I know a thing or two about playing the long game, the waiting game.
Patience is something of a superpower when it comes to me, something that has become a part of me over the years, along with Prayer.
Before my time, serving as General Secretary of Dempo Sports Club, a dream job for which I travel to and fro from my village in Guirdolim, Salcete, I was actively employed on some of the biggest oil rigs currently in operation throughout the world. Living off my suitcase and maintaining relationships through Skype Calls, my body almost numbing to the day to day struggle that the life really is.
It is a fact that life aboard is quite challenging and sure there is a lot, that one must learn to suffer in silence and let go off during the time aboard, be it missing out on precious family time or visiting a favorite café, there is surely a lot. However, there is always a flip side, a chance to learn new cultures and visit new places that you wouldn’t normally get to experience, is that flipside!
“Which has been your favorite place in the world to visit?” is a question I get asked a lot these days and for the longest time I had several answers and some pretty good memories to choose from but that all changed in Summer of 2019, a reason to check all my luggage at the door and never go back was finally here!
My Patience, finally paid off.
Guirdolim is a small village in the Taluka of Salcete that I have called my home for the longest time, ever since I can remember really. My love for the game of Football, has its roots here, in a small village club that has been my refuge for the last few years of my life.
Guirdolim Club was as non- existent as the word itself, a club on the brink, hoping on a miracle to save them from complete disaster.
The journey form non-existent to champions is not something that happens very often, but so was our journey to the top of the Salcete Zone. It was something quite remarkable and is an accomplishment that I hold very close to my heart, to this very day. To have them achieve promotion into the 2nd division run parallel with my time at the club, is a joy that 12 years on the rigs could have and has never given me.
If you can only connect the dots looking backward, then maybe it was destiny for me to resurrect the club that had been so close to me all my life, because as things would have it, the lessons and values I learned there, would soon give me a chance to convert a dream opportunity that would soon catch my eyes in a local newspaper, an opportunity that made everything seem, as if it had happened for a reason, a chance, to be the General Secretary of the Legendary Golden Eagles!
They say the feeling you get from the game of Football, is “probably” second to none, in terms of the unbridled joy and ecstasy, the game can give you, Football has been the love of my life for the better part of 30 years now but just after the Summer of 2019, 5 years after making that decision to leave the Rig life and not miss out on my family, I was blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Patricia Fizardo.
Someone who has made me believe, that everything has been worth it.
They say the feeling you get from the game of Football, is “probably” second to none, in terms of the unbridled joy and ecstasy, the game can give you but as of April 2019, I can tell you one thing, so does the joy of Family.
– Patwin Fizardo, General Secretary – Dempo Sports Club
