Balls to Africa

Lost & found in South Africa

Spirit of Football — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:56:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball completes its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup Finals in South Africa.

Lost in darkness
Ahead in the darkness I could make out four figures groping around on their hands and knees. It was Andrew, Phil and Christian from Spirit of Football, and our driver Richard.

Richard had parked the mini-bus on the outskirts of Rustenburg so that Phil could speak to the BBC about how we were just over 100 miles away from the Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg, having begun our journey to the World Cup Finals from Battersea Park, London, 132 long days ago. At no point during that drive did they notice me rolling out of the open mini bus door and into the tall grass on the side of the road. They drove off into the distance, leaving me far behind, along with the chances of us reaching Johannesburg together.

A bottle of South African brandy helped make the mood on the mini-bus a very good one, though it was around the fourth or fifth time the bottle had been passed around when the panic set in. Who had the ball, they asked each other? A sudden horrible realisation began to hit home that they were an important passenger light.

During our long journey through the continent, Andrew's sleep had been interrupted by a recurring bad dream where he had lost me. This time he wasn't bolt upright in bed between sweat-soaked sheets. A futile search of the mini-bus found nothing, and the chances of finding me seemed less realistic than Raymond Domenech being invited to Nicolas Anelka's house for a cup of tea and a chocolate hobnob.

As our driver, and the only one not drunk on Klipdrift, Richard insisted that he remembered exactly where they had stopped earlier, and sped the frantic Spirit of Football team back to where he thought that was. On arrival each of the four men got out into the wild safari armed with nothing more than desperation.

They began by searching the undergrowth on the side of the road. Each conversation they had was further invitation for hungry wildlife to eat them all for dinner. Ten minutes of hopeless groping and searching passed before Christian's outstretched hands stumbled upon me in a thicket of grass. Any hungry lions looking on would have no doubt been scared off by the sight of four sweaty men cuddling each for far longer than deemed appropriate in polite society.

Johannesburg
Outside the Soccer City stadium the streets were filled with Mexican supporters dressed in green and mixing freely and dancing with fans of Bafana Bafana, amid a chorus of booming vuvuzelas. Fans of both nationalities began using me as an opportunity to showcase their own football skills, while Phil led them into a singsong of 'one ball, one world,' to which an English-speaking Mexican began a spirited rendition of 'un mundo - una pelota.'

Unlike some nationalities, South African football fans seemed to have realistic ambitions for Bafana Bafana's progress in what is their own World Cup, but in no way did that diminish the overwhelming sense of pride and excitement that hosting the competition has brought them. Although not everybody there knew about my journey through Africa, it didn't take long for people to understand what I represented – although as a football outside the stadium for the first game of the World Cup, I was clearly preaching to the converted.

To watch South Africa take on Uruguay in the opening game we were in the township of Soweto, only a stone’s throw away from the magnificent Soccer City stadium. The area is better known for its struggle against apartheid, which we had to keep reminding ourselves ended only 16 years ago, the same year a Brazilian team of mixed-race players featuring the likes of Dunga and Marcio Santos lifted the World Cup over 10,000 miles away in Los Angeles.

Around us vast hordes of people were dancing and singing in front of one of many recently-installed large-screen TVs. Andrew, Phil and Christian were the only white people present. Once Kaiser Chiefs' Siphiwe Tshabalala smashed South Africa into a one-nil lead, the celebrations really kicked off from those whose love of the game is clear to see, with the yellow and green of Bafana Bafana adorning television aerials, gateposts and doorways as far as the eye could see.

So, the journey is over. I've been repaired four times throughout the 32 countries that are represented by each of my 32 leather panels, which are now covered with some 17,000 signatures of people we have met. Now I will retire as a football. Having learnt so much about the Spirit of Football and Alive & Kicking, I am confident that long after the World Cup trophy is held aloft on 11 July, their work will continue to dissolve the boundaries between race, age and intellectual disability. One ball, one world.

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Barefoot Kenyan surgery

Spirit of Football — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 22:08:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

The smell of open sewers is never far away in the slums of Nairobi. They flow freely alongside the dense maze of corrugated roofed shacks that people here call home.

It's a harsh environment, and Andrew and Christian from Spirit of Football are upset when they see two kids stood on the sewer's shallow banks sniffing glue out of a plastic bag. The kids are no older than 10.

