Busy Saturday: Bowfest and Tottenham

The 49th annual Bowfest festival happened today in our village. This annual rite traditionally signifies the ending of summer and the beginning of fall. It’s the last of our summer festivals, which includes a May Day celebration, National Indigenous People’s Day, Canada Day, the Dock Dance, Logger Sports and the fastpitch tournament. These are traditions around here, some newer than others, but each of which marks a moment in our shared summer, and provides a little window into the Bowen Island community.

Bowfest is one long day of musical acts, a lip synch contest, jam and jelly competitions, a community parade and a slug race. It has waned over the years (COVID really smashed it) but it is starting to come back, like much of Bowen’s community life, spearheaded by a new generation of volunteers. In the last ten years, we have sustained a MASSIVE generational shift as Elders and long term residents moved away and new families joined our community. The COVID years from 2020-2022 meant that many of these new folks became a part of the community without being hosted in to the community rhythms, events and ways we do things. There was no one to guide them and they were struggling to fit in, focused on working hard to pay for their very expensive houses (or hustle to live within their very precarious housing situations) and the time for community giving was limited.

This year though I’m starting to feel the shift. I hardly knew anyone there. The citizen of the year was someone who has only lived here for 7 years, which is awesome. People were making comments about how cool it was but how much better it could be, and I heard all kinds of folks talking about what they might do next year, for Bowfest’s 50th anniversary. I hope they volunteer!

It’s hard getting older in a place when so many of your compatriots have moved away or died. The older we get the more people there are that are younger, of course. At one point we found ourselves with a small group of our community Elders dancing together to The ’60s Band. These folks hold a particular thread of this island culture and have been here forever. And they aren’t planning to leave soon either. These are the folks that welcomed me here when I arrived in 2001 and they are the people that we built stuff with that many people take for granted, like the Island Discovery Learning Community.

These community festivals and events are important touch points and I’m realizing that it takes some practice to find oneself drifting more and more to the sidelines of community here. I’m good with it. It’s natural. But it’s a journey.

Tottenham has had a good record at Manchester City over the years and has been the Premier League team against which Pep Guardiola has had the least success as City manager. Last year we won this fixture 0-4. This was a chance to really see Thomas Frank’s principles at play: out work your opponents, defensive solidity and focus on set pieces.

In the first half Spurs pushed City and pressed on defense, resulting in a 0-2 lead at the half. Coming out in the second half, we went right into a low block with Bentancur and Palhinha sliding back to cover defenders who stepped out to frustrate City’s quick passing.

Those two are key to the strategy because as the second half unfolded we saw them bolting forward into the attack as well which helped to play around City’s press and force them back into a more defensive shape.

It paid off. We walked away from Lancashire with a 0-2 victory and the distinction of being the only team to ever beat Pep at home twice in a row. Clean sheets both times to boot.

Changing tactics like this was not a feature of the Postacoglu era and that security looks like just the thing to take us up the table this season. Not that there is anywhere else to go from 17th.