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| Henry Dyer (right) with a former Sweats Soccer Club player who is resident in Namotomoto Village, Nadi, late 2014. The picture was taken at Aanvi's Fast Food (now closed). |
During the 1990s
I started Sweats Soccer Club with a few of my close relatives in the village.
Fortunately they played for the Nadi Soccer team too such as Rusiate Waqa,
Rusiate’s two brothers Dawai and Peni Bubuta, and Sosiceni Kaitani. We started
from junior grade in the first year. In the second year we went to the senior
grade and in the third year we were playing in the premier-league competition.
So, when we formed the club, we knew that the raw talent that was around the
village and nearby villages was not being exposed. This was due to the fact
that there were no clubs around to play for. There were only clubs in other
settlements and clubs which had the backing of companies. The only club that
was village-based was the Tanoa Soccer Club which had players from three
villages Namotomoto, Navoci, and Nakavu. There was too much youth talent around
and they were being left behind. As a result they played other games such as
volleyball and cricket. It is a pity that boxing has faded out because the
giants or the champs have retired and there is no-one else to restore the
sport.
The Sweats club
did well in the three years to reach the premier-league club competition and to
represent the Nadi district in the fourth year. We named the club Sweats
because I had a T-shirt with the word “Sweats” on it. We did not use the name
of one of the villages for the club name because we wanted the club to be
neutral. However, we asked the late village headman (Inia Namua) for his blessings.
We used to train mostly at Kennedy Avenue Park which was too small. It was half
of half of a full ground. The matches were played at Prince Charles Park. The
players came mainly from our village and from the surrounding settlements. We
were registered under Nadi Soccer Association.
When we were
playing in the Sweats Soccer Club, the Indian boys from the neighbouring
settlements that joined the club felt very pleased to be playing in a village-based
team. This showed that they had confidence in us. We are very happy to meet
each other today although some have moved to live overseas and some have their
own families. The coaches were Rusiate Waqa, Sosi Kaitani, and me. We only ever
had one team. We were on the verge of setting up a junior team but then we ran
out of finance. The club president was the village headman mentioned earlier.
The club lasted
for about five or six years. It was a pity that the main sponsor of our club,
Sheik’s Rental Car, closed down and we had difficulty finding a replacement
sponsor. We were not aware and were still new in the area of soccer management.
We were not prepared for what was to come. Being prepared for the worst and
having emergency backing when you are down are vital ingredients for running
any club. I am sure that every club has its own internal bickering and
differences. However, the bottom line and platform is finance to keep a club on
its feet. We did not have that. I sometimes think and feel for the club that we
had formed. We would have been one of the strongest clubs in Fiji had we been
able to continue. The players mostly switched back to rugby or joined other
soccer clubs. There was a club from Namaka that was interested in drafting our
players into their club. They approached me and I said it was very hard for me
to part with the boys even though we were not a professional club. I thought
this club wanted to take the cream away from our hard work. Later on I thought
I did the wrong thing. I should have let the players go to play as that would
have helped the sport more.
We got a few
boys from our club into the Nadi team. However, they did not stay for long or
stamp their mark at district level maybe because the club died. Two lessons to
be learnt when you are running a club are to be very careful about finances and
to always have somebody behind you who is going to move the club on after you
die. He may lift it up to another level. You need to look for talent like that
to be beside you. You need people with vision who will be faithful to the club.
After you depart you need to know that you have someone to carry on the club
and you need to be confident that he/she will find someone else to succeed him/her.
Without the strong clubs the sport dies and then the talent is not discovered
and is left idle. Soccer management is the only area of Fiji life that the government
has shown no interest in. In the long run, for Fiji soccer to survive, it needs
to attract more native Fijian supporters and players. With so many Fiji-Indians
leaving the country how can Fiji soccer stop from declining even further? There
should be a few village-based clubs playing in the Nadi club competition. At
the moment there are no village-based clubs playing in either the Nadi or
Lautoka competitions. This is to strengthen the club competitions and to
extract the raw talent. The sugar-cane is harvested and so the local soccer
talent should also be harvested.
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| L to R: Cheetah, Epeli Kosa & Henry Dyer. |
In the sense of
sporting fair play Nadi Soccer Association also did not do much to help. If
they were really happy about the Fijian guys forming a club they would have
come to see us and worked out ways to help. They waited for us to drown. They
did not offer us a hand to escape the deep water. They possibly thought that we
were too good for the other clubs and so they began to work for the other
clubs. The other village-based club Tanoa had nose-dived too. There are many soccer
clubs in Nadi which died for financial reasons including Airport, Union, Young
Ones, and a few others. Nadi Soccer Association did not have the insight to
give them amnesty periods of two years of no fee payments to keep these clubs
alive nor did they give the clubs advice about what they should do. It’s a pity
that there have been no village-based teams in the competition from that time
up until today. We are trying our best to resurrect a Fijian-based soccer club.
