Primary school soccer

Primary school soccer is all about rivalry and our fiercest rival was Government School Upper Cu stains Tiko.There was a little bit spice added to the rivalry because of a close family friend of ours whose children attended Upper Custains School Tiko.We had some memorable games with them.I remember a 3-2 thriller at the Ndongo field.We opened the scoring and Upper Cu stains equalised and took the lead making it 2-1.We then squared it all up early in the second half and put in a late winner to seal the 3-2 victory.As the two teams changed leads, I had a straw hat that I gave to her when we opened the scoring.She later on got mad and gave it back to me, when we put in the winning goal.There was a Cup that all the teams in the Tiko region played for.There was a knockout competition that ended with the two remaining schools playing for the trophy come the 11 of February each year.The 11 of February is youth celebration day in Cameroon and each year there is a match past ceremony in the early morning periods and the soccer finals took place at the Holford Field in Tiko around 4pm.The whole school community took soccer very seriously.There was a game that we lost to Government school Likomba and the whole teaching staff were disappointed to the extend that the soccer team was lined up and lashed in front of the rest of the school pupils.Likomba,at that time had just recently gain full status as an institution on its own after successfully breaking away from Government School Ndongo.They had pupils only up to class five level.We had been a class seven school for a long time.It was the first encounter between the schools since the break up.They came and defeated us 1-0 in Ndongo field.Mbah Mukouri,he was a pupil of Upper Custains,although he lived in Ndongo camp made a mockery of us in Ndongo until we could get our revenge at Likomba field two months later.Another reason that the Likomba defeat was so disappointed to me was that the guys that they fielded as players were guys that we played pick up soccer with each time that both schools had a come-together.They were my friends,putting up new jerseys and beating us in plain daylight for everybody to see.We had some good rivalries with RCM Mutengene also.This was mainly during the knock-out stages of the competition.Missions schools, as they were referred to at the time,had a reputation for producing hot headed players.RCM Mutengene will arrived Ndongo Field with what amounted to a gangster squad but we will still trash them.Tiko town had some of the better teams around.I remember RCM(Roman Catholic Mission School) Tiko coming to Ndongo field and defeating us 1-0 with a team that included Agbor Hans.Agbor Hans is arguable the best soccer player to come out of the Tiko school system.He will go on to play with the Cameroonian national team, after having a brilliant career with First Division Side PWD Kumba.RCM came to Ndongo school while I was around class five.You could just see them beaming with confident,especially Agbor Hans.He scored a goal that is still sharp in my memory after all these years.The ball sailed as if it was heading out of play in the direction of our right goal post before twisting into the bottom right hand corner for the goal.Primary schools did not have nets on the goal post during the 70s.Ndongo has produce some very good players.Robert,who stayed with the head master was a star player from day one.He would later on play for CDC Tiko,a first division side at the time.In his debut for Government school Ndongo, the guy score four goals.He could take on defenders all by himself.We had guys like Dada,Mutengue,I hope these guys are still alive somewhere.Ndongo had its best run to the championship in 1973 while I was in class six.The was nothing special about the team when the school year started, but some members of the squad just bloomed unto prime time players as we begin the knockout stages of the school competition.We just dominated teams like Upper Custains,Government School Mondoni,RCM Mutengene until we made it to the finals.The finals was to be against RCM Tiko.I remember because RCM had an albino player in their team who was one of the better primary school players in those days.There was rumors that he had completed school the year before but stayed on with the soccer team to continue competitions.We had an all around quality team,but there had emerged during the year a certain right winger who pretty much had become the deciding factor in all our close matches.If you grew up attending primary school in the 60s and 70s, you could just tell the people who were the soccer players.They were much older.These were guys that helped their parents in the farms and pretty much had a life of their own,independent from their parents.They were mainly guys who never intended to further their education past primary school,with a few exceptions.Our star winger was different though,he was just a little bit bigger than us regular guys.We talked to him and hang out with him sometimes.The guy could play soccer,but we never knew that he would be carrying the whole team.Late into games,during the knock-out phase of the competition he will take on three defenders on the right flank,one after the other as we cheer him on.After taking on the defenders,he will then either place a perfect pass to one of our forward players for a goal or score himself from the right hand side of the field.We made it to the 1973 soccer finals and met RCM Tiko.We were clearly the underdogs,coming from Ndongo.Who are these guys?How did they make it this far?Everybody was asking at Holford field on the 11 of February.The soccer finals was usually the last event to cap out the other sporting events of the day.The "Cup"was the holy grail,that was what every school wanted to hold for a year.We held our own against a star studded RCM team.The guys could play and they were intimidating also.We weren't afraid though.We defended very well during the first half and it was all tied at 0-0.Midway through the second half we started gradually to dominate play.Our driving force,the right winger even provided us we a cross that lead to our lone goal after one of his classic runs down the right wing.We could not believe it.Ndongo was actually up by one goal to nil.You could hear people grumbling in the background.The Cup is going to the "bush".A funny thing happened though,time was up, but the referee refused to blow the final whistle.Ask anybody that attended Ndongo school during this period and they would narrate to you the story.The referee led the game go on for at least another 30 or to minutes.Incredible,places were getting dark.They just were going to deny us at all cost.During this extra extra time,our players were so exhausted that RCM got their equalising goal.Immediately they got the goal, the referee blow his final whistle,end of match.This were the days that ties were decided,not by extra time and the dreaded penalty shoot outs, but by replays.On the replay,RCM crushed us 4 nil.Four goals to zero, we knew we had the match won on the 11 of February but we were cheated, so our minds were not there on the day of the replay.That is how close we came to lifting the converted trophy but ended up with the runners up medal.Do you know how much we got for our second place effort?400fCFA.Good thing I was a brilliant young man.In the future I would be attending the famous Bilingual Grammar School in Buea and later on CCAS Kumba.Soccer trophies will sure be coming my way.