The slum is called Kibera, which translates as ‘jungle’. We're here to meet Wario Donne, the founder of Score Against Substance Abuse, who with representatives from the Kenyan Special Olympics team has organised a game of unified football, where players with and without intellectual disabilities play football alongside each other.

Super Wario World

The local children are drawn to Andrew and Christian as obvious foreigners. Neither has any money or food to give, but Andrew has something else to bring a smile to their faces – me. Leather footballs are too expensive for most people in Kibera. Games are often played with balls made from plastic bags, condoms and any other materials people can get their hands on. Electricity is another luxury that few people here can afford, as are shoes.

Wario leads us to a dusty football pitch without a single blade of grass. It is, however, covered in shards of broken glass, but this does nothing to stop those without shoes running across it in enthusiastic games of football. The soles of feet here are as tough as old boots.

The game attracts a crowd who gather along the touchline. One curious spectator asks Wario what exactly unified football is. Once it's fully explained, he asks which of the players are disabled, to which Wario smiles.

The spectator smiles back after realising what he has just said. He has quickly come to understand the opportunity that unified football offers those with disabilities, who often find themselves marginalised on the fringes of society.

The game goes well, but a slight tear in two of my panels exposes my inflatable bladder. One more kick and it could have been curtains. It's time to pay an emergency visit to the Kenyan Alive & Kicking centre in Nairobi.

Since starting in 2004 it has created over 50 jobs for previously unemployed adults, who along with Alive & Kicking's Zambian centre have hand-stitched hundreds and thousands of footballs to children throughout the African continent. The work itself is very skilled and stitchers complete about three footballs per day.

Me under the knife (well, needle)

I'm put in the care of the man who originally stitched me into being. His name is Bernard Ongera, a softly-spoken stitcher who lets his hands do the talking. Music plays gently in the background as our cameras film Bernard operating.

He sits at a wooden desk and replaces my torn leather using a long needle to thread the stitching through the tiny perforations that line each side of the replacement panels.

The operation is a success and I'm as good as new and ready for another kickaround. Throughout Kenya, and indeed Africa, football isn't merely an interest people have; it represents a way of life - one of hope and infinite possibilities, that Wario Donne of Score against Substance Abuse and Bernard Ongera of Alive & Kicking are working to spread throughout Africa.

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Benin: with voodoo on our side

Spirit of Football — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:37:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

We are in Ouidah, a city on the Atlantic coast of Benin - a country that alongside Togo is squashed between Ghana to the east and Nigeria to the west, like two slices of meat in a giant sandwich.

The streets here are clean, the people are friendly, and once upon a time business here was booming. The commodity, however, was people, with hundreds of thousands of Africans taken from their homes in chains as slaves, never to return, deep in the hull of ships headed west.

Many things have changed since then, but the presence of the voodoo religion remains strong throughout Benin. Andrew from Spirit of Football is happily chatting away with Ouidah’s mayor, their conversation ending with a firm handshake, when Andrew, as a throwaway gesture, mentions how great it would be to get me blessed by a voodoo practitioner.

The mayor's smile slips and, releasing Andrew's hand, he turns towards one of his aides and makes a sign with his hands in much the same way Terry Hurlock did before killing his opponent's desire to do anything fancy with the ball. The aide nods slowly and solemnly. “Then it will be done,” replies the Mayor. We're ushered into a car and driven at speed through the city's narrow back streets, behind us an evening sun falling from the sky.

We arrive in darkness at the home of Houngwe Towakon Guedehoungu. He's not just a high priest of voodoo, but the world's leading practitioner of the religion – sort of like the Pope of Voodoo. We were invited inside to take a seat.

Several minutes pass before our host appears through a beaded curtain hung over a doorway at the far end of the room. On first impression it's difficult to fathom what's more frightening, the childish fear of being possessed by some evil spirit, or Mr Guedehoungu's outfit. Either he's been through his nan's blouse collection, or Brazil's kit manufacturers have opted for something a bit avant-garde.

He sits on a long couch with a white towel hung around his neck. Our translator explains what I am and tells him about our journey. He takes me gently in his hands and uses his powers to consult with the spirit world. After a while he reassures us by saying the gods will protect both my guardians and I. He continues by saying that the gods would also protect the World Cup in South Africa.

