Relaxing before the match beginsI am looking after the team from Bahrain and so have taken a crash course in Muslim etiquette and Arabic - six words goes a long way*! Luckily a lot of smiling and miming crosses the language barrier. My "girls" are allocated to Division 2 alongside Argentina, Greece and Ireland 1.
The round-robin tournament started today and as Bahrain aren't playing until the afternoon, I have a temporary role as a "runner" i.e. helping out where needed. At lunchtime I revert to my usual role - "staging", which means I look after a team until they go on court to play**. As my charges are a lively bunch, I have to do a lot of chasing around to keep the team together!!
One of my best experiences so far is when I lead the team onto the court to play Ireland. It's a packed crowd and everyone cheers when the teams are led out to the sound of Queen's "We are the Champions". It turns out to be one of the best games of the day with Ireland just having the edge***.
* = hello, goodbye, please, thank you, hurry and washroom. The last 2 words were needed frequently as my charges got extremely nervous and were forever in the changing rooms. I got them courtside on time by the skin of my teeth most days
** = where I would handover to "field of play" and watch the match from the sidelines if I wasn't needed as a runner. After the game I'd return to my charges and look after them in the rest area, or courtside, or make sure they got on their coach back to their hotel depending on their itinery for the day
*** = Bahrain were a more all round team, but Ireland 1 had one key player. All the team had to do was to get the ball and hand it to her, where she'd run rings around everyone. Naturally, the home crowd loved her and she became quite a star, appearing regularly on Irish TV and being hounded for autographs everywhere she went. I got asked for my autograph too by many Irish schoolchildren. On one memorable occasion I said 'But I'm nobody', only for another child to shout 'Hey Nobody, can I have your autograph?'
Click here for Day 6.
The round-robin tournament started today and as Bahrain aren't playing until the afternoon, I have a temporary role as a "runner" i.e. helping out where needed. At lunchtime I revert to my usual role - "staging", which means I look after a team until they go on court to play**. As my charges are a lively bunch, I have to do a lot of chasing around to keep the team together!!
One of my best experiences so far is when I lead the team onto the court to play Ireland. It's a packed crowd and everyone cheers when the teams are led out to the sound of Queen's "We are the Champions". It turns out to be one of the best games of the day with Ireland just having the edge***.
* = hello, goodbye, please, thank you, hurry and washroom. The last 2 words were needed frequently as my charges got extremely nervous and were forever in the changing rooms. I got them courtside on time by the skin of my teeth most days
** = where I would handover to "field of play" and watch the match from the sidelines if I wasn't needed as a runner. After the game I'd return to my charges and look after them in the rest area, or courtside, or make sure they got on their coach back to their hotel depending on their itinery for the day
*** = Bahrain were a more all round team, but Ireland 1 had one key player. All the team had to do was to get the ball and hand it to her, where she'd run rings around everyone. Naturally, the home crowd loved her and she became quite a star, appearing regularly on Irish TV and being hounded for autographs everywhere she went. I got asked for my autograph too by many Irish schoolchildren. On one memorable occasion I said 'But I'm nobody', only for another child to shout 'Hey Nobody, can I have your autograph?'
Click here for Day 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment