Refreshing the spirit

They may have had a sense of it, but I’m not at all sure that the jubilant Queen’s Royal College footballers-jumping in a tight huddle on the field after prevailing in kicks from the spot against St Mary’s College-realised just what they caused in both halves of the near-to-packed main stand.

In the blue-and-white CIC section, the pain and disappointment of losing to that team would have been keen and as annoying as being bitten behind the ear by a bloodthirsty mosquito.

In the royal blue section, though, the smiling just didn’t cease, the Scout band played on, and big men for whom school is now but a very distant experience, hugged and embraced each other.

It was quite a scene, this meeting of the tribes.

Not since the North InterCol of 1968 had the two schools faced each other in a final. The now Dr Alvin Henderson and Wayne Dopson made sure the Saints went marching home that day with a 2-1 win.

So much has changed since then. Hence the reason why last week’s renewal, if that is what it can be called, turned out to be much bigger than a game of football.

After all, it was with these two institutions that InterCol began. The fete in the Savannah once a year in October, according to the late Lord Christo, was a CIC-QRC affair.

The prestige and rich heritage of the schools game, and this competition in particular, was given it initially by the school on Hayes Street, opposite the Queen’s Park Savannah itself, and the one across the ’Park’, down Frederick Street.

The competition, which evolved out of the meeting of the two schools for the Decle Cup back in 1908, has gone way beyond those meetings.

Others have made even greater names for themselves-the St Benedict’s and San Fernando Technical star squads of the 1960s (Benedict’s), ’70s and ’80s (Technical), Signal Hill of the ’80s and Naparima of the 1990s to the present day.

But any combination of those younger schools would have been hard-pressed to generate the atmosphere in the stadium which the Saints and the Royalians did last week.

Professionals of all kinds, government ministers, entertainers and the plebs were in the mix, the distinctions that often separate them forgotten for about two hours.

It was hard not to notice, too, that the old boys outnumbered the current students, who, you would have thought, would have had more of a vested interest in the game.

To understand that is to appreciate the difference between a mere school and an institution. It’s about much more than passes and scholarships. It is to understand community.

The tradition on the field established and maintained by the sweat of Henderson, Willie Rodriguez, the late Tyrone ’Tank’ De La Bastide, Richard De Souza and Luciano Woodley and the Hislops, Shaka and Kona, on the one side, and Randolph Hezekiah, Frank Sealy, Ellis Sadaphal, Sheldon Gomes, Roger Matthew and Roger Guiseppi on the other, came from an understanding those ones had, that they represented more than themselves.

As if infected by a virus more powerful than H1N1 passed down from generation to generation, student to teacher, player to player, the ones who wore those jerseys manifested a special spirit. Their excellence inspired yet others.

QRC of 2009 still endeavour to blend flair and skill; St Mary’s discipline and resilience.

In other spheres, too, others have been inspired by what football brought to the fore. They too will not forget.

That was why rapso godfather Brother Resistance was on the scene last week. ’This is a nice vibes for me because in a sense I cut my teeth on InterCol in terms of mih vocals and de whole rapso ting. This is a nice vibes for me, I take a time out to come here,’ Mr Rapso tells me.

In another forum he once wrote of InterCol: ’It is an experience of deep socio-cultural significance, a spiritual process for every student of QRC.

’It was here in the midst of this moment that I really connected with the power of the word, the power of the skin drum and the community call of the steel pan drum.’

Resistance’s rapso expressions were born on the InterCol sidelines. That is why he could say last week: ’When I hear them bawl, ’Gimme a Q, gimme a R, gimme a C,’ is like a flashback to them times because we bring all dem chants and dem. To hear them now, it just feel good.’

Maybe none of the drummers or the trumpet men down front knew who had planted the seeds that were continuing to bear fruit through them. But it was that age-old vibe again that was driving them on. It was if the rapso man was living anew through the youths.

And last week, too, QRC’s power was greater. For a change.

’Mih best memory wasn’t ah nice one nuh!’ Resistance had said earlier. ’We play CIC and it had a man name Neil Williams... They mark Neil Williams for 89 minutes of the game and, one minute to go, the marker take his eye off him and he come and score and mash we up!’

After the last QRC kick hit the net, though, Resistance, taking a side at the back of the stand, looked a contented man.

’Regardless of how fast the world spinning, it is always important to be connected to something. Yuh times in school, the bonding and the experience that help to shape yuh life, it will always remain with you. So coming here is like dipping in the fountain again. Is like refreshing the spirit.’

This may be a land of the dead and dying. But not all sense of community has yet gone the way of all flesh.

Ring a bell for that.