RKFC imports stuck indoors, itching to head home

Vinayak Padmadeo

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 3

Football is the last thing on the minds of the star occupants of CH2, a plush hotel which doubles up as the headquarters as well as abode of the Real Kashmir FC team members. Right now the team’s home wears a deserted look, with only the hotel staff and the foreign contingent left there due the nationwide lockdown due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Skipper Loveday Enyinnaya, Kallum Higginbotham, Aaron Katebe, Bazie Armand, Gnohere Krizo and Mason Robertson are the only ones left from the squad. Also confined to the hotel RKFC team manager David Robertson, his wife Kim and James Alexander Lindsay and Jonathan Charles Craig, who are the members of the support staff.

Families guys

The wish to join their families back home in these trying times is the most important thought in their minds. Bad telecom connectivity that has impacted their long-distance video and audio calls is adding to the frayed nerves of the remaining members.

“We are hanging on. There is only so much you can do as we can’t venture out. We have to stay indoors so basically it is eat, sleep, some gym work… That’s all. It is getting boring for all of us here,” Enyinnaya told The Tribune over phone.

Stuck at the hotel, the players and the staff do best to kill time. Most prefer to say inside their rooms, either playing video games or stay glued to their TV sets. But every once in a while the reality hits hard.

“We are managing as well as we could under these circumstances. My family back home is worried about me and they want me to return. I have told them that I’m doing OK and being taken care of but right now no football is happening. All one could think of is to return back and be with the family,” the Nigerian defender added.

Britain worry

Striker Higginbotham has a similar story. With Covid-19 cases riding exponentially in Great Britain — over 38,000 have been infected with 684 fatalities so far — he is worried about the wellbeing of his family back home.

“It was OK for a couple of days but it is getting harder and harder. My wife is worried and the situation in UK is bad. It is very, very difficult back home as I have two young children — daughter is seven years old, son is two,” Higginbotham said.

“Those numbers (in the UK) are staggering. They keep rising and rising and I am stuck here halfway around the world. It is mentally tiring, to be honest,” the 30-year-old added.

Robertson wishes he were with ailing mother

Head coach David Robertson is desperate to get back to his ailing mother, who has undergone chemotherapy. His father and two children are back home in Aberdeen in Scotland, but he wishes he were back home. “It’s obviously very difficult, worried about everyone else. The lockdown in India and the cancellation of international flights and domestic flights. We are stranded here in the owner’s hotel. A few of our players left. We have absolutely nothing to do but stay in our hotel rooms. We have been locked inside for the last 14-15 days,” Robertson told a website. “It’s worrying as well as some of the players have got young kids at home. Okay, my wife is here and my son is here but we have got two other kids in Aberdeen in Scotland. My mother is undergoing chemotherapy as well. Being so far away is so much worry.” — Agencies