This is where the strength of the sport of soccer is.
I believe that financial
backing from a corporate body would lift the morale of any village club and be
the backbone of the club. It’s not that we were greedy or wanting to take over
the Association. It is just that soccer management should be acting in the best
interests of the sport instead of serving and protecting vested interests. I
believe that is one of the reasons why Fiji soccer has nosedived from the time
we were playing until today. Imagine that Fiji was beating Solomons 10-0 in
1983 but now our top clubs cannot beat Vanuatu’s clubs in the Oceania Champions
League. It is true that time has changed and the other nearby nations have
improved. Fiji is ranked #188 in the world now (as at date of writing this
chapter) according to the FIFA World Rankings. I hope that we will not hit the
bottom ranking. I am not aiming to speak
negatively against Fiji Football Association but just to talk facts. They are
thinking about making money by having these tournaments going year in year out.
The downfall of our club is symptomatic of the problems of Fiji soccer
management. It was right in front of their faces but they couldn’t see it. They
had a life-jacket which they could have thrown out. However, FIFA, because they
are such a huge organization, would not even be aware of grassroots problems
like this.
The soccer body
here is not working effectively at all. In Fiji Football there should be people
with insight who are trying to develop the sport. The raw material we have here
is too much to be left undeveloped sitting around the grog bowls back in the
villages rather than making a name all around the world in Uruguay, in Chile,
etc. Why is this? The insight is not there. We have not heard of any Fiji
players playing in South American or English teams and making a name and a
living for themselves in these countries. We are close to 100 years in Fiji
soccer now with the first IDC being held as long ago as 1938. How much longer
do we need to stamp our mark on the world in soccer terms? Before I die I hope
I will hear of Fiji boys making their mark on soccer in South American
countries. I believe this is where the depth and strength of soccer is. It
would also be good if our players could make it in England or Europe.
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| Henry Dyer (far right) with hardcore Nadi fans. |
The former
players of Nadi Soccer Association want to form a club using the name of Nadi
Legends Football Club. We are now trying to get the name registered with Fiji
Football. This is being done by one of the former Fiji players John Grey (a former
Fiji goalkeeper). He now works as an architect here in Nadi. It is just that we
want to lift the game up while we are still alive and pass it on to the younger
generation. If our club gets off the ground and starts running we would like to
win our competitions. We would see that whatever I am talking about has come to
pass. You can see the club competition in soccer is not very lively here in
Nadi, and probably all over Fiji, as compared to 20 or 30 years ago. When you
look at the rugby club competitions you can see more supporters and spectators
who are more vocal and expressive in their ways of cheering as compared to the
soccer district competition. One has to ask why this is. This is something
which urgently needs to be addressed. There was a crowd of around 3,000-4,000
at the 2014 Fiji FACT Final in Nausori. You can see the same crowd at the Nadi
club rugby knockout competition at Prince Charles Park played among the local
village teams. Yet Nadi Soccer has a clubhouse under the pavilion at Prince
Charles Park and yet they cannot see or comprehend this. It may be that they
are blind or someone has to dream the dream for them. In our time native
Fijians used to pack the stadiums for soccer games. There are villages very
close to the Nausori Stadium but we did not see many villagers in attendance at
the 2014 Fiji FACT competition finals in Nausori. We used to get crowds of
2,000 to 3,000 at the Nadi club competition (or a little less) when the Sweats
club was playing (and Tanoa Soccer Club). The crowds have gone down
significantly at both club and district soccer levels since the end of the
Sweats era.
With Nadi
Legends Club we just want to do the same thing again but we have learned some
important lessons since the first time around. I said to the boys that we need
to get the Nadi Legends Club to actually field a team rather than just being a
social club so that we have something to pass on to the younger generation
after we die. We will pass it on with some associated wisdom and networks so
that it will be easier for the younger generation to continue with the running
of the club. It’s just like doing the same thing with and for your family.
[By
the former Fiji national team player Henry Dyer, as told to Dr Kieran James of
University of Fiji in Nadi, 19 June and 10 July 2014.]
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| Kieran James and Henry Dyer (second and third from left in top row) with Fiji Football President Mr Rajesh Patel (second from left, seated) and friends @ The Central Club, Ba, late 2014. |
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