July 26
The Ball in Whānganui-a-tara Wellington
It’s so easy for me and others who love sport to see the connection between The Ball journey , the Spirit of Football, and Football for Good. We really get how sport unites people.
We see how a ball with over 11,000 signatures collected from people from 21 countries represents the commitment humans have to make their world a better place for everyone. Whether it’s a kid from a football club or the on-the-scene interviewer of a breakfast show [KL4] (who never played football but identifies as an athlete – a swimmer), people for whom sport has been enriching get The Ball.
However, there are also lots of people for whom sport has been a source of trauma. These people were, at some time or another, excluded from play, shamed for their lack of skills, and discouraged from participation.
It has been so powerful for me to witness how The Ball, slowly but surely, has helped these people shift their tentativeness, embarrassment, and even grudges against sport because they were picked last onto a team because they ‘weren’t good enough’. The Ball invites enthusiasm and joy to take the place of these feelings – I saw this many times in Whānganui-a-tara Wellington.
Our gracious septagenarian hosts in Aro Valley, Alan and Jaqui, have very little time for sport, in general. They associate it with bad childhood experiences.
The non-sporty students at Wellington Girls’ College (like those at Lynfield College in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland[KL5] ) had watched the video about the 2022-2023 journey so far and loved the idea of making pledges. However, many balked when asked to do the head-the-ball part of the thing and stood shyly in the pre-FairPlay-football circle before the game.
The German Ambassador to Aotearoa, Nicole Menzenbach, also joined us at Wellington Girls’. She was clearly excited to meet The Ball and connect with students learning to speak German. However, when we told her the pledge involved doing a header and that we hoped she’d join in on the FairPlay football match, she also expressed uncertainty.
However, The Ball has a special power. Perhaps it’s the layered, multicoloured signatures that transform The Ball from a familiar piece of sporting equipment into a work of art – something completely different, intriguing, and inviting that says: ‘Yes, your name belongs here, too.’ OR it’s the pop music that we play nice and loud on the portable speaker that accompanies The Ball. OR it’s the way that the rules of FairPlay football make it a fun, energising game that is truly for everyone. OR it’s the fact that your pledge [KL6] can be anything – you can do it alone or with friends, it can be a promise to continue to do the good things you’re already doing for people and the planet, and it can be ‘easy’.
Thanks to its special power, Jaqui and Alan championed The Ball and its mission to promote inclusion, sustainability, and gender equity in all their favourite local cafes, bars, pubs and music venues. Alan even hopped on his bike to join The Ball at the NZ v Phillipines match. It was the first time he had ever watched a sporting match in his hometown stadium.
The kids at Wellington Girls’ all stepped up, did the thing, and played FairPlay football. In their after-match feedback circle, they shared how great it was to be able to play, all together, regardless of ability, and know that everyone was having a good time.
The Ambassador just beamed from the moment she put on her pink bib to join Team Flamingoes in the first FairPlay football match – and then subbed in with a yellow bib to join Team Gelb in the second. After having played two matches, any hesitation to do the header had evaporated – she did the thing like a pro.
The Ball had worked its magic.
It’s a bit painful to see (even in myself and my childhood sporting choices) how many times kids can get turned away from sport by its focus on competition and skill. In addition to the explicit aims of The Ball and its journey, I see it transforming attitudes towards sports more broadly. What changes can we make to the rules of the games we play, starting now, to make them playable by all? What changes can we make to the way we support our teams to celebrate the play over the victory?
Before the beginning of the NZ v Philippines match in Te Whānganui-a-tara Wellington, a cameraperson spotted and broadcast a sign in the crowd that said: ‘I HOPE BOTH TEAMS HAVE FUN!’ I tried to keep that sentiment in mind the entire game, even though I desperately wanted New Zealand to build on their victory against Norway and beat the Phillipines.
Unfortunately for me, they didn’t. But, in the spirit of The Ball and inspired by that hopeful sign, I congratulated the fans of the Philippines team as we walked past them. It felt great! Why wallow in my loss, when I can, instead, acknowledge my competitor’s happiness?
It really is only a game.
The German Connection
In 2002, two Englishmen (Christian Wach and Phil Wake) decided to kick one ball from the place where the first-ever game of official FA Rules football took place (Battersea Park in London, England) to the FIFA Men’s World Cup, which was hosted that year in South Korea and Japan. In that moment, The Ball was born. Independent of this, in 2005, I (Kiwi Andrew Aris) founded the Football-for-Good organisation, Spirit of Football e.V. in Erfurt, Germany. Being based in Germany, and with a predominantly German team, Spirit of Football has a strong connection to Germany and German institutions. Indeed, on this The Ball journey, we have collaborated with German Bundesliga football clubs (Borussia Dortmund, Werder Bremen and Borussia Monchengladbach) and in particular their sustainability departments – who even connected via live zoom calls or co-delivered in person in workshops. We have collaborated with German diplomatic missions in Singapore, Indonesia and New Zealand and on projects in Fiji and Kiribati. The German Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation supported workshops in Hanoi (Vietnam) and Bangkok (Thailand) and the German institute for culture and language – the Goethe Institut – hosted The Ball in Singapore by organizing a school workshop that the SOF team delivered there. Several German Ambassadors (Indonesia, Kiribati and New Zealand) and diplomats have signed The Ball and pledged. Beate Grzeski, the German Special Envoy to the South Pacific participated in a focal group discussion that SOF led on gender equality and climate change in Kiribati, that included Kiribati’s only female government minister. German diplomat Ying Huang in Singapore pledged for equality in terms of representation of both gender and ethnicity in the diplomatic service.
The Goethe Institut in Wellington went about connecting The Ball to schools throughout the north island of New Zealand where German is being taught. This resulted in SOF running a 2-day workshop at Linfield College in Auckland (19th and 20th of July) and several smaller climate action and FairPlay Football sessions on one day at Wellington Girls College (26th of July), which was attended by the German Ambassador to New Zealand Nicole Menzenbach who pledged:
My personal contribution is that I’m a vegetarian. As a representative of Germany, my country is committed to the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement. Here in the Pacific region, we see the devastating effects and threat of climate change. In the international community we must do everything to protect our one and only planet.
Please see this link for a video of The Ball at Linfield College in Auckland on the TVNZ One News show.