Ever beat your chest in frustration, argue a point until it got worn and people stopped listening and displayed a fit of anger while ordering a round of drinks, and urging the deejay to turn the music up? We did; compliments of the Golden Jaguars and it sure felt good.
For the record, the only jaguars known to us were the ones in captivity at the Guyana Zoo. However, they had so much in common with the local footballers — a whimper instead of a roar; a look nowhere near threatening; and the tendency to just sit there doing absolutely nothing even when called upon.
That said, the local guys sure do know how to throw a party; from the public relations work right down to the jam itself and the wash down. Talk about hype! The Jaguars had enough to last them whole year and let’s not get started on the patriotic call for people to wear yellow and cheer them on.
And boy did yellow sell?! Yellow became the new black and white on Sunday and if anyone thought the colours at the National Stadium were a bit hot on the eyes, Sunday would have been a living nightmare. Everywhere was yellow with a few whites splashed in between; Suriname was in white.
There was the yellow as we know it — a soft, light colour that is easy on the eyes and beautiful to look at. And then there were the other shades of yellow. The yellows that look like mustard, deep in colour and almost like a brown; the really bright yellows like ultraviolet rays; the pale yellows; the tangerine yellows; the citrus yellows and the lemonade yellows. It was just too yellow.
If you ask us, it mattered not what colour people wore because the jaguars had their support anyway. We are in Guyana and ultimately Guyanese would outnumber their Dutch neighbours while rallying around the local guys. The Surinamese who made the trip here wore white but not on a wide scale and they won.
Yes, they came all the way here and beat us in our backyard, actually it was more like they thrashed us. People will argue that we got a goal so it was a 2-1 game, well we are counting the thrashing the Jaguars got in Suriname which makes it 3-1 overall. Sad but so exciting that the World Cup dream, which slipped away, seemed as distant as it did when the Jaguars first started campaigning.
The atmosphere on Sunday was electric and the vibes in the stadium just signalled: We’re here to have fun while they thrash the Jaguars”. Have to admit we are guilty ourselves of hopping on the fun bus and showing up at the stadium with only one thing at the top of our minds — party.
What a party it would have been had the Jaguars surprised us and won; what a party it was anyway! We wore yellow like everyone else and shouted when the Jaguars made a bad play and beat our chests when Suriname ripped through their game, and even swore when we felt like it.
But in the same breath we rocked to the sounds from the stereo not far off and had something to chew on, a few drinks and just had a blast. When it was all over and the Jaguars looked like some animal rights group had just thrown in the towel and wasn’t too bothered if it became an endangered species; we were rocking away and enjoying what turned out to be a good lime. (thescene@stabroeknews.com)