He then asks the spirit world to allow an African team to lift the trophy. Everybody resists the temptation to chip in with asking the spirit world if they could take Mr Guedehoungu on a trip to the men's department of Marks & Spencer.

We leave Ouidah very thankful to have received the voodoo gods' blessing, and set off looking for a bookmaker to lay our savings down on Ivory Coast winning the World Cup.

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Burkina Faso: Before Messi, it's Mossi

Spirit of Football — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 12:24:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

We enter the courtroom of Mogha Naba, King of the Mossi People, as honoured guests. Beforehand we’re briefed on the protocol - you shouldn’t look directly at him and when you speak to him you speak through someone else who relays it to the big fella sitting on the throne.

So what does Phil from Spirit of Football do? He throws me at him, saying that nobody can sign my leather panels without first kicking or heading me.

The Mossi are an ethnic group making up half of Burkina Faso's 15 million population, and, as you can probably guess, the Mossi King is something of a big deal in these parts: a very popular figure not just in his own country, but across all Africa.

And so, without warning or invitation, through the air I’m sent, leaving Phil’s hands and passing the aghast facial expressions of the King’s subjects, aimed squarely at the big man himself. "Sweet Jesus," I think, "we’re done for now."

Unflustered, the King gathers me safely in his hands and smiles. "But surely a goalkeeper can use his hands?" He’s a goalkeeper? He’s a goalkeeper! And he’s smiling. Phew! Phil looks quizzically at Andrew, and then notices the stern faces of one or two of the King's burly subjects and casually agrees, “Yeah, it’s fine for goalkeepers to use their hands.”

The King signs me before showing us his private collection of football memorabilia. Here's Didier Drogba's signed Ivory Coast World Cup shirt; there's a framed photograph of the King dressed in full goalkeeping kit standing next to Cameroon World Cup legend Roger Milla after both had played in a celebrity football match. But the most prized possession in the King’s vast collection is a Wales jersey worn by his hero Ryan Giggs, signed by Giggs and the Welsh squad.

South of the capital Ouagadougou is the village of Kalzi. It's an ideal place for a quick game. Dusty soil the colour of Paul Scholes' hair covers the ground as far as the eye can see. A Saharan wind blows this dust into eyes and noses, and overcast skies do nothing to cool the temperature.

The clouds smother Andrew and Phil like a thick woolly jumper. Children are playing table football nearby under the futile shade of a tree. The children quickly lose interest in their game when they see me. They make goalposts out of stones and use me in a game that sees four goals shared during 40 minutes of play. Afterwards everybody waits patiently to scribble their signature on me.

The train journey from Burkina Faso to the Ivory Coast takes 46 hours. On arrival at the port of Abidjan the Atlantic Ocean offers little relief to the humidity. Locals move freely without so much as a bead of sweat; Phil and Andrew aren't so fortunate. We are to be part of a procession through the city’s streets.

We meet with procession organiser and financer Laurent Pokou. Laurent is more highly thought of in the Ivory Coast than Didier Drogba, and looks too young to have played for the national team during the 1960s. Special Olympic athletes dance and wave to onlookers who have gathered to see us. Laurent remains immaculate in his buttoned orange polo shirt, while Phil and Andrew's clothes fight a losing battle to stay dry in the sticky air.

We later visit ASEC Mimosas Football Club, whose youth academy teaches boys aged 12-17 English, Spanish, French, maths, geography and history. The club's director of marketing, Benoit You, tells us the philosophy is to develop players and give them a chance. It's a motto that has served them well. Former players include Manu Eboue, Salomon Kalou, Kolo Toure and his younger brother Yaya.

ASEC Mimosas also hold the world record for the longest run of unbeaten league games, avoiding defeat on 106 consecutive occasions between 1989 and 1994. The Ivory Coast marks the end of Phil's trip, leaving Andrew as my sole guardian for the next leg of our journey: onward to Ghana.

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Mile high club to Mali

Spirit of Football — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:00:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

Phil kicks me out of Senegal into a Mali-bound DHL freight plane. We take off into the night sky. Once airborne and comfortable, Phil and Andrew organise our surroundings. Stacks of containers taking up the hold become makeshift goalposts and, high above the clouds, I am used in a game of football.

