Eric Cantona kicked a fan in the face........ Our number 8, Fanta, who had been playing brilliantly before this, tried to keep the ball from going out of play and thought he had succeeded before the referee blew for a throw in. In an unbelievable fit of petulance, Fanta smashed the ball a mile before marching towards the referee to let him know how he felt. The referee stood his ground and they both screamed at each other before Fanta let fly with a mighty blow to the referee’s face. Cue absolute bedlam and a temporary stop to the game as the referee refused to continue with what seemed like a broken nose and stormed to the side of the pitch to find a rock to repay the damage done to his face. Thankfully this revenge mission was halted by a melee of players. Obviously Fanta got his marching orders and the game restarted. Truly jaw dropping stuff!
So we ended the game with 9 men but still ran riot with a 10-3 scoreline. We had turned our fortunes around after defeat in Gondar and we had also secured a really good contact for Tackle Africa. Good work all round, apart from the referee of course.
Line up: Evans 8, Johnson 7, Barnard 7, Howie 8, Fasil 8, Others range from 6-8 but FANTA– 10*
(SUNSTAR MAN for a quality blow to ref’s nose and genuine talking point the
world over)
Andy
Brilliant. Poor ol' referee. :(
Come home soon.
Posted by: Amy | 05/06/2009 at 09:00 AM