TRIALS OF A ZSL FAN- SHOULD LOCAL FOOTBALL TAKE PRESEDENCE OVER FOREIGN IN LOCAL BARS? Over the weekend I was assigned to go and cover the Japanese Ambassadors Judo tournament at Olympic Youth Development center (OYDC). So when I went out to get myself some late lunch at around 15:20 I happened to pass through a lodge near OYDC. Inside the restaurant I found a bar with a TV showing the match between Arsenal vs Westbrom. The restaurant was full. Itching to catch a glimpse of the Zesco vs Nkana match I asked the people at the Bar to change the channel. They said that if I asked the patrons to change and they agreed they would have no problem. So I went round practically every place were people were sitting and asked them, surprisingly all agreed to change the channel, infact they were even surprised that there was a final between the two teams. After everyone agreed I walked to the reception and asked the receptionist to change the channel since he controlled the channels. For one reason or the other I waited more than 10 minutes and e channel was not changed. Luckily there were three other Nkana Fc fans who were staying at the lodge and they entered the reception and complained that there was no way they could miss the match. Only then was the channel changed. You can imagine that the change of the channel to the Barclays Cup final was greeted with Cheers. It left me wondering though that had it been another EPL match it would not have been such an issue. But there has been a huge improvement from four years back. Four years ago I happened to be attending a conference at Fairview hotel and Zambia was playing Tanzania in the opening of the Cecafa cup. Amazingly the patrons that day refused to watch the Zambia game opting to watch Arsenal. Forward to today and non of the patrons which included Arsenal fans even objected to watching the Barclays cup final, infact many wanted to see sate Sate, Nyambe Mulenga. Is after you read this that you realize that Zambian football is growing and has an exciting future. A question that can be asked though is should Zambian league games take precedence in bars if there are fans willing to watch it?
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 08:39:56 +0000
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