In Mali I am a guest at Le Stade 26 Mars, the national stadium in the capital, Bamako. It is the dry season. There has been no rain since November. We drive to the stadium with the windows down. The needle on the dashboard's thermometer leans heavy on forty-five degrees Celsius. It is sweltering.

I play in a 20-minute game of unified football between two teams of players with and without intellectual disabilities, before a match where national champions FC Djoliba continued their unbeaten campaign with a two-nil win against Duguwolofila.

Our game ends in a 1-1 draw, and players from both teams and officials cover me in their signatures.

There is large presence of African players throughout European leagues. Mali's national team is packed with players whose careers have taken them to some of the biggest clubs in the world; with Frederic Kanoute at Seville, Mohamed Sissoko at Juventus, Mahamadou Diarra at Real Madrid, and Seydou Keita at the all-conquering Barcelona.

The lack of money to keep African players in Africa has been well documented. But elsewhere, outside of the game, we have met many Africans who have left other countries to return to their homeland.

Bashir, our driver in Senegal, was living in America and booked a one-way ticket home after being inspired by his country's 1-0 win over the then reigning world champions France during the 2002 World Cup.

Salif Keita is one footballer who returned home after a distinguished career that saw him win four consecutive French league titles with St Etienne before going onto play for Marseille, Valencia and Sporting Lisbon. He was African Player of the Year 1970 and many consider him one of the greatest players the continent has ever produced.

We meet Salif at the Mande Hotel, which he owns and which is situated on the banks of the River Niger. He speaks to us about what football means to him. “It can help people to live together,” he says, smiling. “In this moment the world has many problems. Football can help us to solve some of them by encouraging people to accept others.”

Salif tells us that African teams have as good a chance as any of winning this year’s World Cup.

Guidance later comes to Phil, Andrew and I through an invitation to meet a teacher of the animist tradition, known as a fetish-man. They believe all things have souls – be these humans, animals, mountains, rivers, or even modern football stadia like stadium:mk in Milton Keynes.

We're taken to a house that seems to have been made almost entirely from mud. A hunter guards the entrance. Smoke escapes from the long pipe hanging from his lips. His index finger is pressed on the trigger of what appears to be a musket. Phil presents me to him.

We are welcomed inside where the fetish-man examines me closely by running his fingers along my stitching. Then he clears a space on the floor and draws symbols in the dust in much the same way Andy Gray is prone to on Sky Sports.

After much speaking to himself, he is ready to give us his message. “There will be a happy end to your journey to Johannesburg.” We're glad to hear it.

Next stop: Burkino Faso.

Part 1: From Battersea to Belgium en route to Africa
Part 2: Lost in translation with Julio Cesar
Part 3: In Iraq, football is torture
Part 4: You'll have to forgive him, he's from Hotel Barcelona
Part 5: Making changes in Senegal
Balls to Africa home

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Making changes in Senegal

Spirit of Football — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

The air was thick and hot when we landed in the outskirts of the Senegalese capital of Dakar at around midnight. Richard, a good friend of ours, met us at the airport with a smile and a hotel reservation in the fishing town of Ngor.

Drawn curtains immediately blocked our hotel room’s view out over the Atlantic Ocean as Andrew and Phil from Spirit of Football collapsed into sleep. They were woken three hours later by a telephone call from the hotel reception.

On the other end of the line was an excited voice belonging to Bashir from DHL, who are helping us with our travel arrangements throughout the African Sub Sahara. He wanted to drive us to the Malian consulate so we could apply for visas.

Our arrival at the embassy was met with suspicion. The women behind the visa application desk no doubt wanted to know exactly what two men dressed for the beach and carrying a leather football expected when they entered a place of rules and neckties.

African embassies have a reputation for not rushing into making any bureaucratic decisions, but on this occasion it seemed like they would make an exception - one that involved us being led out the premises by armed security.

That may well have happened had Bashir not arranged for a letter of invitation to Mali, signed and stamped by the head of DHL there. Rather than being thrown out we were invited into the ambassador's office while our visas were processed.

In the privacy of her office, Her Excellency asked to look at me and promptly dropped me to the floor to display a range of short passing with her Chief of Protocol that is still beyond some Stoke City players!

