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Patentia.
There
was a real sense of excitement, but also some nervousness, amongst the
team as we climbed into two taxis and headed towards Patentia. Finally we
were to do some coaching, but what if no-one turned up, or the sessions we
had planned weren’t appropriate, or the heat proved to be too much? We
were, after all, going to do the sessions around 3pm – the time the
school-day finished, but also the hottest part of the day.
At the Hope centre, before the trip to Patentia
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We
had hoped that the young people from Patentia would travel up to the
West Dem
school, whose facilities had been made available for us to use. But a
mix-up with the school meant that our planned sessions with the young
people from Patentia on one day, with a session with the
West Dem
young people the following day had to be rearranged. So we climbed into 2
taxis, and away we went.
We
should have guessed that things wouldn’t run smoothly. About half-way
into the journey one of the cars was pulled over for speeding – the
officer with the speed gun was positioned in a dip in the road, and our
driver was caught fair-and-square. Thankfully our driver decided to pull
over – the officer with the automatic rifle looked like he knew how to
use it!! As the traffic officer walked over to us, the only words the driver said
to us were, “Don’t tell him I’m a taxi.” Was he really going to
try and convince the police that the two white men in the back were good friends of
his?!
While
the driver was out of the car we wondered what the fine was. Terry
expected it would be around $750 (Guy) – about £2.50 – half of our fare
to Patentia. But the driver came back looking far more depressed, and
finally he told us that he had been fined $7500 (Guy) and got points on
his licence. A £25 fine might not seem much to us, but it was 5 times the
fare he earned for this journey, and it would have to come straight out of
his pocket, because the firm he worked for certainly wouldn’t pay the
fine!! The brush with the law didn’t seem to affect his driving, though
– he still drove just as quickly, and we all wondered whether he would
get caught for exactly the same thing when he dropped us off and turned
around to head back to
Georgetown
!!
We
needn’t have worried about people not turning up – even as we arrived
around 1.30pm there were young people (who should have been at school but
weren’t) waiting for us, and the number slowly grew until they borrowed
some cricket equipment and started a game. Meanwhile Rich and Dave had a
look at the cricket pitch, and came back looking both frightened and
excited – if they used the proper pitch neither of them fancied batting
on it, because the ball would just go all over the place because of the
bumps and the cracks. But they wouldn’t mind having a bowl…
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Numbers
swelled after the school children arrived, and there must have been
between 60 and 70 when everyone was there. A real highlight of the day
came right at the beginning – as they were arriving we could see some of
the young people bringing some of the equipment that had been sent over
earlier in the year. It had obviously been well used, but also
well looked after, and we all agreed that it was good to see the equipment
was getting to where it was needed and appreciated.
Being introduced to the young
people
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Patentia
is most definitely a cricket area, so the numbers wanting to do cricket
far outweighed the numbers wanting to do football. We thought it best to
split the group into two, and do an hour with each group, so that everyone
did both football and cricket. It seemed to work well – the young people
were full of energy and enthusiasm, even in temperatures hitting the high
30s – and all the coaches seemed to be pleased with how the sessions
went.
We
structured the coaching sessions in a very straight-forward way. The
football sessions involved three different activities, each lasting
between 15 and 20 minutes, that the young people would do one at a time.
Each activity focused mainly on passing and controlling the ball, simply
because when we watched them play we saw that they were happy to try and
dribble round everyone before having a shot on goal!!
Warming
up the footballers
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Football drills
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The
cricket drills also focused on the basic activities – catching the ball,
throwing the ball accurately, bowling and batting – followed by a game
of “non-stop cricket”, where each young person without fail would try
and hit the ball over the fence, despite a plethora of fielders waiting to
take a catch!!
Cricket
drills
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'Owzat??!!!
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Catch it!!
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Keen to learn
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Ending the session
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All
in all it was a successful session, but all the coaches came away with
thoughts on how the next sessions could be done better.
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