Play for the Young

Editorial:-

Sikkim is notorious for its disregard for the young. Of course, there are the routine gestures and lip service claiming to look out for their interest, but fact remains that the society at large has remained consistently inconsiderate when it comes to the young. Examples of this thoughtlessness abound, and around Gangtok it takes on a wicked form with such places as “Old West Point School Private Bus Stand” [there is neither a school nor even a bus stand there anymore] and “Old Children’s Park taxi stand”. These are but examples of two spaces which were meant for children, but were taken over to accommodate adult excesses. The State Government had announced a welcome initiative some years back of establishing a playground at every government school and in every village. This, unfortunately, appears to have become one of the initiatives which got sidelined in the post-earthquake set of priorities. Hopefully the new government will return to this task. And like always, we digress. The young were remembered here with regard to the ongoing second division football qualifiers being played in Gangtok. Thirty teams have signed up for this tournament, many, as the hammerings some teams have received, clearly motivated by passion and not so much by skill. And this is a good sign. A tournament like this would not have received such a large participation some years back. The young, despite our efforts to steal spaces from them, are still playing, are still interested in sports and still capable of forming teams and clubs. This spirit needs to be nurtured, and that will require collaboration, but one does not see a lot of that happening. Take the tournament mentioned for instance, the football clubs association of Sikkim has thumbed down Sikkim Football Association’s organization of the tourney. FCAS has raised valid points and SFA has clearly done a halfhearted job of this tourney. But when FCAS criticizes SFA, it does not make anyone in Sikkim, especially not the footballers, any wiser because there is nothing new in what they said, SFA, as they say, “is like this only”. But that does not mean that all hope be abandoned, instead, a different approach needs to be explored – that of collaboration. Instead of public criticism, a nudge to make better arrangements would have sufficed and if SFA still remained unmindful, a much stronger public rebuke should have come because even if one keeps aside the larger interests of the sport, how the tournament is organized still affects 330 [counting only the playing elevens] young players and the need to treat them with respect and fairly. Professionals showing up for a match is expected because to play is their job, but when the young put together 30 teams and show up on the ground, they deserve appreciation because in their case it is purely passion and love for the game. The least that SFA can do for them is treat them to a professionally organized tournament. As for the rest of us, we could at least give the teams a respectable crowd for their matches. Imagine how special the experience would be for these players if, apart from the organizers doing a proper job, they actually had spectators cheering their game!