I Am Woman
They never had a woman football team at my secondary school, Spanish Town Comprehensive High, so I learned to play football with the boys. I was like a tomboy growing up in Fraser’s Content, Spanish Town, but the boys never told me to come off the field or anything like that.
I really started playing football after I left school when a girl I knew told me to come and play with a woman’s team at Maverley. When I started to play, I played wing back, on the right, and I spent a year playing for that team. After a while, that team broke down, and friend Shamari suggested we leave Maverley. We were there for a year when the club fell apart, and Shamari so said, “let’s go see what a gwaan with Harbour View”. We both left and went to play for Harbour View, and there they put me to play stopper.
At Harbour View, the vibes were right, although you know how woman stay, miserable and such, but the vibes were there, and all who follow the girls’ league love how we play.
Last year they gave me the captain, and we won this same knockout competition. Am I a good captain? I tell you this, sometimes I get confused and frustrated, because sometimes the girls go out and don’t play the way they train.
But then again, it’s my job to manage that, so I just deal with it. Sometimes you have to talk to them; sometimes you have to rough them up and all of that, because you know, football is a man game, so sometimes you have to get rough.
It definitely feels good when you play a big side, and score first on them or when you win a match.
Like the match last week. Early out, we scored two on them, and the way we were playing, I thought we were going to have a clear win.
Then I got a cramp on my hamstring, so I came off the field. Not even a minute later, Shelliana Johnson, with two of Barbican forwards coming on her, should have just toe the ball to the keeper or send it out so we could get the corner.
But she tried to stop the ball to clear it and the whole situation bubble up on her and they took it away and scored. This all happened in the space of five minutes of my coming off the field. You see that? That made me feel a way. I was feeling so miserable, and I was cussing and all, because Shelli knows better, and she is a much better player than that.
Then they scored again, and made it 2-2, near the end of regular time. So we went to extra time, and nobody scored, so it was into penalties.
At the end of the game, Shelli came to me and told me not to worry, because we were going into penalties, and not even the week before, we were practicing our penalty shots. That made me feel a little better, but we hadn’t won yet.
The penalty shoot out was tough. The first one, the Barbican keeper saved. We got two in, they got two in. Then Stacy-Ann Johnson, who was the one that scored the winning goal in the knock-out competition last year, she was the last one to go up, and when it lodged into the back of the net I screamed.
Winning makes you feel good.
For real.