Every evening the beach in front of our hotel is crammed with super fit Senegalese of all ages chasing a ball over the golden sand. Phil whipped off his shirt and joined in one game, exposing his pale complexion and his epiglottis, as he quickly found himself hunched over greedily sucking air into his lungs during the heat of the evening.

It’s easy for most people to find a game in Senegal, but for some it’s nearly impossible. These are the mentally and physically disabled children of western Africa, who are mostly hidden away by a sense of shame their parents feel in the face of the stigma still very much surrounding disability in this part of the world.

These children seldom get the opportunity to be involved in any way with sport. The Special Olympics provides them with the chance to feel far more optimistic about their lives by playing sport. I was privileged enough to be involved in two Special Olympics games involving intellectually disabled children that have helped to challenge old fashioned attitudes.

I was a guest of honour at a televised press conference at the Senegalese Ministry for Sport in Dakar, where Bacar Dia, the Minister for Sport, delivered a very heartfelt speech asking the country to support the disabled.

Looking straight into the camera lens, he encouraged parents of intellectually disabled children to have them enrolled in the Special Olympics' programmes. The ball is helping to make changes happen.

Next stop: Mali.

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You’ll have to forgive him, he’s from Hotel Barcelona

Spirit of Football — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

Morocco

Pah! The moment I was dropkicked off the boat onto Moroccan soil the clouds opened up and it hasn’t stopped raining since. It was freezing when we set off from London in January. Then snow, sub-zero temperatures and rain plagued our journey through Europe. Now here we are in Africa - and this!

Yet rain doesn’t stop us from getting a game on. Within hours of our arrival, Andrew and Christian from Spirit of Football - and what seems like a thousand local children - are charging through the streets, kicking me. It is ACE!

I’m flying through the air, bouncing off of walls and into puddles and then whoops - a wicked bobble and off someone’s shin I go, through an open door and into someone’s home.

Andrew asks the old lady who appears at the doorway if he can have me back, but she is claiming me as her own, saying I am a gift for her grandson. My God, I think, I’ve been kidnapped, or ballnapped, or whatever the correct term is.

Andrew distracts the old lady by pointing in the air and when she comes forward to look up he drops his shoulder and like a young Ryan Giggs sidesteps her, sprints into the room to retrieve me and runs back out again to the cheers of all the waiting kids (and a worried looking Christian).

We are staying in the Hotel Barcelona, a hotel dedicated to Barcelona Football Club. To all travelling balls coming to Morocco I recommend it as an excellent place to stay. The manager of Hotel Barcelona, Mohammed, is fantastic.

However, later when he is asking the Spirit of Football fellas about me, which leads to general football talk, the conversation takes a surreal turn as he takes us into his confidence and explains that he hates his job.

He goes on to say his ideal job would be manager of Hotel Real Madrid, but that hotel doesn’t exist, and so he survives each day working at Hotel Barcelona by wearing a Real Madrid shirt underneath his other clothes. Weird.

Yet not as weird as seeing a video of the day you were made, which is exactly what happened to me whilst we were staying at the Hotel Barcelona.

Alive & Kicking balls are generally donated to children in Africa so kids have something to play with, and if you wish to make a group of children happy by giving them a ball like me you can do so through the Alive & Kicking website.

However, I’m the 250,000th ball made by Alive & Kicking and so my destiny lay with Spirit of Football as a symbol of their journey to the World Cup as a device for them to use to bring people together, and so the historic event of my making was filmed.

The short film had been emailed through to Spirit of Football, so they could show people how I came into being. Andrew started playing the clip on his laptop and even though it was good to see Bernard again (the man who made me), the sight of my innards and all that stitching made me feel dizzy, so I looked away and started wondering if Mohammed ever gets too hot wearing his Real Madrid shirt under his other clothes?

The Moroccans are mad for their football and when they hear about my recent exploits with Moroccan football star Mbark Boussouffa, the tricksy midfield creator who plays in Belgium for Anderlecht, they begin offering Andrew and Christian sums of money for me.

That man is worshipped here and they all want the ball he played with. Andrew thanks the Moroccans but tells them I’m priceless and not for sale, which I immediately suspect is because he’s getting into the Moroccan spirit and haggling for the best price. But Andrew reiterates and I felt safe again.

