Chitipa Utd was due to train that afternoon and the committee were meeting so we got invited. The tracksuits from South Edinburgh Community FC seemed a great gift to start our relationship. Chitipa Utd was relegated from the Super League at the end of last season. It was a tough season especially having to travel to Mzuzu for their home games as the ‘Base’ Ground was not yet up to standards set by the Football Association of Malawi. Now in the SIMSO league of Northern Malawi they are in top position and rebuilding for next season back in the Super League. The ‘Base’ Ground has a decent pitch and a concrete block wall all around financed by the Chitipa District Council from the local development grants available. During this process money was wasted and corrupted away by officials. The people of Chitipa at one point marched on the district council offices to demand answers. The original budget of 30 million kwacha was increased by the chosen contractors to 60 million. So a tasty 30 million kwacha was unaccounted for in the process. This extra money could have continued the development of the ground in terms of changing rooms, toilets and a stand. Now the funds are finished.

The team were training but we were allowed a quick moment to hand over the tracksuits and get some photographs. The team were very grateful. The tops will be well used. A few days later I saw the twenty-two players and tracksuit tops singing and squeezed inside a minibus just about to head south to Mzuzu. The new coach Robert is a nice guy. In this league you don’t need a CAF ‘C’ coaching license so Robert is in charge and Kondawni the coach from last year is side-lined for now. Emmanuel their dreadlocked ‘Taifa Star’ from Tanzania is still playing. Chitipa Utd is a team with a real identity and community spirit to the club.

I manage to spend some time with Wachisa Munkondyia, the ‘Rasta’ coach in Chitipa. I really warmed to him last year and really enjoyed spending time with him chatting and talking about life and football. He is a wise thoughtful man. He holds his Rastafarian beliefs close. It is something I have to find out more about when I get home. He is such a calm, modest and dedicated man with the best selection of hats I’ve ever seen. I tell him about the football kits we have brought and I outline the plan I have for them. He says he can organise a friendly at the weekend to showcase the kits.

I was up early on Saturday morning and took a walk around town to get a few candid photographs. In ‘Peoples’ the government run supermarket I bumped into Eric, the Chitipa Cricket Committee Chairperson, already well drunk and buying a bottle of local brandy and an orange as it was the end of the month and recently pay day. I was shocked because he seemed such a decent man during the course. He said he ‘had some demons’. We struggled to communicate because he was so drunk. A lady teacher from his school was also there and she told me he never came to school drunk or missed lessons but at the weekends he mixed with the wrong people. It was Saturday and Chitipa Utd was playing at home at 2 pm. The drinking had started early. Eric was trying to explain to me the incident over the cheque that the MCU had given the treasurer. They were so keen to get the money to pay themselves the lunch allowances that three of them had gone to Karonga to try and cash the cheque instead of going to the local National Bank in Chitipa and depositing the cheque in the newly opened back account. They were unable to cash the cheque in Karonga but easily paid it into in the bank in Chitipa. It seems that nobody was trusting Eric with any money and for good reason. It would take four days for the cheque to clear.

The crowds start to make their way out of town to the ‘Base’ Ground for the 3 pm kick-off between Chitipa Utd and Ekwendeni Hammers FC, currently first and second in the league. It was a real spectacle of football with a 4-2 win for Chitipa. The big crowd supported the home team well and the local ‘juju’/chief supporters entertained the crowd with their singing, drumming and fancy dress.