T&T...we want a goal!

14, Aug 2000
CARIB has stood firmly with the national football team. To date, it is the only corporate body to have done so. Others seem to be playing a waiting game. Clico's commitment has been limited to Team 2001 - the team being prepared for the Under-17 world tournament carded to be staged in this country next year.

Carib's role and contributions therefore have to be appreciated as we proceed - successfully, so far -in the World Cup qualifiers. It is to be expected that Carib would seek to obtain returns on their investment through increased sales of beer at home games and at the celebrations in St James after each victory. No problem; quite in order and quite acceptable. You give, and you get.

It is time, however, to sound a warning. That Carib ad: "Go T&T, show them what you got", shall not (never!) be made our war cry for coming games. It matters not how many times Denise Plummer and/or Jumbo, the nuts vendor, try to push it - running up and down and to and fro before the covered stands.

The music to that ad is all wrong. It is too "plastic", too devoid of our natural rhythm. It is tasteless and insipid, and to make matters worse, there are those girls in blue pushing out their "fronts" (as the old people were wont to say) to the words "show them what we got". That is not what we've got! Nor what we would like to have. This is serious business.

We said elsewhere, when the nations of the world are arrayed against each other in the Cup finals, the intensity of the passion shown seems to suggest the games are almost a substitute for war. It is when the colours and flags of nations come to the fore and every single jot, every iota, of psychological advantage is deemed crucial and brought to bear on proceedings.

Such trooping of colours demands fierce loyalty. Millions of people gird themselves for the agony and ecstasy produced by this beautiful game of inner rhythm and poetry: harmony between player and player, patriot and ball, in attack and defence. It is about blood and sand! Catpiss and pepper!

It is the game given to the world by the British working-class, a game in which each player, each patriot, stands stripped of all social baggage, devoid of all irrelevancies, with only that which count, namely - innate skill, gait and poise, special talent, discipline in craft and power of concentration.

"Ball, boy!" the crowd shouts in salutations. It is not a team that goes to the World Cup finals, the European coach advised T&T's technical officials in '89. It is an entire country. Not only the team, but the entire country has to be ready.

That is why we will never accept a rallying-song like the insipid "Go T&T, show them what you got", which is so utterly devoid of our country's instinctive rhythms and soul.

Over the years, the expression which has emerged in song befitting this country's footballing psyche has been, "T&T, we want a goal!" and, in times of great urgency, the intense chant, "We want one more, we want one more!"

There have been, in the past, certain variations to this theme song which made our collective hair stand on end, so to speak. But, unfortunately, very little was ever recorded.

One recalls a CIC (St Mary's) versus St Benedict's Intercol final at Skinner Park, to which CIC was accompanied by one single bugler who was a member of the Cadet Band. He was a student from somewhere in Petit Bourg. A virtual unknown or "ghost" at the college, maybe, because he was a non-Catholic and never participated in college affairs until that eventful day.

He blew jazzy-calypso variations on the theme of "CIC, we want ah goal!" that were as creative as anything the likes of a Charlie "Yardbird" Parker would have done. He blew riffs no one had heard before, nor since. He blew us into a frenzy, but no one knew him.

Charlie Davis, who went on to become the famous West Indian cricketer-batsman, played for CIC on the right flank that day and had the game of his life.

On the Monday, he confessed to classmates that the bugle-playing was the most inspiring and motivating he had ever heard. "Who was he?" Davis asked. The reply? "Ah fella from Petit Bourg."

There is a view that the greatest contributions to social development and special historic moments always tend to come from the creative stirrings of faceless, nameless wanderers, unknowns who suddenly rise to the occasion and stimulate everybody.

Our natural rallying-songs and war-cries shall never come from the covered stands at the Stadium which, when filled with middle-class locals, can easily be drowned out by ten Mexican supporters, even during the singing of the National Anthems before the kick-off. What we chant shall come from the "grounds", most likely from those of us "over the line" and "under the clock".

There's a lot more for this nation to learn from our Intercol history. There were certain nuances to chants, relative to what was happening on the field. For example, any opposing player who, in today's parlance, "dived" brought the response: "He faking, he faking!"

If, though, there seemed to be some minor injury which one felt was being deliberately exaggerated, the response in song usually would be: "Oh dear, what can the matter be?"

This was sung in a sarcastic tone, painting the picture of some bruised little girl being attended to by her father. Its insinuation that the player was being "effeminate" forced him to rise and get on with the game.

But that was only one version of this song. The other would be sung when the opposing team was being battered into total defeat and dejection. In which case, the tone adopted was one of wild-eye wonder, or forlorn bewilderment laced with provocative needling: "Oh dear, what can the matter be?"

Mind you, this is not a joke. Not only have we, as a people, lost our creative ability to compose relative to what's happening before our eyes, but we seem to have lost also the will power to sustain our natural rhythms of support for extensive periods.

A serious indictment. It is probably akin to the dietary difference between "chicken and chips" of today and "flour-pap, farine and dasheen" of yesteryear. We have weakened, both creatively and physically. See you over the line on Wednesday, when we shall demand constant jamming against the Panamanians.