An Experiment With Football # 7

Are you surprised to see a basket-ball court ? We were also surprised to find such a beautiful court in the outskirts of Udaipur town. Well its part of 'Khelgaon', a government project to encourage sports in Rajasthan and still is under construction.
It has got no football grounds. The nearby villagers play cricket inside the basketball court and at times the security guard does come running behind them, but who listens. We took permission from the sarpanch and began our 1st day at the new village 'Kaali Magri'. Kranti Football had its first volunteer ---- Harish Kotagiri (https://www.facebook.com/kotagiri.harish) on court today. Harish Kotagiri is going to train 'Kaali Magri' kids to play football. 

Amazing girls I must say. They had played football earlier. Raghunath Pura is just 2km far away from Kaali Magri, but the difference in the infrastructure available, the exposure these kids earlier had is quite visible to us on the very first day. Few even challenged me to snatch the ball away from them and were successful. I am mighty impressed, a lot of confidence, I must say. 

On the left hand-side, Harish Kotagiri watches the guys play. Harish had played football earlier at college and university level. He is left-footed has been trained by professionals, hence Kranti Football brought him in to help the kids understand the football nuances. He is now responsible for the teams that come up from Kaali Magri. The idea is similar that to create a lot of masti, fun and thrill while playing. It doesn't begin with lot of running, sprints, exercises and tiring stuff. 

Harish mentions he sees a lot of potential in them. On the first day, all of us kicked the ball around. It is complete chaos, when a crowd of 25-30 people kick around the ball. If you observe, they are playing with a new Nivea ball. We slowly find the need to get few more footballs and basic things essential to play the game, probably a whistle, marker etc.
It's always great, when you begin, we need to make it sustainable and keep the energy-level always at a high. 

Most of the girls study in the nearby government school. They are not well versed with English, but unlike girls from Raghunath Pura, they are not forced into household work. I see such a stark difference in their lives and as I said a mere 2km of distance separates these 2 villages. It's also surprising to learn that many of them dn't know where the nearest village is. Hence we see football providing them with a platform where they get exposed to the outer-world, play the beautiful game and gain confidence, achieve and be proud of themselves. 

I love this snap !!

Now back to Raghunath Pura. The space where we played once is now ploughed. The tractor has done it's work. We search for a new space to play and finally found one with the help of sarpanch's son. They tell me that the ground now we use is unoccupied and won't be ploughed. I am not sure, if we loose this space where shall we go to play? But today we play and we play good on this plain ground. Yes the new ground is plain. It has thorns, but its manageable. Imagine at Raghunath Pura --- a unoccupied field full of thorns and at Kaali Magri ------ a beautiful basketball court. It's so unfair, wish I could take these kids out there. We need to talk to their parents. 

Basanti (L) and Hema (R) have become regulars. They come down at time and help me in organizing other little girls. Settling into a routine, here the captains take their turns in attacking, defending and organizing their team. To be very honest, they do not have that control over the ball. But come on, it's been just a week, what do we expect them to do? I love the smile, when a pass goes right, when I give them a pat on their back. But I even take them out of the game, if they are giggling, throwing stones at each other. 

Few of the them have started picking up the game real fast !!

To keep it interesting, we have this dribbling game. They find it real amusing to spell out the word 'dribbling'. It's a long way to go from here. But we shall keep trying and train these kids to play better football everyday and enjoy their beautiful evenings !! Adios !!