Phew. I’ve come this far and I want to be there in Johannesburg for the opening ceremony and South Africa against Mexico, which should be a cracker.

Next stop Senegal for visas.

Part 1: From Battersea to Belgium en route to Africa
Part 2: Lost in translation with Julio Cesar
Part 3: In Iraq, football is torture
Balls to Africa home

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In Iraq, football is torture

Spirit of Football — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:36:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football team from London to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

Monaco

We've enjoyed plenty of hospitality so far on this trip, but when Andrew from Spirit of Football http://theball.tv/ decided to use charm rather than Black Amex to book a hotel room in Monaco, saying to staff we were on a footballing mission of utmost importance, I knew he had even less chance of getting us a free night's stay than Michael Owen has of getting his Facebook friend request accepted by Fabio Capello.

The last place we tried was the Hermitage Hotel in Casino Square, one of the poshest places in the whole of Monte Carlo. Although they wouldn’t give us a room either, the concierge was good enough to rubberstamp me with the hotel's crest, but by then I was more interested in organising a kickabout on the hotel’s immaculate lawn.

Poor ball seeks place to sleep

At first Monte Carlo's women didn't seem so keen on me, although judging by their old boyfriends I wasn't the only leather-faced thing in town. But before I had a chance to impress the ladies the game was brought to a halt when I left the Hermitage lawn via a heavy punt – only to be brought under instant control by the well-polished shoe of Haitham Rashid Wihaib, an Iraqi who previously held the position of Minister of Protocol for Saddam Hussein.

Haitham told us how he's spent his life fighting against dictatorship. The football team he was associated with refused to play against a side put together by Saddam Hussein's son Uday, an act that saw Haitham's friends tortured by Uday's henchmen. Before wishing us well and saying goodbye, Haitham said he, like me, was an ambassador of peace.

Spain
Christian from Spirit of Football took the wheel as we made our way along the French Riviera to Barcelona in torrential rain. The reigning European Champions had invited us onto the Camp Nou pitch – somewhere very few visitors have opportunity to go.

Chris and me at Camp Nou

We left Barcelona and headed to the ferry port of Algeciras, stopping off on the way for kickabout on a roadside pitch. Some local children joined us and before you knew it I was hitting the back of the net more often than Wayne Rooney. "Gol!" these skilful little Xavis, Iniestas and Messis would cry each time I crossed the goal-line.

The game was followed by another gruelling drive through torrential weather, and some 150 kilometres further down the line it suddenly dawned on Christian that he'd left behind his bag containing his credit cards and passport. Perhaps the excitement of following in Lionel Messi's footsteps at Camp Nou had somehow gotten to him?

Without further ado, Christian spun the car round and in a state of high anxiety sped us back through the pouring rain to the pitch. Miraculously, the bag had been handed into the police station with nothing missing from it.

Not wishing to waste another minute we set off at once for Algeciras. Once there we made our way to the seafront and stared out across the choppy waters of the Mediterranean towards Africa. I was looking forward to returning home to decent weather and sunshine.

Next stop: Morocco.

Part 1: From Battersea to Belgium en route to Africa
Part 2: Lost in translation with Julio Cesar
Balls to Africa home

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Lost in translation with Julio Cesar

Spirit of Football — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:19:00 GMT

Alive & Kicking's 250,000th ball continues its journey with the Spirit of Football to the World Cup opening ceremony in Johannesburg.

Balls to Africa part 1: From Battersea to Belgium en route to Africa

Holland
No ball has ever been as confused as I was at the Leonardo Da Vinco Sports School in Leiden, Holland. Not since the Champions League ball at the Dragoa in Portugal anyway – the one that left Porto's right wing on a slow cross to Fabianski and somehow ended up in the back of Arsenal's net.

After spending a few days resting in the snow in Amsterdam we travelled to a school where we were warmly welcomed as guests. It wasn't my place to call the shots, but surely Dutch schoolkids would rather search for the meaning of Winston Bogarde's career at Chelsea than be taught about Germany’s three World Cup wins?

Sven from Spirit of Football was taking the lesson while I wondered if he realised that the Germans turned the Dutch over on their way to winning both the 1974 and 1990 World Cup finals. It seems he did and I was wrong; the kids loved talking football, even if it did mean going over exactly how Germany snuffed out their country's revolutionary brand of Total Football on the world's biggest stage.

