Friday, July 11, 2014

Ashes.




On a snowing evening in central Europe, a plane warms up on the runway. It is a small plane but it is full of excited, rambunctious, and young passengers. The plane takes off, barely in the air there is a problem and the plane makes a nose dive back into the tarmac.  This had been the third attempt at a take off, there would be no more tries. The plane lies in a ball of flames and twisted wreckage on the runway. There were 23 fatalities that day. A tragedy in of itself, made all the more impactful by who was on the plane. This was the Manchester United team, known as the "Busby Babes" the most talented footballers of their generation. Eight players were killed that day, as well as three team trainers. The year was 1958. This team was a trailblazer, and had an incredible future. There is a clock at Old Trafford that remains stuck at 3.04pm, 6th February 1958. To mark the moment some of the greatest lights of British football went out.

Ten years later, in 1968, with the same manager and some of the same players, such as Sir Bobby Chartlon fresh from the 1966 World Cup win went on to win the European Cup with another incredulously talented team. Manchester United rose, literally from the ashes, to becoming one of the most celebrated football clubs in the world.

In Soroti Uganda, a group of boys gathers to play football. They come from their own tragedies, they have their own stories of desperation and despair. Uganda as a country has decades of ashes to rise from. With education, in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math these students will drag Uganda from its past and into the future. Along the way they will play football, and they will laugh, cheer, and maybe cry! But like Manchester United, Uganda will go forward in good hands as their sheer talent will rise. The future is bright, the future is theirs. [to paraphrase Orange].

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