Building a Stage for Beijing High School Football: The Story of the North High Cup

Student players participating in the North High Cup

referee flipping a coin

The students are competing fiercely.Photographer/Reporter Hao Yi

May 15,national securityWon the first victory of Xingongti. After the game, Han Jiaqi and substitute goalkeeper Hou Sen put on a T-shirt with the words “Beijing Representative” and took a group photo with the fans in the North Stand. They are the only two Beijingers in the Beijing Guoan team.

“Where did the children who played football in Beijing go?” This has been a long-standing question for Beijing fans.

Now in Beijing, there is such a football game, which is specially organized for Beijing students. The founder is a high school student, and most of the operators of this game are high school students and college students. What is even more commendable is that this event has been held for 7 years and has been held 6 times. The seventh competition is currently underway.

For all ordinary high school students who love football, this event is a stage for them to continue their “football dream”.

Founded a ball game

Build a competition stage for ordinary students

The full name of BGBC is “Beijing High School Football Championship League” (Bei Gao Cup), and the founder is a high school girl named Liu Yihe.

Eight years ago, Liu Yihe, who didn’t love football, was just an ordinary freshman girl in the High School Attached to Beijing Normal University. At that time, her understanding of football was still limited to the picture of boys in the same class in junior high school chasing bottle caps or kicking paper balls between classes.

When he was in high school at the High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, Liu Yihe discovered that the most densely populated place on campus was the futsal field called the “Birdcage”. Contest. Thirty or forty people can even be squeezed into a small venue for a 20-20 match.

At that time, Liu Yihe, who had just joined the student union, was full of energy. She wondered why there was no football team or inter-school football games since the school had such a good football atmosphere.

So, she found a few boys who often played football, and set up a football team. Liu Yihe served as the team manager and helped the team connect with the game.

She found that there were very few competitions for students to participate in at that time. The youth football league sponsored by the Football Association is basically attended by students from various club echelons and traditional football schools. Ordinary high school student teams are basically “battered” when they participate, and sometimes there is a difference of several points. For some folk competitions, participating teams can sign up in various forms. Almost all youth training clubs will form teams to participate, and some teams recruit a large number of football talents, which is not the stage for ordinary high school teams.

“Football should not only serve special students and special schools, but also provide a stage for ordinary students.” Therefore, Liu Yihe contacted several surrounding schools through the student union, and found that boys in many schools had this need, so they again The “Xicheng Eight Schools Football and Basketball League” was established.

This is the prototype of the Beigao Cup.

scale up

More than 20 school teams were assembled in the first competition

During the competition, Liu Yihe found that the more teams participated, the more students’ expenses could be saved. So she and two friends planned to expand the team’s participation together. One of her friends helped her with publicity, another friend used her parents’ relationship to get some sponsorship, and Liu Yihe was responsible for the most difficult task-finding a team.

The year when the North High Cup was founded was 2016, which was also the second year after the football reform plan was approved. The football reform plan clearly stated that “all primary and secondary schools should include football in their physical education content and increase the proportion of school hours. On the basis of the existing 5,000 primary and secondary schools nationwide, there will be 50,000 schools featuring football on campus by 2025.”

However, in reality, it is even more difficult to find students who play football among the hundreds of high schools in Beijing. Liu Yihe could only hold his mobile phone every day, contact all the schools he could reach, and type one by one to ask: “Does your school have a football team?”

“No” and “I don’t know” are the answers she gets the most.

Liu Yihe asked hundreds of students from more than 60 schools one after another, and managed to gather more than 20 school teams. Coupled with the effect of the event announcement, a total of 29 teams participated in the first competition. The competition adopts a system similar to the World Cup. It is divided into 8 groups, with 3 or 4 teams in each group.

I thought it would be very difficult to find a team, but after the game Liu Yihe found that the difficulty of finding a team was far less difficult than running the game. Some teams will recruit college students to “beat the small with big players”; some teams will invite football special students to “imposter”; Rushed into the field to obstruct the game; some team members even cyber-baited Liu Yihe because of his suspension.

