Asma Khursid
I was good at sports at school! Asma as a little girl (sitting on the chair at the front) with her brother Nazakit and sister Najma © Najma Khurshid Asma Khurshid was born at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield and grew up in Attercliffe with two brothers and a sister. The family moved to Burngreave when Attercliffe was redeveloped in the 1970s. This extract comes from an interview with Asma (jointly with her sister Najma) recorded by Gaby Spinks for the Burngreave Voices oral history archive in July 2006. My time at Firth Park [secondary school] was really good. Looking at me now, you wouldn't think I'd have been really good at sports, but I was! My kids don't believe me. They came back from a swimming lesson yesterday and I said to them, as we drove past Firth Park pitch, "I remember doing 1500 metres," and my big son said, laughing, "Yeah, bet you came last." I was never first or second but I'd come seventh or eighth. I was captain of the rounders team, captain of the netball team and they wouldn't let me be captain of the hockey team. The teachers were saying it wasn't fair on other people, I wasn't giving other people a chance. But you know what it was, I think it's about organisation. Because I was good at that, I'd recognise people's abilities and I'd be able to quickly arrange them. And I think Mrs Peat the PE teacher really recognised that, while Mrs Haking, she said, "Oh no you've got to give someone else a chance!" But then the hockey team didn't win! So then I was made captain of the team and I led them to victory twice in five years! |