Report from the field; game 1

I may ruin the suspense by telling you we're already down in Jamshedpur, home to TATA Steel. We're comfortably settled now at the athletes dormitories at J.R.D. Tata Stadium, and with us are our three coaches from Yuwa and twenty-five of our Yuwa girls. But getting to here was no walk in the park.


Click here for the game pics

Let me start two weeks back, before the maoist bandh that nearly kept us in Ranchi. The word 'bandh' in Hindi means 'shut down' or 'closing'. Jharkhand is known for insurgency and chaos outside the two major cities of Ranchi and Jamshedpur, but the current election together with the central government's plans to clamp down on the maoists has been stoking the coals.

While I was in Delhi with Helena, our program director, and three kids we selected to represent Jharkhand at the National Children's Assembly, the girls and coaches back in Hutup were preparing for Game 1 of My Game is Beautiful. The girls from our three teams, now up to fifty-five, continued their cold, pre-dawn regimen of getting to the field in the dark, practicing for three hours before heading off to school. Their new Yuwa track jackets lugged back from Delhi have been dampening the bite of the cold, but for the forty who don't yet have shoes, the toe-numbing ground is still testing their commitment.

Looking back on our first tournament in March, it's amazing what eight months and maybe a thousand hours with the girls and coaches can accomplish. Making this tournament was a piece of cake. Our coach, Anand, energetic multi-tasker as always, was busy working with the girls on their song-and-dance numbers for the welcoming ceremony. The sound system came from Neelum's (Hutup assistant captain) brother, and all the fixings for a dinner for sixty were purchased and prepared. This was financed from the girls' savings till I returned from Delhi with the funds (around $100, or a month and a half's wages for most of their families).

Game Day

Sixteen soccer girls in saris welcomed our guests, dancing in adivasi style, moving along in two columns alongside guests and singing. I thanked our teams, told them I was proud of them, and what I've seen change since I arrived eighteen months back, in Hindi I'd been practicing on the train with Helena. Then eight Hutup girls, led by Shivani (age 9) and Neeta (age 10) – nicknamed Chungu and Mungu after two comic dwarves on TV – wowed the crowd with a Nagpuri dance, before the full sixteen sang a hip Hindi welcome song. Our chief guest and good friend, Rahul Singh, a dashing lad heading Confederation of Indian Industry's Jharkhand office, gave the keynote speech, and talked directly to girls of Yuwa, who he has come to know well. He told them about the goal of 'My Game is Beautiful', and said lots of things we would have liked to have if we could speak better Hindi. Finally, Willem and Helena welcomed everyone and got the players pumped-up with some words of encouragement before the first two teams took to the field.

First match, action-packed from the coin toss, brought together neighboring village rivals Adivasi Yuwa Club Hutup and Yuwa Young Girls' Club Rukka. Hutup is our first team, training since March, and it showed. Usha (class 8), the middle sister to Reena (captain) and Puspa (star defender) – but more regular than both in practice – sprinted up the near side putting three missiles only inches wide of the bamboo goalpost on the right side. Sita (class 9), whose fifteen-year-old sister was married off this spring, dribbled around multiple Rukka defenders, launching a couple of left-footers just wide of the left side pipe. Sita's a serious and hard-working girl at practice, and puts a lot of pressure on herself to carry her team and score goals.. She's the second of five sisters (no brothers), and her parents eke out a living selling rice beer. Unless something big happens for her, she knows her parents will send her out the door next. So for her, Yuwa programs and football are a serious affair.

Hutup goalie, Binita (class 10), didn't get much action either half with the Shivani, Puspa (a star since day one who has swapped her yellow dress and red bandanna for Adidas gear sent to us from Germany) and the powerful Poonam (age 17, working to get back into school) on defense.

Luck held for Rukka with the game going to a draw, decided by a shoot-out. Neelum (Hutup assistant captain) went in for Binita as goalkeeper, making some impressive slides and dives, but in the end it wasn't enough after she put a graceful shot past Rukka goalie Sudha's head – unfortunately it was before the whistle. Her next shot went right to Sudha's hands. Yuwa's Rukka girls won by a single shot and went wild.

There were cheers, a few tears and some jeers from the town drunks, but hands were shaken and our girls were good sports in victory and defeat.

Final match - After their tough loss and a few minutes moping behind the spectators' tent, Adivasi Yuwa Club girls (which we usually call “A team”) got back to the sidelines to cheer on their younger neighbors, the similarly named Yuwa Club Hutup (which we usually call “B team”). Started by Hiralal, one of our coaches, B-team is mostly made up of his seven- to fourteen-year-old cousins. They're an ever expanding bunch (presently nineteen), and not yet in possession of shoes or jerseys, so there's still lots of local flavor to the kits, a sort of potpourri of salwar kameez, kurta pajamas and dupattas sailing by.
It was a foregone conclusion that B-team was going to get creamed by the older, bigger and more experienced girls from Rukka, but in contrast to their rather ladylike appearance, the girls of B-team were ready for battle. Right off the first touch right-forward Poonam (age 13) caught a pass from the center, carried it up, cut back, gave it a whack and almost put the leather between the bamboo, but missed by frog's hair, as my grandfather used to say. Minutes later she nearly scored again.

Remarkably, this game too went to a draw. To give you an idea of the spirit of the B-team girls, when the mercury started dipping and the cold kept the other teams in bed an extra half-hour, these girls packed up empty cement, fertilizer and seed sacks with sticks, dry leaves and cow pies, got to the field at the usual dark hour and made little fires next to the field to warm their fingers and toes. During the match I was particularly proud of one particular girl, Lalita, who was with us way back on our very first day of football, but who kept getting nudged off the first team by a few of the girls. Maybe she wasn't family, maybe she wasn't the best player, but whatever it was, she's joined back up and started making her mark on B-team, and got a few big kicks off playing defense.

But the stars were still aligned on this particular Sunday for the girls from down by old Rukka dam, and in the end the shoot-out went their way for a second time, making them champions of the first tournament of 'My Game is Beautiful'.
There was a quick post-tournament exhibition match by the village boys in which I put my much improved (but nothing to write home about) skills to test against guys who actually know what they're doing. In the first few seconds I made a lucky steal from Anand and was pretty proud of myself for taking a flying ball on the forehead, but after using up all my good luck on those moves, I'm afraid I didn't contribute much. On the other hand, all four goals scored on both sides were put in by Yuwa coaches and members Anand, Hiralal and Dharam, who paints logos on all of our footballs. That's significant because some of the older players in this match have given the girls trouble in the past, taking over their field, playing over top of them, kicking balls right past them at full force, and that sort of thing. So the girls cheered loud for their coaches and friends, who put on the only real show to speak of.

Near sunset, the Sunday finally ended in Hutup village outside Seema and Suman's house (eleven-year-old organizer of our first team), with dinner for sixty. Reena, Usha and Puspa's mother managed the whole affair from huge pots and an outdoor chula.

As Willem and I made our last preparations for departure it could have been a sad day. But instead of riding off alone for Game 2 in Jamshedpur, we would have twenty-five of our girls and three coaches in tow.

Willem will be reporting on that adventure very soon..