During that time, Liu Yihe either cried on the spot, or went home and cried under the quilt. However, “I have to finish the competition I organized with tears in my eyes. Anyway, if it doesn’t work, I will call the police.” With this kind of thinking in mind, Liu Yihe has overcome one difficulty after another.

When the game gradually got on track, Liu Yihe also discovered the touch that football can bring. She remembered that there was a team from an international school, and foreign teachers used buses to pull the players and cheerleaders to the stadium, “filling up” the atmosphere at once. In other teams, after a dispute occurs, the captain will take the initiative to come out to appease the players and parents and take responsibility. Before the game, the players would respectfully call the audience uncles and aunts, and during the game they would also respectfully call the referee a teacher. After the game, the players would hold hands and bow to the audience, referees and the organizing committee.

At the end of the first competition, the No. 2 High School Affiliated to Normal University won the Beigao Cup championship. Liu Yihe’s alma mater, the High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University, did not win the ranking, but Liu Yihe was very content. She later concluded that the training given to her by founding the Beigao Cup could not be given by three years of high school study. “When you overcome all difficulties and start something, the whole world will help you.”

pull through

Reorganize the “lost” team

With the experience of the first session, the North High Cup has stabilized, and the subsequent sessions have gone much smoother. But in 2020, the North High Cup has ushered in the biggest challenge.

In that year, sports events around the world had to shorten their schedules or suspend or postpone them, especially the Beigao Cup. In 2021, when the North High Cup is being prepared again, the biggest difficulty is that many teams have “separated”.

The characteristic of the North High Cup is to form a team in the name of the school, but because there are students graduating every year, the personnel of the school team is mobile. In the year when it was closed, many senior high school students from the team graduated, and the freshmen in the first year of high school did not know how to register for the North High Cup. Therefore, in order to continue the North High Cup, the organizing committee can only contact each school again.

At this time, Liu Yihe has gone abroad to study in university, and she is doing more behind-the-scenes work online. The main work of the organizing committee is handed over to the school girl Xu Zehui and other interested students.

At that time, Xu Zehui was the same as Liu Yihe before, holding his mobile phone to contact the team every day. During this process, she realized Liu Yihe’s difficulties back then.

Fortunately, with the efforts of Xu Zehui and his companions, the 2021 Beigao Cup has reignited, and another batch of new young football players have had the opportunity to show themselves through this platform.

game harvest

Harvest the fruits of victory and experience the feeling of failure

Compared with the juniors who were able to step on the field again, Chai Jun left regrets. Because of the suspension of the league, he missed his last Beigao Cup as a high school student. Fortunately, now he can still join the organizing committee as a college student, and then participate in the organization of the Beigao Cup.

Chai Jun recalled that the first time he participated in the Beigao Cup was in 2019, when he was still a student in the first year of Beijing No. 2 Middle School. That year, his school failed to win a game in the Beigao Cup and was eliminated in the group stage.

Although he failed to qualify for the group stage, Chai Jun was not depressed. He always felt that the Beigao Cup is a competition created and participated by students, and he should enjoy pure football fun here. It’s enough to fight hard.”

Does playing football affect your studies? The children who played football said “no”. A parent who is very supportive of children playing football believes that football is a very complex sport. In addition to exercising students’ physical and willpower, it can also improve students’ analysis, judgment, and decision-making abilities, allowing them to reap the fruits of victory , Experience the feeling of failure, which is more meaningful for their future life.

In the Beigao Cup, before the game, the students will get together to study the opponent’s game video and statistics, and the captain will arrange the position of the players and the division of labor on the field.

After stepping on the field, the students will form a circle and cheer side by side. They will also take care of each other on the field, and will take responsibility for mistakes. After the game, the student who scored a goal would thank his teammates for their help, and the student who was sent off would bow and apologize to his teammates. If you get a good result, everyone will throw the captain or coach high into the sky.

Some teams that have participated in the North High Cup consecutively have already established a customary etiquette. No matter how hard the game is on the field or the result of the game, players from both sides will bow to the audience, referees and the organizing committee after the game, and the two sides will stay together Take a big group photo.

