Showing Their True Colours?

For several years I have been a member of the board at our Athlets’ School in our town.

Now, voluntary work. like that, may be a source of irritation to many, because it represents a guilt trip: If you do not participate; somebody else will invest their time, energy and whatever skill they possess, in both their own and your kids. Been there, done that. And if you say no (because you have 104 very good reasons to do so) you feel guilty for not stepping up and you are, for some irrational reason, annoyed at those “saints” who do.

My two oldest sons have participated at the Athlets’ School from they were 6 untill the age of 10, which is the range of age we adress, and in the course of those four years they have tried out all the sports which are active here: orienteering, freediving, swimming, water polo, field-hockey, badminton, mountain climbing, trial, skating, marshal arts, soccer, handball, basketball, bmx, kayaking and a few more. We aim to introduce them to the many active sports available in the local environment and give them the opportunity to choose a sport they enjoy later on.

My boys picked association football rather early on, and though they continued participating at the athletes’ school they joined football teams as well.

We have enjoyed following up by driving the teams to their away matches, watching them play in all kinds of weather (I still remember the cup when it started to snow and I had a tiny baby who lay in a pram and who I nursed... in the snow) and we have cheered them on and comforted when things went bad.

Now I have started to wonder if it was smart to encourage them to take an interest in football. They watch games on TV, they have heroes they study, they play football videogames and computergames and I have been rather content they have had such an healthy interest.

BUT, and there is a major BUT...

Lately UEFA has shown their true colors, I think. I have known for years and years that the money run the game to a large extent, but I never suspected it would take the turn it has now:

“After the Croatian football federation were fined 80,000 euros (just over £64,500) for their fans racially abusing Mario Balotelli during their match against Italy at Euro 2012, we take a look at some previous fines handed out by Uefa.

·         Bendtner, 24, was found guilty of improper conduct by European football's governing body after he revealed the logo of the betting company on his underpants as he celebrated his goal against Portugal on June 13th. 

• The Serbian FA were fined £16,500 for racist chanting from their fans during an under-21 game against England in 2007.

• The Russian football association was fined 120,000 euros (nearly £97,000) and handed a suspended six point deduction for the Euro 2016 qualifiers for fan violence before and after the Poland game at Euro 2012.

• Monkey chants were directed at England's black players during a match against Spain in 2004. The Spanish FA were fined £45,000”.

(Source: http://www.itv.com/news/story/2012-06-11/england-v-france-euro-2012-group-d-donetsk/)

The bookmaker, whose logo Bendtner showed, has agreed to pay the €100 000 fine that UEFA dished out for Niklas Bendtner’s “ pantsgate” , inspired by Twitter feedback.

Still, sport is fun, a game, to play, to show skills of an individual or a team in a specific environment. At top level they now show that fair play, to show respect and to measure skills regardless of religion, politics or race (like in the Olympics oath) are in retreat. Now money talks a lot louder than taking human beings, highly esteemed values and honourable conduct in consideration.

When organized racist chants are 80 000 fine and a commercial stunt gets a 100 000 fine + 1 match ban... I am not convinced anymore I want my children to take part in it. Or... yes I do, but what I really wish for is that UEFA review their order of priorities, and bring soccer into a sport to be proud of  once again.

http://www.kickitout.org/597.php CNN series on Racism in sports
http://uk.askmen.com/sports/news_100/106_racism-in-sports.html Askmen on Racism in Sports

From pure joy to no joy at all

Another classic morning, a morning which in many ways tells the story of my life.

I have to go back to last night to really add some sense to what happened, so (in short):

Two of my coworkers are leaving; they have both gotten jobs elsewhere, so this week is the last week I get to see them at work. One of them invites us girls from the office to a night at her house, and asked us to bring something for dessert.

It was a lovely house, just the right size and very tasty furnished but what really took my breath away was the view. The house is placed rather high in a small mountain, huge windows showed a strikingly beautiful view over the surrounding landscape. There was hardly anything which gave me the feeling the house was a semi-detached house in a development.

We were served a very tasty soup with freshly baked beguettes with herbes and garlic (half done from the shop, but that is just as nice as home made).

The spirits were high, gossip flourished and the laughter roared more than just a few times. A lovely evening out with the girls.

I brought a cheesecake. The cheese was the wrong kind, the jelly was the wrong flavour and the youghurt as well, but I drowned the heartshaped cake in an abundance of strawberries, thinking if the cake was inedible, the strawberries would still be nice.

The girls had brought a chocolate cake, an apple pai with icecream, strawberries, water melon... all in all it was a feast! A real treat on a weeknight.

It all resulted in a very late night and it was way past midnight when I arrived back home.

At home my youngest kid, who is in the middle of growing age, woke up; his thighs hurt so badly. I spent most of the night comforting, massaging and soothing the little man.

We both finally fell asleep, and the next thing I know is waking up with the panicking feeling of something being wrong. And it was:

A fairy must have turned off all the alarm clocks because I had overslept. I got the kids dressed,  organized a search for my kid’s other soccer boot, made lunches (that alone was an accomplishment as my oldest kid had people over for an overnight movie thing, and they had been cooking some time during the night), rushed one kid off to school and another one was dropped off at the kindergarden. My car was having service done at the garage, so I drove there and dropped my beloved Hyundai Santa Fe off.

My job was on a trip today; a lovely, social event with hikes and lovely food and great company. Well, I was late for that, so they left without me.

So, by 9:30am I was on the street unshowered, with no car, no trip, no driver’s lesson as that was canselled so I could go on the trip and my only prospect was a seriously untidy house with a kitchen full of left overs, dirty dishes and surfaces mostly covered in flour.

And the day really didn’t improve at all! I suspect fait found it appropriate to punish me for a night out with the girls...