RevSportz Comment
Even now, nearly a quarter-century later, it remains a benchmark in sports advertising. In the run-up to Euro 2000, Adidas, the sporting goods manufacturer, ran a black-and-white ad featuring a picture of a run-down apartment block. There were no players in the frame, no footballs, and the tagline was a stark: We All Come from Somewhere.
The photograph used was taken in the Marseille neighbourhood of Le Castellane, a council estate built for refugees of the Algerian War. It was where Zinedine Zidane, hero of France’s 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 triumphs, grew up. When we watch young men and women streak across the turf at the Football Carnival that RevSportz is organising for a second straight year, it’s the beauty of those words that come to mind.
Sport is not just about Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, or the prospect of Neeraj Chopra winning back-to-back Olympic golds in the javelin. It’s about the kids with dreams that want to emulate them, many of whom can’t see a pathway that guides them to that goal. If professional sport is the beautiful, made-up face that you see, then grassroots engagement that gives life to millions of dreams is the heart and lungs.
Without the work done on the maidans, and even the streets, there would be no Kohli or Rohit. Without a Ramakant Achrekar or Rajkumar Sharma toiling away selflessly year after year, there are no sporting icons. As a sports media organisation, there’s no real effort involved in plucking the low-hanging fruit – the Olympics, the World Cups and the IPLs. Ultimately, though, does such coverage really make a difference, in an already saturated space?
What we at RevSportz are proudest of are the stories we’ve done away from the spotlight. The girls preparing for their rugby challenge, the boundless enthusiasm around the Football Carnival, the matchless spirit of our Para athletes, and those cricketers fighting the good fight while a million miles away from the IPL’s riches. Rohit, Kohli and Neeraj don’t need us to write or speak about them – their stories are already the stuff of legend. But by giving a voice to those that aren’t heard, we’d like to think we’re giving something back to the sports that have so enriched our lives.
Sport, however, isn’t just about heroes. It’s not about winning. Most of those who partake in the Football Carnival will never play a minute of professional sport. That doesn’t matter. They will leave the field with lessons that will guide them in every walk of life. In contrast to the filth we see around us, sport – largely – remains pure. If you have a dream and you work towards it, you too can join your heroes, as Kishore Jena did with Neeraj in 2023.
Those are the stories we love. Jena’s rise from obscurity in Orissa, Mohammed Siraj first bowling with a cricket ball in his mid-teens, Rohan Bopanna laughing off grandpa jibes, and Titas Sadhu’s giggles of delight as she celebrated a life-changing contract. At RevSportz, we will continue to tell those stories – of the nowhere men and women who could become tomorrow’s Zidane and Kohli.
It really doesn’t matter where you come from.