The Crabs of Bangui

Chapter Thirty

199 Chapter Thirty B efore they left Kekem Cranford announced, to the excitement of everybody: “The Abakwa boys are on the podium today. They play Union Douala in Akwa stadium.” “If we arrive in good time, maybe we can make a brief stop there and see what they are up to.” “Make it an order, boss,” Pa Merengieh stepped in. “Just imagine what a boost that would be to their morale if those boys suddenly saw this bunch of North West dignitaries strolling into the stadium to watch them perform…” It was concluded. They would hastily check into the hotel where Hansel had already made the reservations, brush up and then go to the field to cheer the Abakwa Boys up. Luckily the rain had not yet started falling in Douala, although the sky was darkening fast with thick nimbus clouds shrouding the rays of the sun. In Pa Merengieh’s car the talk was all about football. Merengieh himself had been a very good defenseman in his younger days. Playing in several Second Division teams he had ended up with P.W.D, the team he had come to love passionately, fanatically even. In old age he was a die-hard fan, a patron of the darling First Division Team for the Province – P.W.D., Abakwa Boys, or simply “P” as it was fondly called. Everybody seemed to support the team, including Madam Genevieve who maintained a discreet silence over many of the topics raised by the men. Pa Merengieh had a stock of old stories about the team. He recalled that in a certain match P.W.D. needed just one point to avoid relegation to the Second Division, and it was 200 Linus T. Asong going to play Canon F.C. which also needed just one point to clinch the championship. Since match-fixing was the rule rather than the exception in Cameroon football, the two teams needed to sit down and discuss and end up with a draw. But Canon, being a superior team thought it could make some money for itself: when the manager of P.W.D. approached the manager of Canon, the latter said P.W.D. must pay one million francs or face obvious relegation. The P.W.D. manager offered 500,000 francs, then six hundred, seven hundred and finally eight hundred. The Canon manager would not budge from the one million. In the end, the P.W.D. manager rallied his boys and explained: “We have offered them up to eight hundred thousand, but they would not accept. All our patrons have been consulted but we cannot get more than this. This is my suggestion, I will give five hundred thousand to the coach. Anybody who scores a goal gets one hundred thousand even before they centre the ball.” Here he laughed for a very long time and continued with watering eyes: “The first goal for P was scored from a corner kick, by the goal keeper of P. who headed the ball into the net and went for his money before returning to his goal. By half time P. was leading two zero. The manager of Canon looked and finally located the manager of P. “What was it you proposed?” The man smiled to himself and said: “Let’s wait for the end of the game. P won by a margin of two goals to one.” Agenmendia, another fanatic and patron recalled an incident in which, noticing the wretchedness of the team he gave them one hundred thousand francs to purchase a new set of jerseys so as to look impressive. The very next weekend the team appeared still looking just as wretched as ever. After the match he invited the manager to reprimand him for lack of seriousness with the team. 201 The Crabs of Bangui ‘I don’t see why you would take money and sit on it while jerseys are decaying on players’ backs.” “I did not sit on the money, pa,” the manager said. “But there is no evidence that you used it well. What did you do with the money?” ‘I knew that what was important, pa, was a victory, so instead of buying new jerseys and losing the match, we gave the money to the referee. You can see how easily we won.” There was another laugh. *** They entered Douala in the early hours of the afternoon. As usual they...