We should all know; when it comes to Charles Darwin High School, we are pretty talented in all aspects of the curriculum, especially sports!
If you don't know me then: hi, my name is Toni Abiodun, and I love sports. Any sport, you name it; I'll enjoy participating in it, but the reason I do sports is because it's the one thing that motivates me and helps me with my social skills an most of all I enjoy it!
However I do have times when I start to dislike sport. This is when there is an outcome (other than enjoyment) for playing it. For instance, having to 'win' a match or in these circumstances a 'tournament' that doesn’t motivate me.
On Tuesday 11th November, the Year 10 netball squad were delighted to take part in a leagued tournament. We arrived in a panic as we were in need of serious warm up.
Starting off with a win did please us but it's from there onwards that our spirits began to die out.
Match 2 began. Starting off badly we knew. We couldn't win the match but we kept on going. Not giving up without a fight.
Game 2: lost.
Our hopes of winning the tournament had been battered and bruised. This was not the end. With one match left to play, we knew this would be our hardest I could feel the trauma coming back to me haunting me, as it did in our previous years of netball. I felt disgraceful; it was my fault we lost! As captain I should have been there supporting and encouraging my team.
Game 3: lost.
We went home empty-handed. However, even though we didn't strive, it felt as though we were closer. As a team we drew out our strengths and weaknesses and came to this conclusion: we are the winners as we won something that not even a trophy could raise up to. We won dignity that day! We learnt that ‘working as a team and not coming out on top will make you work twice as hard next time’.
Voted ‘player of the tournament’ was Titania Barrett she said, “ it’s ok that we lost since I feel like the conditions we had to play in disrupted our focus and game play. I also think that it wasn’t fair how we only got 3 matches whereas other schools got to play more. But we still tried our best considering that our full team wasn’t there on the day.”
To conclude I’d like to finish with a quote from Sir Muhammad Ali Jinnah “Expect the best, Prepare for the worst.”
Toni Abiodun- Charles Darwin School
