I visited an aunt I hadn't seen in a while and I was asked after her son, my cousin but he was literally nowhere to be found. After a bit of asking around, we were later informed that he was playing street football not far from the house. His mum suggested that someone should go call him over to come greet me, but I declined as I could easily remember my football playing days.
Growing up on the streets of Lagos especially the mainland, it was difficult not to get embroiled in one form of shenanigans or the other. It wasn't the fact that we loved commotion, it was simply the fact that there was always something happening and you could easily get lost in the flow. Football was one the things that brought us together, although it was easily one of the things that caused the commotion itself. Anyways nobody ever complained, as there was still fun within the commotion.
I could already picture my cousins face, deeply engrossed in dribbling his opponents and suddenly called away to come greet me. He might've loved me with all his heart, but guy man would probably have grumbled all the way back home. Such was the spirit of football. If you wanted to play street football, you had to understand StreetFootball101.
One thing I've learnt about Street football is that it doesn't matter the area, country or continent, at the core it was always the same. Of course there might be variations, but if you look closely you'd find that they were variations of the same thing. Growing up, we all gathered on the street on most days, but Saturday mornings were the real deal.
On Saturday morning, you'd have lot of children looking to enjoy the weekend away from school, and the adults taking the weekly break from work. What this meant was that you had readily available players and spectators. The number one golden rule was that the owner of the ball made the rules, if you didn't like it, you weren't interested in playing.
On most occasions, the boy who owned the ball was never skillful, so he usually had the first pick of players. If you were a talented player, it was a 100% guarantee that you would definitely get picked on a team. The less skillful boys could either watch the match or be relegated to the goalposts (nobody ever loves the goalkeeper role). If there was ever a disagreement, the owner of the ball was always right. If you challenged him too much or marked him too much, he would simply carry his ball and leave for home. As long as his team was playing, he was alpha and Omega.
One of the funniest things I remember was that one team could be thrashing the other 10-0, but as long as the loosing team scored the last goal, they would jubilate as if they'd won confusing anyone who wasn't watching as to who had really won. Also whenever there was a goal dispute, the designated referee was any adult watching the match, anything he said was final.
I was still reminiscing on all these memories when my cousin, Guy Man rushed in soaked in sweat to greet me. My aunt was soon scolding him, threatening to prevent him from going out to play again. I just shook my head, wondering if this woman knew how much Cristiano Ronaldo was earning weekly just to kick Ball.
Anyways it wasn't really my concern, but I can almost see the future. Immediately I give birth to my first son, it would be Project Messi all the way.