January to April 2005
  
Sports News
 

Football Zonal Tournament: 15 - 26 February
The culmination of the first 6 months of the Hero Indian Sports Academy sponsored football programme at Magic Bus was two exciting zonal tournaments. The Dharavi children formed teams and held finals on 19th February while the south zone finals on were held on the 26th. A total of 435 children participated in the football matches and showed dedication and skill and rose to the excitement of the competition.


Impact of the Football Programme
Overwhelming team spirit has helped overcome community barriers. The children sit as a team and discuss tactics and hold practice sessions in addition to regular Magic Bus sessions. Football has also increased the children's communication with others who are not from the same neighbourhood (slum, pavement or lane). After the formation of the teams in January, the children sought their team members who live away from their homes. They were dialoguing, and planning according to team member's convenience, building consensus and playing on days other than the Magic Bus session days. During the reviews, quite a few children said, "We have made friends in Magic Bus"…. "We also don't fight…" Anger management and conflict resolution appear to be great achievements of the football programme.

Girls are getting more involved. The boys are accepting that the girls can play football and also play well. While earlier the boys were required to follow the Magic Bus ethos of equal opportunities for girls.

Now they freely acknowledge that girls should be allowed the opportunity and can build their stamina and skills for football. They are even verbally appreciating their skills. It was heartening to hear, "Nasreen Bano kya khelti hai" (Oh the way Nasreen Bano plays!), "Sapna and Pooja are good at passing….'.

Boris Becker visits the Football Programme
A great surprise for all of us at Magic Bus was a phone call on Thursday 24th February to ask if Boris Becker could visit the programme. He chanced upon the South Mumbai finals when the Cuff Parade team met the Dockyard Road team. Becker paid great attention to the final match and cheered the teams on. After the match, together with his colleagues Thomas Henke and Shailendra Singh of Percept D'Mark, Becker took to the field and to the game like the natural he is. All finalists received footballs as a gift from Becker. Further, he spoke to the press about his observations on the field and the importance of football at a grass root level in India.

 

Interzonal Football Tournament: 30 April
The interzonal football tournament between Dharavi and South Mumbai was sponsored by Hero Indian Sports Academy. The finals covered two matches i.e. the girl's finals and the boy's finals. Each team consisted of 20 players. The girl's final was between the Bubbly and the Bindaas teams. Bubbly won with 1-0. The boy's final was between the Cuffe Parade 1st Class and the Colaba Boys teams. Colaba Boys won with 2-1. Approximately, 350 children attended the finals to cheer the four teams. An interesting observation was that the children themselves did the commentary for both matches.