Smile, Trinidad and Tobago
By Raoul Pantin (Trinidad Express)
To say that I have been overwhelmed by the popular reaction to Trinidad and Tobago's football victory over Bahrain last Wednesday is to put it mildly.
Not being a sports fan, I made little pretence over the past few months of following the ups-and-downs of our bid to enter the World Cup in Germany next year.
If the truth be told, I didn't really believe it was ever going to happen. The one and only time I felt even slightly enthused by our World Cup chances was that fateful game we played, and lost, against the United States way back in 1989.
I had been caught up, like so many of us, in the hype that preceded that game and like so many of us I was crushingly disappointed by the result. Thereafter, I simply lost all interest and remained indifferent to whatever the results of our various World Cup bids over the ensuing years.
When, this time around, it came down to the final playoffs against Bahrain, I remained very much in the dark. I had absolutely no idea how Bahrain rated as a football challenge-and even if they didn't rank very high, I really didn't think we would be victorious in the end.
But just about everybody else I knew was following each game with such fervid interest that I couldn't help but feel from time to time that I was missing out on something.
I refused, nevertheless, to allow myself to get carried away, convinced as I was that the whole thing would simply result in crushing disappointment. Again.
When Bahrain came to Trinidad to play one of its two scheduled matches against us, I didn't even follow the game. When I heard the results-a goal each scored by both sides-I shrugged. It didn't, to my mind, change the price of cocoa or hint at any future glory to come.
By the time it came down to last Wednesday's game in Bahrain, however, I could hardly help but avoid noticing the fever pitch of excitement and of anticipation that was developing all around me.
When, last Wednesday, I boarded a taxi for the trip to Port of Spain, every passenger in the car was anxious to hear the game being broadcast over the radio. The driver wasn't certain what station was broadcasting the game and he spent some time finding it.
The first few snippets I heard didn't sound very exciting or very promising. No goals had been scored. The commentators were saying that Trinidad and Tobago was dominating the game, but even they didn't seem too enthused. It was almost as though they were preparing themselves for disappointment in advance.
I half-listened to the commentary. There was certainly no hint of what was to come.
By the time I got to the Express, however, the excitement level was so palpable, you could reach out and touch it. The game was now being followed on television-and the entire editorial department wasn't just watching the game, they were offering advice, cajoling the players, even hurling empty threats at some of the antics of the Bahrainis.
Listening to some of this evocative commentary, it struck me that some of our reporting staff considered themselves better football experts, and even players, than the people actually out on the field.
It was pointless trying to get any work done in such a fevered atmosphere so I surrendered to the din and watched the progress of the game in snatches. It didn't seem to me to be a very exciting match. The players were obviously getting more and more worked up but not a lot was being accomplished.
I stepped away from the editorial department for a few moments and then heard such a roar going up that I knew Trinidad and Tobago had scored a goal. The excitement all around me was astonishing.
People were shouting, screaming, jumping up and down, and generally carrying on as though they, each one of them, had individually scored the goal on their own.
I tried following the rest of the game without much success. And when the Bahrain player kicked the ball out of the Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper's hands and pushed the ball into our goal, there was such a furore in the editorial department that I was certain people might harm themselves.
Of course I had no idea whether such a goal was valid or not-a point of view that was quickly informed by the vehement comments of the "experts" all around me. And for the first time I also sensed the desperation that was setting in among the Bahrain players.
When I saw a couple objects (seat covers I subsequently learnt) thrown on to the field from the audience, I feared that the whole thing might end in a violent fiasco. I'd earlier witnessed what seemed to me like a couple scuffles on the field. This thing, I thought, could end in a disaster.
But the match was played to the end and when the referee blew the final whistle, the uproar in the editorial department hit a new and fevered height. We'd won. We would be going on to the World Cup in Germany next year.
And within minutes of that match coming to an end, the uproar transferred itself to the streets outside. Cars flew past with lights blazing and horns honking. National flags flew from hundreds of hands. Schoolchildren, boys and girls, danced in the streets.
I drifted down to Independence Square to get a first-hand look. People all over the streets were smiling from ear to ear. I had not witnessed such a joyous moment in this country in a long, long time.
And as the afternoon wore on, this merriment increased. I could imagine that by nightfall, people would be celebrating from one end of the country to the other-as indeed they were doing for the next few days.
Suddenly, in one magic moment, it was as though all our divisions of class and race and politics had been cast aside and an unprecedented moment of national unity had been wrought-by, of all things, a victory in a football game.
Even Prime Minister Patrick Manning admitted to this in one of his congratulatory speeches. That football team, Mr Manning conceded, had been able to infuse a sense of national unity that not even the politicians had been able to achieve.
Long may it last!
