Day 11

Day 11.

Today was a very early start! I set my alarm for 6:50 to be out of the door at about 7:20ish. Jeff and I put on our arsenal uniform for the second time during our trip! It felt good to be putting on the uniform and to be wearing the badge which means so much to people out here, the power that one little badge has is crazy!!

Time to head towards Vasco! We got the 8:13 train after the 8:08 got cancelled and the train journey took the usual 35 minute duration which we are getting use to!

We arrived at the Ruyterwacht learning centre at 9:00, Joe wanted us to create a PowerPoint slide to put on in the background when we have our meet and greet tomorrow and coach at the crèche! It's been advertised in the local supermarkets and all around the Ruyterwacht area so we are expecting quite a reception!

We left at around 10:00 to head to a home called victory outreach which is a rehahibilation home for men and women who have had rough pasts and upbringings and have truly felt the effects of external influences such as gangs, drugs and alcoholism. Again, they were buzzing to see us and really welcomed us with open arms!! The workers at victory outreach have a unique approach to rehabilitating residents, instead of getting psychiatrists,psychologists and using pills to help their residents.. They use a biblical approach!! Every morning, afternoon and evening they have prayer sessions, discussions and they have pastors come in etc, which was nice to hear! Whenever I introduce myself as Luke they are always quick to say 'just like in the bible eh!' which shows that victory outreach's biblical studies are definitely having an impact! It was great to meet all the guys, answer their questions and just explain what Jeff and I do in England but also what we're trying to change in Cape Town! I know we're only here for 3 months but believe me those 3 months will start off a snowball effect of the realisation of what sport can do in the community!! I personally believe it will anyway. The reaction we've had so far has been unreal so there's no reason why our impact (and many other sporting organisations) won't begin a period of change! It won't be a short easy fix but over a long period i believe things will start to change!! We stopped for a few photos and were given a farewell chant/dance type of thing which was hilarious!

We had a few hours to kill before we we headed to to the All Stars soccer club so Joe,Lourens,Jeff and I grabbed some lunch and collected the football equipment we had ordered from a footballing supplier called Mike's Sports! All the local Cape Town teams use mike's apparently! The shop was great, it had all the new boots, shirts etc.

After an hour or so back at the learning centre we headed to the All Stars Soccer Club! Which are quite a big team in Cape Town, who have teams from under 9's to a first team itself! We visited a shelter which focuses on bringing in and looking after around 30 homeless children from ages 9-18..some of whom play for the All Stars First team! They all were happy to see us and we answered a few questions from them which was pretty neat! The Charmain of Atlantic soccer club called Dallah took us for a tour of the shelter and then transported us to the big field area which All Stars use! We met most of their coaches and a few of their players and generally just had an open meet and greet, Q&A session which we really enjoyed!! They asked about football in England and compared what they do with tier youths and our youths bio mechanically, dietary wise and also in terms of drills etc which was good to get a comparison of the two. They knew jeff and I were into sport science from when we had introduced ourselves and they asked Jeff about the biomechanics of sprinting and me about the importance of nutrition and diet in youth teams. We answered to the best of our ability and believe me our college and A-level knowledge's cobwebs had to be dusted away! But they all seemed to agree and understand where we were coming from so that was the main thing! We did a little mini session based around awareness and communication using a numbers based session. The exercise is very much based on being vocal and being aware of your team mates around you. So for example, we gave 7 children a number from 1-7 and made them play handball passing it around in order from 1-7. But as we all know kids are very quick to pick up on patterns so they'd soon work out that James and Joe are either side of them for example as number 1 and 3. Therefore, they would only ever be looking for James and Joe as they'd know that they were up next to receive the ball. In my opinion this doesn't promote awareness so what we did was we individually told the players which number they were so no one else knew what their number was! Therefore this created awareness as they did not know who they would be passing to next to so it was all about being aware of your position on the pitch and where your team mates were and most of all being vocal and shouting your number so your team mate can hear where you are! We stressed how important communication is in terms of awareness and they all totally agreed. We took some photo's with a couple boys and even some of their parents and then headed home thanks to a lift back to berghof from Dallah!

To end the night, Jeff and I had a shower (separately) and then headed down to the supermarket to pick up some groceries!!

Bring on tomorrow!!


All the best,

Luke.

By the way.. I will put some more pics up tomorrow. Oh and I can't find my watch :(