Boro Bear’s Safari
After a long successful season at the club, Boro Bear wanted a holiday somewhere exotic and warm. Since he missed the 2010 world cup,he decided that the perfect destination would be South Africa .With his magic passport in his hand, luggage packed and football under his arm, he rubbed the pages of his magic passport and in a blink of an eye, he was at Oliver Thambo Airport in South Africa.
His Elephant Uber was waiting on the runway. Boro climbed on top and off they set on an African Safari.
“So you like soccer“, said the elephant.
“What is soccer?”, asked Boro Bear.
“You don’t know what soccer is, but you’re holding a soccer ball under your arm”, exclaimed the elephant.
“Oh, you mean a football,” said Boro Bear.
“Here we call it soccer. My name is Bafana and I used to play in the South African National Team. Now I take guests on safari to the Kruger National Park, which is where we are going. I will introduce you to some of my friends who play for the local Kruger team.” For the rest of the journey they chatted about football.
Soon they arrived at the Kruger National Park and Bafana introduced them immediately. “This is Vusi the vervet monkey, he is our goal keeper. He is very acrobatic and swings from the goal posts.”
“This is Spike, the porcupine who is always popping the ball.”
“Rudy the rhinoceros is our defender. He charges the opposition and his horn always scares them off!” “Ingalulu the cheetah, is the fastest wing on the field.” “Jeffrey the giraffe is our tallest player. He jumps the highest, for all our headers.” “Zipho the zebra is always confusing the other team with his stripes. He’s our midfielder.” Olivia the ostrich is always mad, she hates it when we replace the ball with her eggs!”
“Hadedas”, are our official sponsors and last but not least, me, Team Coach and player.”
That evening Bafana took Boro on a game drive and saw wonderful animals from the African bushveld. Bafana and Boro were talking about football. Bafana told Boro about his match next week, and that Leo the lion, his best player who was injured. Boro thought hard about it, and offered to take Leo’s place.
Finally the big game was on. The stadium was full with excited spectators. The “watering hole” had a queue a mile long. There was singing and shouting and lots of team spirit. The scores were in, they won the game 2-1, with Boro Bear scoring the winning goal. He had an amazing time in South Africa, but sadly it was time to go pack and go home to England. He learnt that even though in South Africa football was called soccer, it’s an energetic, well supported, competitive game for all to enjoy.
Boro Bear day dreamed about all the friends and fun he had had in South Africa while dozing on the flight back to Heathrow. He was so excited to share his adventures with his “Home Team”, and laughing about the challenges his “Safari Friends” had with footballs.
