May 31st 2002, Newlaithes Junior School, Horsforth, Leeds.

It had been a normal Friday morning. Milk had been drunk, spellings had been tested, and we were rolling ever closer to that magical hour of lunch. After that, it was a straight shot to the weekend — a World Cup weekend no less, and was there a more exciting prospect as a child of ten than the promise of the World Cup? 1998 was a half-recognisable fuzz of Owen’s run, Beckham’s red, and Valderrama’s hair, playing in my mind like the TV in the background of a half-forgotten movie scene. 2002 was to be the first. The proper first. I was going to watch every game, take in every touch, and savour each mad, wonderful kit design, the ones that looked as if they had fallen from the pages of my own sketchbooks.

The only issue was, given the competition was taking place in a country I would have struggled to locate on a map, and something incomprehensible to do with time meant that it was happening nine hours in the future but also, somehow, now, I couldn’t watch the opening game. Not that it mattered particularly: France were playing Senegal. I’d never heard of Senegal, and France were World and European champions, so what would be the point, really? I should add that my limited life-experience of football at this point had been Manchester United winning everything domestically, with an occasional Arsenal flourish, while the French dominated the international stage, all of which had convinced my ten-year-old self that football was an inherently unfair sport dominated by absolute bastards. Whoever Senegal were, wherever they were from, the idea of missing their inescapable demise at the hands of France didn’t seem too devastating.

With my focus drifting to the possibility of chocolate custard and cake for pudding, I didn’t think much of Miss Semple getting us up from our seats to head to the music room. I enjoyed music, but wasn’t particularly in the mood to attempt ‘Hot Cross Buns’ on the recorder once more. Much like Senegal attempting to beat France, it seemed like a lot of effort for no reward. Imagine my surprise, then, when the shutters were rolled back to reveal *the television*. Oh, Friday of Fridays. A film? A cartoon? A documentary? Whatever it was, it was immaterial: it was TV. The old girl crackled and buzzed, hummed and whined, waking up whatever already-ancient power source was necessary to put picture on screen. And, as the image slowly began to reveal itself, like a freshly-printed Polaroid, we saw the unmistakable green of a football pitch.

What was this? Some kind of trick? Some sick joke? A tantalising glimpse of the game before the educational video was loaded into the VHS player? No… it was the real thing. “Since you’ve all been so good this week,” Miss Semple drawled in that unforgettable Northern Irish treacle, “I thought I’d give you a treat.”

We cheered like England had won the thing before the opening game had kicked off. Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit, during school?! You must be joking. Senegal… where was it again? Who were all their players? Never mind. It didn’t matter. Just sit back on the dusty, rough carpet and soak it in, friends. It don’t get no better.

Who was I supporting? Senegal, obviously. Why? Because they weren’t France. France were too good. They won everything. They had loads of fans. Senegal needed me, because who else was going to support them? As far as I was concerned, nobody knew Senegal existed. I sure didn’t. I didn’t know they had come so close to winning AFCON just a few months earlier, or that this was their first ever game in the World Cup. I just knew who they were playing. So, even though they were going to lose — because of course they would — I would support them. The game kicked off and I was as transfixed as I always was.

Papa Bouba Diop meant nothing to me on the morning of May 31st 2002. By the afternoon, I’d decided he was the best player in the world. I wanted Leeds to sign him so I could watch him play next to Olivier Dacourt, David Batty, and Eirik Bakke. I had no clue who he played for, barely aware of the French league, let alone RC Lens, and even less of the Swiss League he had played in prior to France, but I knew he was the player I wanted to see more of. Little did I know, I had actually seen him in the flesh at Elland Road the year before, as Leeds had taken on Grasshopper Zurich in the UEFA Cup. Small world, no?

Diop’s goal, half an hour into the game, shattered my perspective of the footballing world. France — the mighty France — were losing a game. The World and European Champions had conceded a goal to a country I had only discovered a few days ago, and were now watching as the players representing that country danced in the corner of the pitch around Diop’s shirt. France’s pitch. Was that even allowed? Couldn’t the French complain about it somehow? Surely the powers-that-be weren’t going to stand by and allow the best team in the world to be embarrassed by these nobodies.

And yet, they kept on dancing.

By the time the final whistle blew I was exhausted. The emotional toil of watching Senegal, my boys, hanging on into the final throes of the game left me a wreck. Diouf, Diao, Diop… my new heroes. Living, breathing proof that, no matter what evidence I had been given before, football could be fun for the little guys too. It gave me hope that, despite the strange rumours I had heard my dad and his friends discuss — money troubles, court case, O’Leary sacked, players sold — my club could, one day, defy the odds and beat the big boys. The ones who, try as we might, kept pushing us away and laughing at our efforts. Probably like France had laughed ahead of that game. Maybe, if Papa Bouba Diop joined, we’d be able to do what Senegal had done.

When Diop signed for Fulham in 2004, after things had gone from bad to worse for Leeds, I allowed myself a smile. Watching him become one of the most admired midfielders in the Premier League over the next few years, I allowed myself a few more. My boy. I remember him. Just imagine what he and Dacourt could have done.

When I read that Diop had passed away in November 2020, I watched his goal against France again. A small, but significant, part of my life, locked away in one of the many boxes of memories this sport has given me. My own personal tribute. I would have liked to have said thank you to Papa Bouba Diop. Thank you for showing me what football could really be like. ⬢