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[My Weekender]: Tom Bus

A weekend in the life a footballer, family man and music enthusiast. Basically a lot of World Cup and representin' for The Netherlands.
Last updated: 2015-11-09
Tom Bus is the founder of KCL Foods, the founder and vice chairman of the Shanghai International Football League and the owner, manager, playing coach of FC Oranje. He's logged 22 years in Shanghai. Impressive.

My weekend usually starts on Friday afternoon when Junior gets back from school. First, we ditch his school bag then get the brazuca out and head to the park play ball. My boy Quinten loves football and hanging out in the forest. We play until around 6pm then back home for dinner. After that we checking the latest from the Shanghai DVD shops, race cars, shoot pool and when its bedtime I will read him stories about the Seven Dwarves in Wonderland or Tarzan until he drifts off to sleep.

At night my time is devoted to birds. Birds have fascinated me from an early age. They are so free and lovely. Birds can hang out on one’s shoulder and do funny things. Especially crows & songbirds are to my liking. I learned about 80 crow sounds and was able to communicate with them on a metaphysical level. ‘Yeehaa’ really means something in crow language. I also specifically enjoy the call of the Cebu flowerpecker. There are only 100 of these birds left in the wild. Be kind to birds!

At midnight, I watch World Cup. So far it has been a fantastic football tournament with great games, controversies, failed nations, wonderful goals and a cannibal. Spain got knocked out, Italy too, and England went on a fact-finding mission to learn to figure out how teabags stay in cups longer. Looks like France can knock out ze Germans, and maybe they will.

Saturday is Shanghai International Football League day. It's our end of the season tournament. I'm getting up early to meet the team at Abbey Road for coffee and pre-match team talk. From there we go to the Rugby Club, where we play all our games. We won the majority of our matches this season, and that gave our third and fourth halves some extra atmosphere. Back at Abbey Road we enjoy Heineken per keg and eat great foods. At night I bring Junior to his weekend sleepover place so that I get to spend some time on my own. This is dedicated to music mostly. I like all kinds of music and will probably spend some time at the piano.

Sunday: more of the same, recently have found a renewed interest in Eric Satie, his compositions are a pleasant kind of coolness for the summer. Sunday 4pm I take Junior to his ‘Hope Star’ football training at Donghua University. One of our players, Double Huang, just set up these classes for kids.

We eat out for dinner and soon thereafter, I will tuck my boy in. The night is spent researching alternative coaching methods based on Buddhist principles. One can get inspiration from chanting mantras such as: “Aaah Oooommmmm, Aah Oooooommmmm, Maaaaay Hoooooooooooow Laaaaaan Winnnnnnnnnnnn Dakaaaaaaaahhhhp, Aah Ooooommmmmmmmmm”

Finally, at midnight I will be at Omalley’s World Cup at Zapata’s—Best World Cup spot in town, to watch the Netherlands versus Mexico. May the best team win!

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