Soccer: Finding a Team

It was a massive bummer to leave my beloved soccer team back home and I had very little hope for being able to find any women that played in Alotau at all.

To my surprise and delight, Soccer is the number one sport among women here.

And a side note to the die hards and tragics out there; you’ll be pleased to know that they call it ‘football’

My first day of work had come and I decided that I’d try and make conversation with the Driver when he came to pick me up for the first time. I mentioned that I was keen to find a team and he obviously made it his personal mission to find me one.

And find me a team he did!

Thirty minutes later he said they had been thinking of some options.

One hour later they presented the team options to me depending on where I was looking to live and each team had been contacted to ask if they would take me.

Amazing how efficiently some things can happen here when others, not so much…

 

Getting recruited right, left and centre

All of a sudden everyone wanted a piece of me.

They had no idea whether I could actually play or not, but that didn’t seem to matter.

On my first weekend, I went out to watch a game. Several people approached me to ask what my story was and the all-important question – did I have a team!

It got to the stage where when being introduced to people on the street I would be met with responses like:

 “Yes I know you, you were the one who was going to play for our soccer team, but now you’re playing with that other team, why are you playing with them? You should be playing with us.”

I had never seen that guy in my life by the way.