World Cup fever, Cambodian-style

It’s June, it’s the World Cup, and the dusty streets of Sisophon are, well, exactly as they were before.

Whilst the eyes of the world are on South Africa, the sporting preference of our average Khmer punter remains resolutely fixed on volleyball, cockfighting and flipflop pétanque. But last Saturday all this started to change…

VSO are supporting the www.1goal.org campaign, inspired by the historic first World Cup on African soil, and the conference of world leaders shortly afterwards. The campaign’s aim is simple: ‘education for all’. Shockingly, 73 million children in poor countries in Africa and Asia still don’t have access to a basic education. The campaign calls on leaders from developed nations to keep their promises on aid and for developing nations to invest in education.

I thought it might be a nice idea if we could arrange a football match in Sisophon to support the campaign, raising awareness of the message and gathering signatures. I figured it would be an even better plan to disappear to the other side of the country and persuade Jen, a young and enthusiastic education volunteer, to arrange the match whilst I was away. To my surprise she agreed, and set to work with gusto. After all, how difficult can it be to arrange a little kick around?

Well firstly, permission was needed to play on the main pitch in the town, a scruffy patch of land with branches lashed together as goalposts and a surface as smooth as national route 16 (that’s the bumpy dirt track to Thmar Puok). And we are also keen to leave something sustainable after the match is over – perhaps some new goalposts and nets.

The initial response is dispiriting – it appears that the ground has been sold by the local authority to a bank for development (scandalous, though I fear such shameful sell-outs aren’t limited to this country). And we learn that half the volunteer community – the Peace Corps, so the younger, fitter half– are off to Angkor Wat that weekend and can’t play.

But things improve – the director calls back to say he has spoken to the bank manager, we can play on the pitch, and he positively insists on having new goalposts – hurrah!

The opposition are the Provincial Office of Education, who boast a thriving sports department, so our rag-bag bunch of volunteers and local staff are a little intimidated. We arrange a practice match for 8am the day before, when it will be relatively cool. No-one turns up of course, and actually we didn’t actually have a ball, but we do manage to find each other for some ‘team-building and tactical analysis’ over omelettes in a local café. Later in the morning we even make it onto the pitch, having bought said ball, just in time to allow a group of laughing children to run rings round us.

In the afternoon I link with a local Khmer worker, Samut, who gives me an object lesson in how to get things sorted, Cambodian-style. New goalposts are manufactured and erected within hours. Sand to improve the penalty areas arrives within just 15 minutes of being ordered. The education department magic up some chalk to paint new lines. Alison even persuades some kids to pick up litter. The prejudice of many westerners is that Cambodians tend, frankly, to be lazy – they can certainly sleep at the drop of a pointy hat - but when they decide to do something, it happens at amazing speed. It’s impressive and frankly rather bewildering.

So, just a week after the initial idea was floated, the big day arrives! The education department are at it early: by 7am they have set up a tent, public address system, rows of red plastic chairs, and a range of banners (even if they miss the point a bit, focussing on the dire consequences of drug-taking). A parcel arrives from VSO with t-shirts for the teams and 20 footballs as raffle prizes. There’s even an ‘ice cream van’ (frozen condensed-milk on sticks from a tuc-tuc).

The arts school opposite arrive with a traditional band, and Paul, a volunteer music teacher, appears with his trumpet and serenades us with God Save Our Queen and The Great Escape. Kids from the school pack the touch line, and players bow to the respected guests. We even have a proper ref and try that thing where everyone shakes hands with everyone else. It doesn’t quite work as we don’t know when to stop shaking hands, but it’s a nice idea.

And then we’re off! To be honest the actual standard of the football itself is pretty modest – the opposition turns out to be of a certain age (and weight), and the VSO select team were clearly not selected for anything as logical as having played football before. But it’s great fun, hundreds of supporters and music, laughter, clapping and shouting from all around the ground.

So what did all this achieve?
* The 'Education for All' message was presented to hundreds of people in Sisophon, and we got an outstanding 340 signatures for the education petition (perhaps helped by the persuasive power of 20 footballs being raffled off at the same time)
* Relationships with the Provincial Office of Education were developed greatly, very good news for education volunteers in the province
* VSO enjoyed excellent publicity - the t-shirts and banner were prominently displayed, the footballs were very much appreciated, and volunteers from different programme areas (education and health) showed we can work really well together on a joint project
* The users of the football pitch - local kids and the Sisophon City team, now have a much better pitch, with litter cleared, sand laid and new goalposts and nets, which will be a lasting legacy of the event. I also hope that by encouraging the community to use the land, it more likely to remain there for them to use it, not to be taken over by another bloody bank
* And all of us had a great time
* And we won 6-4, with Oly Shipp the hatrick hero – result!