Who a " proverbial football start to roll "
Long time a go we put a little article in a local newspaper in Schoten , Belgium . A few days later , we received a phonecall from Catherina Jelders with the question we could do anything with footballequipments for our "black boys" in The Gambia . She and her husband were members of Simikos a footballteam in Schoten , Belgium . After a board-meeting the president of Simikos , Mr Jan De Veuster , give a positif answer ! A few weeks later we went to Simikos . With a car full of footballmaterials we return home .
Our next trip to The Gambia we took all the materials with us ..
One day , we met Mohammed , a student of the Bijilo Lower Basic School . He look glorious :
they played football !
The single problem : they haven't only a old ball , not shirts .......
The next day we visited the coatches of the teams of the Bijilo Lower Basic School .
After a long talk we gave them footballequipments for a few teams . Mr Demba M Bah and
Mr Landing Bah were on top of the world when they saw all this materials .
During the same week they played a footballmatch to show us there appreciation.
We still hade footbalmaterials for 2 youth-teams .The coatch of Kema-Konto was told by his
son what Belgium peoples gave to his school .
He came to us and after a little talk we maked an appointment to travel to his village on the
Northbank . In this village peoples saw never a white man ! Everybody was upside down ,
when they saw all the footballmaterials . The appreciation by the youth , coatches , parents
.....was gigantic ! By way of thanks the youth-team played a footballmatch for us in a
burning heat ....
Back home in Belgium , we received against a phonecall from Catherina Jelders :
there was a pleasant surprise awaiting ! New equipments
! This time big shirts . Also this gift we took with us to the Gambia .
and give it to the city-team of Kema-Konto.
Also this team was very thankfull and also they played a match for us against the team of a
neighbouring village .......... The "yellow-black" team won the match ......
Regulary we receive footballequipments , football boots , kit bag , shinguard .........
from VK Simikos from Schoten . After all what VK Simikos did out of solidarity for our
"black" friends in The Gambia it became clear to us they really deserved
the very rarely CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION distribute in The Gambia .