A basketball match to remember for life

Post 102 Pandemonium broke out

In the early 1950s I sneaked out and walked about 15 minutes from my house one evening to a school basketball court. The basketball court in the rural area where I was staying was not paved with cement. When players ran around the court, one could see the red dust coming up from the ground. Nevertheless it was a match much awaited for, especially for a little boy of eight years old like me. My childhood friends told me the two teams playing were champions from neighbouring small towns.

Just as the game was about to end, with my favourite team leading by two points, I suddenly heard someone shouting “Red-head soldiers are coming! Red-head soldiers are coming!” followed by a pandemonium at the premises of the basketball court. I was disappointed that the exciting game had to be abandoned and I hurriedly weaved my way out through a panic crowd. When I was about to reach home, I heard my father yelling at me for he had been frantically looking for me. He dragged me to the house and asked me repeatedly whether I knew the great danger I was in.

I learnt in my growing years later that the much feared Red-head soldiers were from the Federal Reserve Unit or better known by the abbreviation as FRU. They were called Red-head soldiers because they wore red helmets. Its main duty is to disperse illegal assembly, riot suppression and to maintain public order.

I wonder who would have won had it not been for the appearance of the Red-head soldiers. I still do not know why they were there. At that particular moment when the game was stopped, I thought the Red-head soldiers were truly the wet blankets!

19 July 2011