Mango football any one?
In my childhood - 1960s, I had not many options but to organise my own games and baby mangoes were my victims in soccer games...they were my reality
Yes, kicking in baby mangoes on the cement yard of my father’s house, that was how I was playing football. I was barely 7, but I had to learn how to kick in a football.
For me to get a football it was like I had to wait for ages. I could not afford one.
No one was really interested in soccer, not my dad or my mother but I had it in my veins.
I had to kick in something, somehow. It was at times, the way for me to relieve myself of my anger, pain and loneliness.
It all started with stones and pebbles. I’d kick in them where ever I found them. On the roads, in the streets near my house or in the yard.
But we also had a huge mango tree in the back yard. And this will be the source of my joy, when the baby mangoes would fall off and land on the cement.
For a starter, the small mangoes were not edible. They were too young to be eaten said my mom and were left to rot in the backyard.
I picked the hardest and started to play soccer, on my own, with the mango. It will bounce, and that helped me juggle it with my foot.
Rotten Chair…where the goalkeeper was beaten far too many times 🙂Â
After that, I would let it fall in midair and I would shoot right at the makeshift goal. The mango would hit the bars of the rotting chair and at times would break the plywood on the seat, but the thing is I was having great fun.
Over the years, I found the perfect replacement for the mangoes and pebbles. It was a basket ball that an uncle of mine had given to my brother.
Since he was not going to play with it, the basket ball became my favorite kicking toy.
And it was all about playing football and shooting the ball between the legs of a small bench, which had replaced the poor old chair as my goal.