This morning while I watched Champion's league quarter final between Manchester United versus Bayern Muenchen, I came across an interesting movie at other TV station. The movie's title was "More than a game" Interestingly this movie told a story about the existence of a football league inside Robben Island, the harshest prison in South Africa during apartheid time in 1960's.
As my finger pressed my remote control, I switched back and forth between the live match of one of the richest club in the world, with the picture of the black political prisoners having football matches inside the prison.Becoming political prisoner because of the color of their skin in a remote island with wardens yelling and insulting them almost all of the time, it's amazing that they did not loose their spirit. Forty prisoners slept and lived together in one compound. One day one person started to play ball made of used paper with his foot and who could imagine that was the seed of Makana Football Association.
They fought relentlessly and politely for the warden permission to operate the first football league inside the prison...and they succeed. They had total 9 teams divided in 3 category based on their skills. Makana Football Association managed to run their competition despite internal problems from 1966 to 1973 prior to the closure of the prison.
Football became the outlet for their valuable freedom. The prison authority can not interfere Makana Football Association's rules and decisions within their league. They faced and solved their internal problems and dispute between the teams independently, based on the FIFA rules book plus the leader's wisdom.
One thing I learned from this movie is that nobody should able to contain our spirit and mind unless we let them or we did it on purpose. If these black South African prisoners could run their own football league inside the prison during apartheid time, we should be able to come out with wild and creative ideas and put it into actions...if only we dare to take the risk and put our true effort on it.
They fought relentlessly and politely for the warden permission to operate the first football league inside the prison...and they succeed. They had total 9 teams divided in 3 category based on their skills. Makana Football Association managed to run their competition despite internal problems from 1966 to 1973 prior to the closure of the prison.
Football became the outlet for their valuable freedom. The prison authority can not interfere Makana Football Association's rules and decisions within their league. They faced and solved their internal problems and dispute between the teams independently, based on the FIFA rules book plus the leader's wisdom.
One thing I learned from this movie is that nobody should able to contain our spirit and mind unless we let them or we did it on purpose. If these black South African prisoners could run their own football league inside the prison during apartheid time, we should be able to come out with wild and creative ideas and put it into actions...if only we dare to take the risk and put our true effort on it.
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