Pink Floyd: Another Brick in The Wall (Part 2)

Track of the week - w/e 10 May 2015

Mwepu Ilunga died on Friday after a long illness. Who is he and why should you care? He played for Zaire at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany and, against Brazil, he did this.




If you can't be bothered to watch that film Brazil had a free-kick 30 yards from the Zaire goal. They were 3-0 up and there were five minutes left in the match. As Brazil decided which of their highly-talented players would take the kick, Ilunga broke from the defensive wall and hoofed the ball upfield earning himself a booking in the process.

Oh how we laughed! Did he think it was his free-kick? What a chump. Doesn't he know the rules? We kept laughing and people continue to laugh and point out the ridiculousness of it in those World Cup funniest moments programmes where people who were two at the time tell you how they remember watching it. (I was nine. I watched it at my friend Ian's house. They had colour television, we only had black and white.)

Except it's not that funny. The team had lost their previous matches. 2-0 to Scotland and 9-0 to Yugoslavia (a World Cup record), and the president of Zaire at the time, military leader Mobutu Sese Seko, was less than impressed with their showing.

The team's pay and bonuses were not reaching the players and being spent by government officials and hangers on. Presidential guards had been sent to the team to express the 'dire consequences' that faced them should they lose that match to Brazil by four goals or more. (This excellent article goes into more detail.)

Ilunga himself has only said that it was a protest against the pay for the team being spent elsewhere and he was hoping to be sent off but we have to consider the timewasting element of his action with that threat hanging over the team. They returned to Zaire, were forgotten about and most of them spent the rest of their lives in poverty.

So for Mwepu Ilunga here's Pink Floyd's 1979 number one Another Brick in The Wall (Part 2). Thank you Mwepu for showing that we don't have to be 'just another brick in the wall'.