Gambia

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The Country

Surrounded almost entirely by neighbouring Senegal – save for a 50 mile stretch of Atlantic coastline – the Gambia is mainland Africa’s smallest nation, with the country’s peculiar oblong shape supposedly the result of a British ship sailing up the Gambia river during the colonial era, before firing its guns both port and starboard and fixing the borders wherever the cannonballs fell. While it is disturbingly plausible to imagine imperialist cartographers picking through a freshly bombarded native village and painting a line through the splintery remains of huts, homes and villagers, this story is actually nonsense. The boundaries were instead established diplomatically between Britain and France in 1889, an arrangement that delighted people throughout the region, be they British or French, and led to the Gambia being dubbed “the smiling face of Africa” due to the subsequent map’s uncanny impersonation of Pacman following a run in with Heath Ledger’s Joker from the Dark Knight.

 

One chap who certainly wasn’t laughing at the colonial mischief wrought upon the Gambia was the country’s obligatory fruitloop dictator Yahya Jammeh, who in 2013 withdrew his nation from the Commonwealth, asserting that “Britain has done nothing for Gambians other than teach us how to sing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”, a rant which put the world on notice that they were dealing with somebody who mentally may not have been entirely on top of matters. Amongst his other unhinged ramblings was a 2007 claim that he’d personally developed herbal remedies for AIDS, asthma and infertility. Then in 2012 he issued a presidential decree calling for all Gambian death row prisoners to be executed by firing squad within a month, though this may just have been an excuse to showcase his latest miracle cure for multiple bullet wound related illnesses.

Mercifully, Jammeh and his addled brain are presently taking an extended sabbatical from politics following defeat in the 2016 presidential election, allowing his successor Adama Barrow to quietly go about undoing all his bad work. First order of business was the country’s reapplication for Commonwealth status, which was agreed in February 2018 meaning that Gambians can once again look forward to forking out for royal visits and having their athletes lose to Wales and the Isle of Man at lawn bowls and table tennis every four years. Overall, cosying back up to Britain probably is in the Gambia’s best interests economically, seeing as the UK represents on of their most important trade partners and aid providers. Brits also make up the largest tourist demographic, with visitors jetting to the West African coast for some winter sunshine, glorious beaches and, for the intellectually and geographically bankrupt traveller, a chance to later moan to Elaine in accounting that “it was like spot the bloody white man out there.”

The National Team

As one of African football’s true minnows, it’s no great surprise that the Gambians have never qualified for either the World Cup or Africa Cup of Nations finals. While the former will probably always be well out of reach, expansion of the AFCON to incorporate 24 teams beginning with the 2019 edition may yet leave that door slightly ajar. In fact, as of December 2018, the “Scorpions”, as the national team are known, are still in with a shout of making next summer’s tournament with one round of qualifiers to go. Admittedly this would require an unlikely away victory in Algeria coupled with a favourable result between Togo and Benin, however with the Algerians already assured of qualification, and thus potentially demotivated, and given that two other traditional also-rans, Madagascar and Mauritania have already sealed berths, it’s fair to say that stranger things have happened.

Speaking of odd occurrences, the Gambians were recently slapped with a two year ban from international competition (2014-16) for falsifying documents and knowingly allowing over-age players to compete for their under-20 side. Sadly, the African game is rife with precisely this sort of chicanery and there have been countless suspicions raised over players true ages over the years, perhaps most famously with regards to the former Arsenal and Nigeria striker Nwankwo Kanu, who always came across as someone who would have had a lot of stuff to shave by his eighth birthday. 

 

Kanu at the 1998 World Cup, aged “21.”

And as he appears today at 42 (ish).

Anyway, the whole thing has proved a tad embarrassing for the Gambians, particularly in light of the success enjoyed by their under-17 team, who were twice crowned African champions and played at two youth World Cups, the first of which in 2005 produced a stunning 3-1 victory over Brazil in the group stages. Clearly not too many of these players maintained their career trajectory if the country’s subsequent lack of polished, mature players is anything to go by. Indeed, it would be interesting if somebody could arrange a reunion to see whatever became of that decorated squad, who would now all be approaching 30, at least according to their birth certificates. 

Gambia’s 2005 under-17 squad hosting a get together to reminisce about old times, such as the time when they were 45.

The Shirt

Saller Sports are a German supplier who, if their website is any indication, are principally concerned with churning out kit for basketball, volleyball and all those other indoor sports that P.E. teachers force upon their classes whenever it’s raining in the curious belief that a group of fidgety, over stimulated children will respond well to being cooped up and presented with a plethora of flesh-stinging projectiles.

The company’s endeavours in the football kit world are therefore more limited, as well as a bit random – they also made my Lithuania shirt, for example – however they did maintain a contract with the Gambian team for several years, albeit with little to distinguish one template from the next. As for this particular design, it would appear that it was worn during a 5-1 friendly defeat against Mexico in May 2010, a match that feels as though it were cobbled together by a pair of gamers utilising the ‘random team select’ option on FIFA. Technically, the shirt was only made available in one size, although the label does state “Large/XL”,  so why they didn’t feel they could make a commitment one way or the other is beyond me.    Fits just fine to be fair, so I can only assume my own volume to be equally ambiguous, much like lonely hearts profiles describing the author as being in great shape, neglecting to mention that the shape in question is a circle.