GAM FOOTBALL NEWS:
What makes a man’s standing taller, than his words?
They say ‘people with good intentions make promises, but people with good characters keep them’ – that’s the testimony of the story here in this piece.
Many months ago, back in November 2017, during the euphoria of the last Super Nawettan (Zonals) final between my favourites, BEM (Barra Essau Mayamba) team, whom I supported on the virtue of my ‘Nuimi’ roots, and Sukuta, whom he was also supporting for his connections to the area, he made a promise to me that if Sukuta lose the final he will donate two set of jerseys to two schools in the BEM zone. But unfortunately for me the BEM lost the final to my disappointment and the many other Nuiminkas who had all hoped to see the coveted trophy been ferried across the channels to the east of Banjul.
However, to exhume me from wallowing in my sadness, being the man he is, he offered to console me, and for the heroics of my dear BEM in their heart warming performances throughout the historic journey to their first ever finals in the completion, by extending his offer to instead donate two more jerseys to two schools in both the two zones in final.
This big hearted gesture is from none other than my good friend and mentor, Uncle George Francis Gomez. And yesterday he had kept his promise by donating two sets of jerseys donated by Kit Aid UK to two schools in Sukuta – the Sukuta Lower Basic School and Sukuta Sanchaba Lower Basic school. The donations also included two footballs to each school, which were donated by the members of Gam Football Fans Forum, a forum I created on Facebook along with some other friends a couple of years ago. The balls were collected through our Donate A Ball Campaign, which was launched in August 2015, where our members in the UK were asked to donate footballs during a charity football, which will then be sent to some of the less fortunate communities around The Gambia. In the first year we donated 50 balls, which was distributed by our partners at NORGA Holding company in 2016 and this time we sent 27 of the 30 balls we collected to George, who is also a member, to distribute accordingly across The Gambia.
George, who is without doubt a gentleman of complete integrity and generosity, has been a great contributor to the successes and the development of sports in The Gambia, both as a participating athlete in his youth and as an officer with both the Ministry of Youth and Sports of The Gambia and as the president of the then GFA (Gambia Football Association), whom he served as president in the early 1990s.
In his post this morning about the jersey donations, the former Gambian International wrote:
‘Today I fulfilled a promise I made during the Super Nawentan Tournament to donate jerseys to two schools in the area of the zones in the finals.
‘At the recommendation of the Sukuta Sports committee today I presented a set of KitAid football jerseys to Sukuta Lower Basic School and Sukuta Sanchaba Lower Basic school.
‘Each school also received a new ball donated by Omar Jatta, a Gambian from Juffuray in the North Bank and now resident in the UK.
‘Omar is very active supporting clubs, football academies and his region with sports wear.
‘The presentation this afternoon was witnessed by pupils and teachers from both schools and Officials and members of the Sukuta Sports committee.
‘The Executive committee of the Schools Mother’s Association also attended. This group was formed to help the school by organising fund raising events to support the school buy new furniture, repairs to toilets and once a week they converge in the school to clean the compound and toilets,” wrote George, before sharing his belief on giving a little back to local schools in The Gambia.
‘It is my believe that if we all give a little contribution and some of our time to help the schools in sports very soon the Gambia will excel in sports. Our Youths have natural skills just waiting to be harnessed.
On behalf of Gam Football Forum, we say a big thank you to George and Kit Aid UK as well as the Gam Football Forum memebrs who made the ball donations.
