Practice English Speaking&Listening with: We had to run for our lives - Jawahir Roble | ? Strong is...

My name is Jawahir Roble, but you can call me JJ. I am a referee from London.

So, I wasn’t born in the UK. I am originally from Somalia.

My family, everyone was just living in Somalia, normal lives and everything,

and we would play football until, literally, the sun goes down.

Sometimes we’d play football at the beach. There’s this really, really nice, famous beach in Somalia,

it’s called Lido Beach. We would play there literally every weekend.

I will never forget that, it’s the best memory ever.

And then, there was a civil war, so it got really, really bad.

I remember vividly what happened in Somalia. It was horrible because, imagine you’re at home,

the kids that you play football with, everyone is being told to run for their lives

and just go somewhere else, and then not being able to say goodbye to some of the kids,

and then your neighbours, everyone would just randomly leave as soon as possible,

and then you have to go. That was hard because you want to say goodbye

but you can’t because everyone’s literally running for their lives. But, yeah, it did get pretty bad.

It was bad. So, we had to flee the country and then seek refuge in the UK.

Nothing’s going to be the same. Everything is going to start fresh.

New school. New everything. Honestly, it’s going to be us starting everything all over again

And for us to accept the facts and just to start again and move on, it was hard.

Imagine you have to meet new people, you have to leave your home. We live in a new house

and we’re just like: “Wow! Everything happened so fast without warning.”

And you have to accept it because everything that’s new is not always bad.

Us, my family, being very, like, football fanatics, especially me, coming to England,

especially living in Wembley, that’s right next to the stadium. What more can you ask for?

And every time, we can hear all the cheering and everything from the fans, from our garden.

So, all our siblings would play a match every [day] after school.

At the beginning, it was really hard because I couldn’t speak a word of English, honestly,

but I got into integrating with the kids because of football.

So, I would play with the girls, the boys. Everyone would play and, in class,

I’d be just so quiet but on the pitch, I’m literally the loudest:

“Pass me the ball! Pass me the ball!”.

How did I learn all this stuff? Because, I don’t know, football. And my confidence started to grow.

It’s random, innit? Refereeing over playing, like, come on.

Even I’m like, how? No, but the reason is because it was a struggle with my parents.

Like, in school, I was like: “I want to become a player”.

I kept repeating it but no-one took me seriously.

And as you get older, if you don’t achieve that at a certain age, it gets difficult because,

you know, you get a bit injured and a lot of things happen,

and if you’re not in a team, training, it’s difficult. So, I picked up refereeing.

I was told to try it and I did, and, honestly, I don’t regret it at all.

It’s so difficult. Nobody likes referees, but think about this:

without a referee, there’s no game happening, and to be fair, referees have the best seat.

You can see everything. You can see all the action, all the emotions.

You can see everything, man. I remember the difficulties that I’ve experienced at the beginning,

especially with my family, because they knew how crazy I was about football,

and they thought it would be something that I would grow out of.

As I got older, I was asking questions. I was like: “Can I please play for a professional team one day?”,

or “Can I...”, I don’t know. “I want to coach. I want to be involved in football,

and I don’t want to do anything else”. They were like “No, JJ. Football’s not for you.”

I know where they were coming from because I was, you know, a black, Somali girl, visibly Muslim.

So, therefore, I would be targeted, and they would be like:

“OK, if JJ gets into that environment, she will get bullied, people will never accept her,

people will never take her seriously,

so let’s just direct her in another profession”. I did do that, I’m not going to lie.

I went to uni for two years to study IT and then I dropped out because it was not for me.

They were kind of looking out for me, but I didn’t see that. It was just like a little battle.

I saw it as them being strict on me.

But, I don’t know, the communication was not like me trying to get what they were saying.

I just saw it as them being really, really strict, and then every day, I’m just hiding my boots,

going training, and then when I come back home, they’d be like: “Where have you been, JJ?”.

I’m like: “Umm, library.”

I’m so glad I stuck to what I believed in because, at the end of the day,

now they see me as someone who actually is resilient.

They see that I have a serious passion for football, and I have their full support.

The Somali community in London is so supportive.

When I’m walking down the road, they’re like: “Oh, you’re that referee, aren’t you?”.

I’m like: “Yeah, yeah, yeah”. They’re like: “Literally, my little daughter looks up to you.

You’re so good”. And then, back home, you get those calls like:

“So, JJ, are you sure you’re going to still stick to football?

Are you sure you’re not going to do anything else?”.

I’m like: “It’s going to be football all the way.

That’s it. Leave me alone, guys”. So, back home, it’s still like:

“When is she going to grow up?”. They have that same mindset my parents had at the beginning,

but, you know, we can change them, too.

Being strong, to me, it means to be... to first believe in who you are,

because I believed in myself when nobody believed in me. Whatever dream you have,

whatever mission you have, anything positive you want to achieve in life,

just know that, honestly, there’s times when your parents believe in you,

everyone else believes in you, but you don’t believe in yourself.

You’re not going to achieve it because no-one’s going to drag you to school.

You have to do the hard work yourself, believe in yourself and, one day, you’ll achieve your things.