In The Cape with Team Mpumalanga

 This article is the second part of the earlier published article titled: To The Cape with Team Mpumalanga which could be accessed on the link below

http://chasingraces.blogspot.com/2022/07/to-cape-with-team-mp-chess.html

We arrived in Cape Town at the Western Cape Sport School on the 30^th of June 2022. We had left Mpumalanga on 29 June and spent the night at a hotel in Bloemfontein for some rest. We had to wake up early in the morning to complete the remaining 1000 Kilometers to Cape Town.

The plan was for the team  to spend the first two days having a training camp to prepare the players for the battle ahead. I was there as a Technical Official along with Dumisa Nkosi another fellow Arbiter from the province. Each province was to bring two qualified Arbiters as Technical Officials to assist the National Organisers in the technical running of the event. The technical Officials were not part of the Provincial delegation, they were a part of the National team and therefore were the responsibility of the National Schools Chess structure. The National structure however only assumed responsibility of its Technical officials on the 3^rd of July which was the date of official arrivals and registrations. This meant that for the time being, we were part of the Mpumalanga Contingent and the players could benefit from our experience and expertise.

This article will focus on the non-technical challenges encountered that we believe may have had some devastating effects on the overall team morale and caused us to lose confidence in our leadership and ultimately perform as we did as a province. They include: 

1. Accommodation for the camp 

2. Catering at the Camp 

3. Team Management

4. Provincial Attire

Accommodation

The first two days at the first three nights spent in the Western Cape Sports School were a little hell for Team MP as a whole. We were sleeping at a hostel which had one thin blanket and the temperature felt like it was below zero degrees Celsius.  The boys’ teams (7 boys U/18 and 7 boys U/15) were clustered together in one room with 14 beds.

Catering

The food was always the same macaroni and cheese (and sometimes with mince making it look like a lasagna) for lunch and supper and bread with boiled eggs and either a soy Russian or beef sausage for breakfast (maybe some weet-bix and milk if you woke up early enough); no variety whatsoever.

The chess kids always cried of hunger and could not even focus on the little training we tried to provide for them. Some of them did not eat beef and thus had to starve when the macaroni was served with mince; others did not eat cheese and were also not provided with options on the lasagna days. Some felt the food was not enough and would get really hungry before the next meal could be served; if they ate breakfast at 08h00 which was two boiled eggs and two slices of bread, it would be 5 hours before they could eat lunch at 13h00, which was in some cases, something some players didn’t eat.

Management

This issues were reported to the teams managers to address or at least report and have them resolved as they affected the players wellness and could affect their performance.

When the current president was first told about these challenges on the phone by one coach, he responded that it was not his business as he was only there as Under 18 Boys team Manager. He then hung up the phone immediately. The secretary was called and informed of the matter, we figured she may have called her president to order as he then after came to attend the coach and promised to handle the issues with the officials the next day.

The coaches, managers and us Technical officials sat together and tabled the challenges that would lead to the Chess team not performing, which included the lack of Chess equipment (except for a few chess sets only), the terrible environment (some reported broken windows and doors in their rooms), the hot water that finished before everyone could shower and the terrible attitude of the kitchen staff (I called a few to order for berating the kids unnecessarily making them feel out of place).

These matters where meant to be presented at the Managers meeting with the Department of Sports officials to make them aware of the challenges we were faced with so they could do some corrections to help boost the morale of our players.

Our duly elected leader failed to present the challenges and our kids continued to suffer. I was shocked to hear in the next day, a child asking the kitchen which was serving beef burgers and chips, “what should I do since I do not eat beef?” and the Kitchen staff responded “you will eat chips, we do not have chicken burger patties!”.

I knew it was time for some serious intervention and shouted then and there “NEVER!!, THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO DO NOT EAT CHIPS?”

It took three hours before they could have chicken prepared and some department officials had to give their store-bought chicken lunch in for the kids to eat.

 

Provincial Attire

On the last night of the training camp, the provincial colours are usually awarded (Handed) to the players and they get to try them on in preparation for the next day. The coaches and managers also get theirs which also look the same as the players’.

It has always been my understanding that the players took first preference in this as they were the ones competing and representing the province in these games. I was wrong.

The current Mpumalanga Schools Chess President collected the bags with one other manager, they called the coaches in a room and selected their own fitting attire and shoes, then went on to attend the players.

It was weird that some of the players wore the same size clothes and shoes with some of the coaches, yet the players ended up with over-sized track-suites and unfitting shoes mostly two sizes smaller.

They would rather look good in the kids attire and have the kids wearing humiliating over-sized attire and painfully tight-fitting sneakers.

I remember suggesting to the current president that he should claim back the shoes from the adults and have the kids try them on first as they wore the same sizes. I was there when the coaches and managers claimed the same sizes that the kids where crying for, yet they decided to keep them.

We had to run around asking to switch sizes with the girls’ teams and also with the other sporting codes to try and find the players proper fitting sizes. Their president was unmoved by this challenged faced by the players. Instead of asking his managers to take responsibility and trade the fitting shoes with the players, he had the nerve to ask the kids to be strong and wear the smaller sized sneakers at least for tomorrow.

It was clear there and there, that this President thinks he represents the teachers instead of the players. Maybe he is a union shop steward in the school where he works and now confuses his roles.

It really made no sense to the kids as to why, after having filled-in form where they had to write down their sizes, they would now come to be expected to wear over-sized clothes and painfully tight sneakers. It was an embarrassment that their president could not understand and therefore could not present their pain to the powers that be. Some kids actually cried when they had they would have to wear these over-sized multiple times folded track pants and jackets throughout the competition. I personally saw some kids walking with a painful limp wearing sneakers one or two sizes smaller because they could not get assisted.

One of the kids I had referred to his coach to switch with, the Interim Mpumalanga Chess President for two reasons:

1.      They both wore a size 5

2.      The Interim president had received the same sneakers in the previous National championships held in February, the player did not.

 

I later discovered that the kid was talked out of the exchange and forced to wear the smaller size and remain in pain. I was disappointed.

It turns out two managers and a coach all wore a size ten, two players needed a size ten sneakers and could not get them; also, three coaches wore a size 8, two players needed a size 8 and could not get them.

It is hard to believe that the team of coaches and managers had the interest of the players at heart. It is no wonder the Provincial Chess team performed poorly. The morale of the players had been in the hands of adults who were there to serve their own personal interests at the cost of the kids.

The next article will focus on the technical challenges that are responsible for the  result suffered.