A day of glory…

It is now old hat over here in the Solomon Islands, but as the news is very unlikely to have reached your ears, I’ll risk boring myself by repeating it:

CBSI: Interbank Soccer and Overall Champions 2007

After 16 years of hurt, in which time the prized Interbank football trophy was passed between the hands of the National Bank of Solomon Islands (NBSI) and NPF (National Provident Fund), CBSI have now won the trophy two years on the trot. Might not seem like much, but this is a big deal over here, and the events of last Monday are still being talked about and sang about and the photos spliced together into slide show sequences with suitably rousing music as a backing. As everyone has been saying, win the soccer trophy one more time and we get to keep it. For eva!

The day wasn’t just about football (using the word soccer once was plenty I’ll think you’ll agree). From the opening ceremony at the crack of dawn (while I was safely tucked up in bed) to the presentation of trophies at dusk, it was non-stop crazy sporting action with at least three events going on at any one time: management relay; netball; volleyball; football; touch rugby and tug-of-war. There were even games for pikininis which accumulated points for the overall tally, and quite sensibly these were scheduled during the one hour of rest at lunchtime, when the blazing sun was its zenith (fortunately didn’t’ diminish the usual hilarity of the sack race and three-legged race). There were several notable performances on the day, and the tug-of-war particularly tickled my fancy; the sight of gangs of tiny pikininis dancing like pixies around some of the heavy-weight giants, clapping their hands and egging them on as they grunted and puffed in slow motion. But the football was the (unspoken) crowning glory.

The hero of the hour, in my mind at least, was our young maintenance guy Bernard (who reminds me of one London friend in body language and grin – I’ll leave it to iufala to guess who I mean). Unlike the rest of the bank workers he’s not had an education, and is pretty shy around the team (who in general are loud-mouth jokers). In the practice games his contribution was not particularly noteworthy, but this was always after a long day doing physical labour up on the ridges somewhere. On the day of the tournament however, the sun beating down with a sickening vengeance, our man ran around like a nutter, getting kicked all over the place, scoring a couple of goals and winning the decisive penalty in the final game. Most heroic of all, in the last game, as he went up for a header, he was caught full in the cheekbone by the deliberate flying elbow of an opposition player and was sent sprawling. If it had been any of our other players fouled, in particular for example the governor or one of the managers, the guy would have been sent off straight away. But because it was just Bernard the game carried on, none of the opposition checked to see if he was alright and once he had picked himself dazed off the grass and shaken his head a couple of times, he carried on playing with a huge egg growing under his eye and without even a hint of complaint. A warrior.

After we’d won our final game of football the drinks were cracked open and everyone proceeded to get immediately and rapidly pissed; in some aspects at least, it’s reassuring to observe, sport here shares some important characteristics with English traditions.

Photos from top: some of the victorious team in front of the CBSI tent; CBSI Governor Rick Hou with two pikininis; tug-of-war or "battle of the giants" as it is referred to here; Our man Bernard alongside Richard the receptionist; Sol brew time (including my boss Vinnie in the gold vest).

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