Football update

My upstairs neighbors, Wilson and Arthur, and I went to a place called "Kickin' It" to watch the football last night. We paid our 5,000/= entry fee, good for beverages, grabbed chairs and sat looking at one of the four televisions (also one large screen) showing the match between Manchester and Wigan.

Some wonderful things about football: no time outs. A 45-minute half is a 45-minute half. Additionally, no commercials!

Furthermore, the objective and scoring is rather simple even if you don't know anything about it: get ball in net, score one point. Wilson would occasionally lean over to me and explain some fine point, which I could never hear or understand over the crowd, but I would just nod and say, "Ah."

As mentioned earlier, Chelsea needed to score more goals than Manchester to win the Premier League title. Alas, Chelsea played to a 1-1 draw (against Bolton, unlike what I previously reported) while Manchester beat Wigan 2-0. Manchester fans went crazy, jumping on chairs and singing, "Wee-oo, wee-oo wee-oo wee-oo." I can't say I was devastated by the loss. I'm not invested enough. But I'm mighty glad I went for the experience of it all.

Football countdown!

I have wangled an invitation from my upstairs neighbors, two Tanzanians working here for the year, to go with them to a sports bar in Kisamenti to see the football tonight. They have promised to explain what is going on. I shall report.

Another sign I have never seen in the U.S.

This is just steps away from my apartment in Bukoto and gets updated each weekend, or whenever the football games are on. You can see at the bottom that they charge 500 shillings (that's what that /= means) to see the match.



Personally, I have decided on Chelsea as my team of choice. Manchester United and Arsenal seem to be the two huge powerhouse teams, but Chelsea is in the top 4 and likely to be in the finals. Might as well jump on the bandwagon with a team that's likely to do well--unlike FULHAM, the next-to-last in the league and therefore likely to be OUT of the Premier League at the end of the season. (I kind of like this system; the bottom three teams get dumped to a lower level, while the top three at the next level down can come up to Premier League.) FULHAM! It's like rooting for the Giants, for Pete's sake.

Football

I've decided I need a football team--Premier League, I mean, a.k.a. soccer. Every day as I walk to work I pass a chalkboard posting who's playing at what time (often odd times as we are at GMT+3). The football matches are on televisions wherever you go, and radios blare games with Luganda commentary (very odd when the only words that make sense are "Chelsea" and "Arsenal"). So I've decided to do some research and pick a team to follow. If you have recommendations, I would be glad to hear them. Otherwise, I will keep you posted.