Chelsea | antakalipa

Barbershop Chronicles

At the Market Theatre for the opening of Inua Ellam’s Barbershop Chronicles. I postponed releasing this because the show centers a lot around a very painful memory. The UEFA Champions League semi-final against Chelsea. A tie Chelsea won by deploying negative tactics, a low block, parking the bus at the Camp Nou and countering with a last minute Fernando Torres goal. The cast of the show are having a lot of fun with that result, a lot of these barbers around the world are Chelsea fans. I am very much a Barcelona fan.

The play chronicles six different barbershops scattered across London and various African cities: including Lagos, Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, and Accra. The whole story unfolds over the course of a single day, though in different times and places, giving a sweeping, episodic sense of lives, connections and conversations across the diaspora. The play covers themes of black masculinity, identity, fatherhood, absent fathers, intergenerational relationships, community, belonging, vulnerability and healing. The performers have soul and personality. They are authentic and lively, they are humorous, they have quirks. The show has a lot of energy and enthusiasm but also emotional and intimate. There’s even singing and choreographed dancing – a truly spectacular show! It evokes feelings of nostalgia, it’s familiar in every timezone. I loved visiting Lagos, Abongile Matyutyu is an unbelievable actor! So happy and relieved when his customer came back late to pay him for the haircut. Everyone is awesome!

The actors
Farai Chigudu
Langalibalele Mathuthu
Tumelo Namtweya-Phiri
Nhlakanipho Manqele
Luntu Masiza
Abongile Matyutyu
Thabang Chauke
Anthony Oseyemi
Mthokozisi Oseyemi
Mthokozisi Emkay Khanyile

I was patient, I waited for another match in the Champions League against Chelsea so I could have the last laugh. FC Barcelona lost 3-0.

I really dislike Chelsea.

Congratulations Sibusiso Mamba and the whole team for a great show and a deserved standing ovation.

📸: SamSays

Beef with Chelsea

Chelsea will always be the club that I dispise. From my roots in England, Manchester United, you have always given me a tough time. Thank God for Cristiano Ronaldo, he is our “Magnifico” like Bruno Fernandes. He won us UEFA with his towering header. Sure Lampard equalized and sent the game to extra-time but we landed the first blow. It showed intent. Sir Alex Ferguson our leader. He gave us great moments, season after season, we won the trophies. Our worst seasons were always the seasons we finished 2nd, worse case scenario 3rd, so okay, that’s fine, we’ll go at it again the next season. That’s the lose I want in my life, Fergusons’ lose.

My story doesn’t only come from Manchester, my Chelsea story has its roots in Barcelona. From the Champions league 2009 semi-final in Samford Bridge, thank God for Iniesta, he won us the whole tournament. The semi-final was hard but we just needed 1 goal because the game ended scoreless at the Camp Nou. We got it in the 94th minute, with virtually the last kick of the game, I will never forget that day. Iniesta saved my life. Assist from Messi, who else? We won all 6 trophies, well done to Pep Guardiola for achieving that impossible feat. Puyol as our leader, the last pure defender. I will never forgive Chelsea for what happened in 2012 though. Such negative tactics at the Camp Nou. If we had scored that penalty, we would have been free. How can you miss that penalty Messi? But okay, it wasn’t our day. The last memory I have of that game is Fernando Torres rounding off Victor Valdes. It breaks my heart, I wish I could change it. We deserved so much better. We were by far better than Chelsea. We had the best chances but somehow they won. I knew Chelsea would win the Champions league that year even against the Germans in their stadium, the Allianz Areana. I mean Arjen Robben got his penalty saved by Peter Ceche. A whole great Arjen Robben, before that in the semi-finals Messi missed. This was Chelsea’s competition to lose and they didnt. I will always hate Chelsea for winning that tournament that year because they deployed negative tactics. They parked the bus and we couldn’t get through. We tried everything. We had Cristian Tello, Isaac Cuenca, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas and we couldn’t get that illusive third goal, we almost did, but we couldn’t. The Germans also didn’t have an answer for Chelsea’s negative bus parking tactics and worse they played that final in their own Stadium. Chelsea not only frustrated the Bayern Munich team, they frustrated the fans in the stadium and everyone watching around the world. Pep Guardiola announced that he was leaving Barcelona that week after the defeat. It was the worst week of my life and I credit Chelsea Football Club.

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