football crazy

Today I visited the local international prep school where the children from the Restart Children's Centre (orphanage) had been invited to play in an under 7's football tournament, with teams participating from private schools all over Kenya. We played two mixed teams, well one team and two thirds of a team to be precise. One of our players was banned from playing as the officials decided he was over 7 years of age. I wasn't convinced they were right, the problem we have out here is that a majority of children have no idea when they were born, especially as birthdays aren't really celebrated out here. One of our players was two year old Kamau, it was really sweet watching him aimlessly wandering round the pitch  not having a clue what it was all about. He only played one match then seemed to get bored and sit on the sideline, so technically we were two players down for each game as we didn't bring any substitues. Each of our teams we fielded won a couple of games, not bad considering they were playing against wealthy schools who regularly teach their children and coach them in the game, often paying for their little ones to have private coaching. The nearest our children get to practising is a kick about with a deflated ball or a ball made out of plastic bags!! Some our our children don't have trainers, some were playing in carpet slippers. It was an effort to be proud of, despite not making the final. Our children were wonderfully behaved throughout and a credit to the staff at the Restart Centre who have effectively brought them up. Not having childeren of my own it was a first for me going to watch a children's football tournament. So a fun day was had by all.