Football Jerseys!

October 30, 2006

|In Blog

|By Anish Malpani

UPDATED – 4/11/2006

See the Khaleej Times article on the football tournament we are taking part in.

P.S. My middle name is Kishore.

*****

UPDATED – 3/11/2006

1st Group Match:

Modern: 2
Aaron – 6′
Anish – 26

NIMS, Dubai: 0‘

A decent start to the campaign, but we played the easiest team in our group. Our coach gave us a 4/10, but we still won. I guess the most we got out of this match is the confidence and morale boost which is highly important and required. Anyway, the next 2 teams we will face (Our Own, Al Warqaa & SIS) are both tough, but hey, we need only one win to go through – and we want this too much.

Thanks guys, for your support.

*****

UPDATED – 1/11/2006 (not really, but we got our jerseys then)

Cool huh?

*****

If you are a part of the the Dubai Modern High School’s Football team for 2006-2007, you are one lucky man, and it’s confirmed – at the price of Dhs. 80/- only.

Yes, the school team, for the first time in twenty years, will have a non-Ajax, non-Man-Utd, non-blue, actual school jersey, with the players’ names and numbers on the flipside. The front will bear a handsome, but simple school logo, along with the word ‘M O D E R N’. It was previously going to be ‘DMHS’, but our principal put it right – ‘DMHS’ sounds rubbish. All over the world, it is ‘Eton‘, ‘Winchester’ – so, we will have ‘Modern‘. And yes sir, I totally agree. ‘Modern’ does sound better.

That’s what our jersey will look like, but without the logos and ‘Nakheel’. It will have the school logo and “MODERN’ printed on it instead.

We placed in an order for the jerseys today, and they should be ready on the eve of our first match, that is on the 1st of November. We’ll look cool, proud and dignified, andthese jerseys will also serve as a piece of memory of the year that was (yeah it’s still to get over, but hey…let’s hope it’s one to remember). So enjoy them. I’m bloody excited to get mine!

Shifting to Indian inter-school football in Dubai – it’s pathetic. Every year there is only one, week-long, tournament to ta
ke part in. Only one. It’s so sad. The Indian sporting infrastructure is poor, and that poorness is even pervading out to places like Dubai. Anyway we love the game, and it’s for this reason that when this tournament does knock on the door, we all come rushing out. The excitement levels are immense. Anticipation and nervousness, along with the hunger to prove the discouraging claims of our school of ‘we suck‘ wrong. However, year after year, we turn out to be the losers. With shameful defeats where goal differences reach double figures, to heart-breaking losses, over the years Modern has seen the worst of the Indian football scene in Dubai.

But there have been moments of pure bliss and amazement, like when the junior team of 2004, against all odds, came back winners of the U-16 Al Diyafah Inter School Football tournament for Indian schools. That junior team is today’s senior team. It’s our last year in school. This is our last tournament. However shit the Indian football scene in Dubai is, this tournament means a lot to us. We want to do well. We have to do well. Let us hope that we will do well. As captain, I would like to wish the entire team good luck, and remember – we play for the love of the game. So enjoy the football, and the result, whatever it is, will take care of itself. Modern High is not known for football. In fact, majority of our school ridicules it’s own school football. Damn, it’ll feel good to prove them wrong.

P.S. This post is dedicated to Mr. Biswas, our ex-coach, who I want to thank for moulding our football team into one cohesive unit. He coached us to our historic and unexpeceted U-16 Al Diyafah Inter School Football Tourney victory. Thank you sir.

272 Comments

Comments are closed.