It's like I've never been away

OK, over 6 months... that's not really what I was aiming for when I set this blog up. From now on I'll post more regularly.

I have been prompted into writing this blog again for two reasons:

1. I saw this article on the BBC website (thanks to Adam for sending it on) which reminded indirectly of one of the greatest football matches I've ever been to and...
2. Christopher Caleb basically shamed me into putting up a new post by continuously reminding me that I hadn't posted in months.

So what's the BBC story got to do with the greatest football match I've ever been to I hear you ask? The BBC story concerns the St. Helena shooting team at the Commonwealth Games and anyone who knows me will be aware that I spent a part of my childhood living on St. Helena. St. Helena is a rock surrounded by sea sitting about as far away from land as it is possible to get in the South Atlantic. Having no airport; it is considered to be one of the remotest islands in the world, taking at least 4 days to get to from the UK.

It is so remote, in fact, that after the battle of Waterloo, the British sent Napoleon there.

I have many fond memories of the island and one that sprung to mind on reading the BBC story was the time the St. Helena national team took on Brazil in a once in a lifetime, free, football match on Francis Plain (the only bit of the island flat enough to have a football pitch on it).

OK so this is a slight exaggeration. What happened was: a Brazilian naval ship docked in Jamestown Bay and the sailors offered to put a team together to take on the local team. It did have one thing in common with watching Brazil play though: They were really good! I seem to remember it ending something like 4-1 but it really was a strange wee micro version of the real experience of watching Brazil hump your local team. Those of the crew who weren't playing pitched up with drums and some exuberant Samba beats and to the credit of the locals most of them joined in.

What isn't an exaggeration is that most of the population turned out to watch. I'd be lying if I said I could remember it well enough to judge the size of the crowd exactly but it was pretty big, and with only slightly over 4,000 people on the island it didn't take much for the majority to be there.

It was a really cool wee event and in these days of commercialism and massive sponsorships it was nice that this game was all about the football... or at least I assume it was, to be honest I can't remember it that well and probably spent most of the time playing with my mates. I was only 9 after all.

Ahh good times... I'll see if I can find a photo and post it later.

As a slight addendum, I just looked up Francis Plain on Wikipedia and was amazed to find that it had an (albeit small) entry. It is apparently a multi-use stadium that holds around 2,000 people. I'm not sure you can really describe a piece of flat ground with a slight raised area of grass at one side that you can sit on as a multi-use stadium but it does at least confirm that it was possible for half the population of the island to have been there. I found a picture of Francis Plain on the thrilling sounding world stadiums website so you can judge for yourself. It is very much as I remember it.