“The meaning of the game is not as simple as winning or losing. Football has taught us the principles of life.” Xu Zehui said that in one year’s final, the two sides encountered a controversial penalty. Parents of the losing side wanted to go to the referee to argue with the children , In the end, the captain of the team came and took the students to dissuade their parents. They learned to accept regrets on the football field, and learned to respect opponents and referees.

Take care of the stage

The dream is to compete with foreign leagues, and I hope that the final will go to Xingongti

As a campus football event completely voluntarily founded by students, the Beigao Cup can last for 7 years. Therefore, after entering the knockout round, many referees will also remind the players to pay attention to their actions, avoid injuries, and do not cause disputes. “It’s not easy for students to have such a platform to play football. Everyone should love it and don’t affect the game because of their lack of calmness.” A referee said.

In recent years, with some international schools registering for the competition, the level of competition in the Beigao Cup has improved, but at the same time the gap between the teams has also widened. In a game at the end of April this year, the Jingxi School, which was formed by foreign high school students, defeated its opponent 18-0 in its debut. Chai Jun feels that through this game, it is enough to see the gap in the football level of Chinese and foreign high school players. The on-duty referee of the game also said: “The Jingxi School team has obviously been trained and played more holistically and with more discipline. Although they are all ordinary high school students, their level is quite different.”

The students on the losing side were discussing with each other how to narrow the score gap. But the final conclusion is that from technology to body to teamwork, Jingxi School has completely “crushed” itself.

The rules of the Beigao Cup are 7-a-side games, and each team can sign up for a maximum of 15 players. However, except for some international schools, most high schools do not have enough players, and most of them can only sign up to eight or nine players. There are also many schools that cannot participate because they cannot get enough 7 players. Sometimes, when it comes to the game, some players will not be able to participate in the high school make-up class, so they have to play more with less.

When Chai Jun participated in the Beigao Cup for the first time, he felt the oppression brought by his peers from international schools on the court. Chai Jun’s intuitive feeling is that because the training time is guaranteed, the students of international schools are very skilled, and their speed, explosive power, and confrontation ability are particularly strong, and the game rhythm is very fast. These international school students often play 11-a-side games. In this game, playing a 7-a-side game like the Beigao Cup seems to be easy.

“Of course, in order to make up for the technical and physical gaps, Chinese students can only use their brains tactically.” Chai Jun mentioned that Chinese students will take back defenses across the board in games against international schools, relying on defensive counterattacks to deal with opponents, and occasionally There may also be opportunities for upsets.

Liu Yihe, who has already studied in Japan, can see the huge gap between Chinese and Japanese campus football from the comparison.

According to Liu Yihe, in Japan, from elementary school to middle school to university, more than 80% of students will participate in club activities called “buhuo” after class. Japanese schools leave school very early in the afternoon, and the training level of the school club is very high. No matter what event the students participate in, they can guarantee to practice until five times every Wednesday, and there are also opportunities for competitions on weekends.

Liu Yihe said that in Japan, the “Japan Soccer High School League” is the benchmark against the North High Cup that he founded. This event has a history of more than 100 years. The annual finals are held at the Tokyo National Stadium, with tens of thousands of spectators. People, the attendance rate exceeds the professional league in Japan.

Every year in the Japan Football High School League, the principals, teachers, classmates and relatives and friends of the participating schools will form a group to cheer for the students, including many professional scouts.

Liu Yihe said that when recruiting Japanese companies, they will attach great importance to students with sports “minor work” experience. They believe that students with sports experience are physically and mentally healthier, able to cope with heavy work and overtime pressure, and at the same time have a greater sense of rules, a sense of teamwork, a sense of honor, and a stronger ability to execute.

“We all have a dream. We hope that the Beigao Cup can develop into the Japanese Football High School League, with hundreds of teams participating and tens of thousands of spectators. The final can be held in the newly built Workers’ Stadium.” Liu Yihe said.