Thursday, 4 June 2015

*Throwback Thursday Post* Nike Risk Everything Winners.

It has been a phenomenal week for football fans in the city of London. The old Sorting house on New Oxford Street had been transformed into Nike Phenomenal house for one week only. The venue housed an event that fused "the world of music, style, football and innovation"
with a genealogy of football boots, spikes and trainers, a pop-up shop with exclusive and customised Nike gear and also a store to buy 1 of 1055 prints of the commemorative Arsenal and Nike 20 years union. 


Throughout the week Nike phenomenal house opened it's door to fans to play small-sided fearless football in a cage.
Each day of the week play-offs were devoted to a side of London to represent where they are from. Today the best of the best from North, East, South and West London competed in the final to risk everything and become the Winner Stays on Champions! 

Two teams had the chance to take the title back to their side of London. Eight teams entered the cage raring to go with their team captains. North London teams were accompanied by Grime Mc Meridian Dan. East London had "Newham Generalz" as their captains, South London were captained by Grime Duo Krept and Konan and the West London teams had Stylo G as their captain. 
The tournament kicked off with a West London team v a North London team.
All captains provided a running commentary over the dubstep and grime that blazed through the speakers, but there was only one captain that remained vocal. Stylo G's West London's teams remained on the pitch winning every game unless it was a draw. The teams played 4-a side football. The rules were very simple;

1.Whichever team scores first the opposing team has to lose a player.

2.Second goal wins (regardless of who scored first) 

3. Winner stays on

Although the games were a duration of five minutes, we managed to see a lifetime of tekkers from the young ballers. It was pretty clear which team was taking the trophy home. Out of 25 games they played 19 and I got a chance to catch up with Team Kings (3 of the players)- Nike Winner stays on Champions.


Congratulation guys, I see we're missing a fourth member but can we start by introducing yourselves and what level of football you play?

Sahid Kamara: I don't play football I just "turn up" (chuckles)

Koby: I used to play for Dulwich but I am a freelancer at the moment, but you will see me back in football soon.

Hassan: I'm an ex professional footballer but I'm not playing for anyone at the moment.

Koby, you said you are freelance at the moment but you put in a professional shift tonight. How was your time at Dulwich?

We had to, we came as kings we leave as kings so we knew we had to put the work in. I was with Dulwich from the age of 11 and played until under 18's stage. They taught me how to play football basically, it was a good experience I learnt a lot from them as you could see today. 

Sahid how about you, have you played for a team prior to this professionally or semi-professionally?

Yeah, I used to play for Millwall when I was younger but obviously it didn't work out. I tried to keep going but obviously football is a frustrating game. It's either you gotta quit and get full time work and make money or keep going and stay broke. So I choose to make money so I left football. But I play about with my mates, a little 4-a-side or 5-a-side. So all of that plus previous tournaments have helped me and my team to come here for Nike because we knew that they are the main brand for football. This is the biggest tournament for football in London so we had to come here and do our thing. We prepared ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally. So that's why we came and "done the ting".

You mentioned that there was an economical barrier stopping you from pursuing your dreams in football, you said you can continue and stay broke or quit and get money. At what age did you realise this?

Sahid: At the age of 18, I said it's either I go, try and be broke. Or go out and get money. Where I'm from it's a deprived area so you got to work twice as hard as people in other areas that are wealthy. So I tried hard and worked for my money. I won't complain I'm contempt with where I'm at now but at the end of the day I would have loved to be a footballer. But at the end of the day if it's not meant to be it's not meant to be.

You decided to quit at the young age of 18. Looking back now do you think you should have stuck at football a little longer to determine a different career path?

Sahid: Who knows man. But my heart wasn't in it anymore, because when you get to a certain level people start to criticise, people want to determine whether you're good enough or not. At the end of the day I didn't want to go through all of that. I don't like stress in my life. I've been hurt too many times from football. 


Hassan how did you feel competing in the Winner stays on final, did you walk into this thinking you would win?

Winning is a part of me, it's always been a part of me. I know a lot about Nike, since a young age I've been competing in a lot of Nike tournaments. I've never been a Nike winner but I called up the lads and said there's a nike tournament coming up, this our time! 

How was the process joining the tournament back in March?

Hassan: We didn't even have a fourth player when we entered for the first game, we had three players and we needed four to five players, but we still went there and gave it our all. And we're here now, Winners!.. From having three players to now we have the world behind us pretty much. 

After winning such a major London tournament where do you all go now in terms of a football career?

They will let us know, Nike has a good setup waiting for us and I believe in them. I'm a big fan of Nike, all of my trainers are Nike. Nike can pull out a big suprise from the bag and I'm ready to see what's going to happen now.

What do you think of the event overall, with the fusion of Culture music and and the open pitch for football?

It's very good, because right now this is all love. It gives everyone a platform to put themselves out there. Everyone else would say "na we can't do this because there will be fights" or whatnot, but look inside there. There's so many inspirational people here tonight from Tinie Tempah, Krept and Konan to Theo Walcott. They're all from the urban industry and they know what it means to us. They came to show their love and we came to show our talent. It's all love. 

 As we know young London are known for their postcode rivalries. How did you feel about competing with other young players representing their part of London? 

Hassan: It wasn't about postcode war. Today is about skill, talent, hunger. Everyone wants to make it. We're changing the whole urban way of thinking right now. So now they are seeing us doing good things with ourselves and I hope there is more big names that will help give us opportunities for us to show what we got. There are talented people out there, talented young kids that want to put the knife down, put the gun down but all they need is that opportunity and Nike is one of the first people to do it for us and I respect that I just hope other brands can do the same as Nike.

Congratulations guys and I wish you all the best with your football.

All: Thank you, Came as Kings, left as Kings




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