I Like Club Football. I Really Don’t Know Much Of It

MAZI EJIMOFOR OPARA

I chose a club – Chelsea – sometime in 2004, not for passion, just to fit in. For it was unusual to grow up in Maza-maza without such “gainless pride”. Growing up has seen me sustain my teenage misgivings. I still find myself talking football, even when deep down I struggle to understand why a discussion about 22 able bodied men, chasing a defenceless orb, should bother anybody. 

I thought I was alone until I found another like me, who is in football but knows absolutely nothing about it. Though with a massive brick and mortar investment fallowing on the fringes of rurality, it is more like the story of a boy with too many toys.

The little boy keeps asking for more toys, as many as his material reality can afford. With zero regard for its utility, he prides in possession not usefulness. He will keep acquiring more toys doomed for destruction. After all what is the usefulness? 

That Anambra now has a “Futureless Association” (FA) is more or less a function of the “boy” on the Driver’s seat. Football is his toy. He knows most young people would do anything for the Passion that comes with football. He seized it up. 

It is his toy. The FA is for fun, not business. There really isn’t a future with it anyway. 

Too many Irons in the fire. Jacking all trades and mastering none. Mediocrity has a Hallmark in haphazardness. 

We siddon dey look.

– Mazi Ejimofor Opara writes from Awka, Anambra State.