Last Sunday I was watching a Division 2 Football Association of Zambia match. The game was tough and the home team was down by one goal to zero. The game was played in an open ground which meant that anyone can watch without paying. There was no crowd control and this proved to be a problem for the match officials who were being shouted at from both sides for what the spectators thought were wrong decisions.
As I was standing there watching the game, a group of six young ladies in their late teens or early twenties came and stood near where I was and immediately they started hurling bad words towards the opposing team. I remember seeing these same girls at the last match that I watched at the same venue last month. One of them,was more vocal than the others.
"Goalkeeper" she shouted. "How come you're so thin? Do you even eat?"
Her friends burst out in laughter.
This ground does not have a perimeter fence so the people watching the game stood a metre away from where the linesman was. The same girl who spoke earlier went and stood on the white line and was almost bumped into by the linesman as he ran following the direction of the ball.
The linesman had to speak to her. "My sister, would you mind moving back because I can hurt you," he said.
She answered back sarcastically. "Just step on me and see what happens. You're just making silly decisions."
One of the girls tried to reason with her. "This is a good man cos if he wanted to, he'd have just stepped on you and broke your leg but he had to avoid you and ask you politely to move away."
The game reached half time and the same girl now went near the bench of the visiting team and started teasing them as some players drank bottled mineral water.
"This is a poor team, you can't even afford to buy juice for the players?" she said.
Again, the same friend tried to reason with her. "They will beat you," she told her while trying to pull her away.
"Who can beat me? They can't beat me. I am a crazy person and I don't fear anyone."
Frankly, I was now getting irritated by her. She was getting on my nerves. If I stayed near her for another 10 minutes, I may just be forced to talk back at her so I did what was best for me and moved to another spot very far away from her. I could not hear what she was saying now but I could see that she was still talking and her friends were enjoying the show. Like me, a number of people moved away from that spot. She was just too annoying to ignore.
There was an appeal for a penalty from the home team which the referee brushed aside. For some reason, one of the defenders from the visiting team was sent off and I missed the incident which caused this because I was watching the game while at the same watching the drama by "Miss Crazy" on the touchline.
The visiting team was now losing it. Their patience with this girl was waning now that one of their players was sent off in suspicious circumstances. Then came the crunch, a penalty was awarded to the home team. They scored and the game was now level. The visiting team protested and the game was stopped briefly. "Miss Crazy" might have said something because one of the men from the bench of the visiting team stood up and approached the her angrily. She ran away and he went back and sat down on the bench.
"Thank goodness this girl has been chased." I thought to my self. But as I watched her, I saw her pick up two large stones and she approached the visiting team's bench. Some boys saw her and tried to warn the players but it was too late. She hurled one of the stones and hit one official in the back and started running away. A number of players from the bench chased her and within seconds she was caught.
One person scooped a handful of sand and threw it in her face. Then he started punching her in the face. Three or four men joined in and they kicked her in the ribs, kicked her legs, pulled her hair, and even pulled off one earring, ripping her ear. Blood started gushing out of her nose and mouth and she even peed in her pants. The young boys and girls seemed to like this and they cheered on.
No one intervened or tried to rescue her. She had obviously irritated a lot of people by her behavior and they thought she deserved what she was getting. Then a tall man wearing a grey weather coat came to her rescue and walked her out of the football pitch area onto the road. This pitch is situated just near the market place and in the middle of a residential area. In a short time a large crowd of young boys and girls gathered and started teasing and booing her.
This girl brought this beating on herself. She had no one to blame. She was well dressed, looking fresh and her hair was well done but there was definitely something wrong with her character. Either she was high on something or she was just a stupid delinquent. From the moment she came to that game, it was obvious that her intention was to cause trouble. She may have been doing this for a long time but this time fate was not on her side. I am sure wherever she went and people asked what happened and they were told that she was beaten by four men, their reaction must have been that of shock.
"Four men? Against one helpless young lady?"
If I had not witnessed the whole episode, I would have been incensed too if someone told me that four or five men had done this to her. Many times when people see a woman beaten by a man, they always conclude that he is a bad man. This young lady was insulting and provoking men for almost an hour and she was completely ignored. Everyone knows how volatile high density areas are when it comes to violence. A fight can break up at any time and you always have to watch what you say and at who you say it. If this was a man behaving like this, he would have been dealt with earlier than it took for her to be beaten but this young lady was tolerated because everyone knew that she was just probably drunk or high on weed and mostly because she was a female. Who would want to be seen fighting a woman over a game of football?
Some men are just violent and they beat women for no reason at all. These men deserve to be condemned but "Miss Crazy" just showed me why some women are beaten.
Image courtesy of Ambro freedigitalphotos.net
No comments:
Post a Comment