My route to South Africa

Germany
Our arrival in Cologne coincided with the finals of a street football tournament organised by Koln Kickt, an organisation that supports disadvantaged immigrant kids. Project leader and former Cologne, Leverkusen and Congo player Jose Londji introduced Andrew, Sven and me to German freestyle football champion Dominik Kaiser, who used me to show off his exceptional skills to the crowd.

DK, you got it (click to watch video)

Mind you, I'm not sure how he’d do in a real game. I reckon the opposition would be more interested in kicking him, like in this clip, than me. Once Dominik had finished, nobody knew whether to clap or throw him a fish.

Showboat sunk (click to watch video)

With that we headed east to Erfut to meet Christian from Spirit of Football. He'd driven all the way from Brighton for 12 hours non-stop. By the time he arrived he looked like Rafa Benitez after a sleepless night spent mulling over how many Aaron Ramseys he could have bought for the price of an Aquilani.

It was in Erfut that we met Roots of Liberty Life featuring Ry, who'd written a song about my journey to the World Cup called Fans Will Be Friends. I was touched. Maybe they ought to perform it before the game the next time Millwall go to Upton Park.

Italy
Our next destination was to be Milan's San Siro, via Austria and Switzerland, but first a visit to the Rheinpark Stadion in Liechtenstein. Any ball that turns up there expects to hit the net a few times and I was no exception.

Obviously, the Liechtenstein defence weren't here to stop me, not that it normally makes any difference, but for a country with such small resources their results are gradually improving, as demonstrated by their draw 1-1 with Finland last year.

One thing I learnt in Italy is that it's perfectly acceptable for men to walk around with a man-bag draped over their shoulder, but try and get into a football stadium with a ball and the police start reaching down to their holsters. So I was hurriedly put into Andrew from Spirit of Football's bag until we got through the San Siro turnstile for Inter Milan's 3-0 win over Cagliari.

Inter 3-0 Cagliari (click to watch)

The next day I was fortunate enough to meet Inter and Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar at Inter's snow-covered training ground. He spoke at great length, but us footballs don't speak goalkeeper, so I've no idea what he said, although I did feel a great deal safer in his hands than in Andrew's man-bag.

Julio took the time to write his signature on me. My leather panels have been tattooed with many signatures during the trip so far, but not with one that comes from a hand that has strong hopes of lifting the World Cup later this year.

Safe hands: Julio holds me close

Our trip is being filmed and at the end of each link I’m kicked off-screen. Julio agreed to do the honours, but his minder was having none of it, claiming he could injure himself. I wondered how often a minder has put a stop to a good kicking? Taking on board his minder's advice, Julio headed me on my way.

Next stop: Monaco.

Part 1: From Battersea to Belgium en route to Africa
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From Battersea to Belgium en route to Africa

Spirit of Football — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:30:00 GMT

Yet another new regular feature for FFT.com - and certainly the first to be written by an Africa-bound spheroid...

Some footballs are used to preparing for long trips. It normally means getting towelled down by Stoke City's Rory Delap before being missiled into the opponent's box.

I, on the other hand, am on a 10,000-mile journey that will see me kicked, dribbled and juggled by Spirit of Football all the way to the World Cup as football’s equivalent of the Olympic Torch.

On my way to the opening ceremony in South Africa I’ll be taking in 24 countries and will meet lots of interesting people, taking part in organised and impromptu kickabouts with locals.

I also hope to roll in and say hello to Bernard Ongera in Kenya – the man who made me. Bernard works for Alive & Kicking, a social enterprise employing adults there and in Zambia to make handsome sports balls like me that are given to African children in refugee camps, orphanages and schools who have nothing to play with.

What I did on my holidays...

I was chosen for this epic adventure because I was the 250,000th ball produced by Alive & Kicking. I can’t wait to see Bernard again and tell him about my adventures.

When we said goodbye he wished me luck and, ever the professional, bounced me on the floor several times for one last check to make sure I was definitely ready.

My journey to the World Cup officially began on a cold morning in Battersea Park. This is where football as we know it started in 1864 with the first game played to the FA's first set of rules.

FEATURE: Football's Olympic torch sets off for Africa

To celebrate this and the beginning of our incredible expedition I was used in a football game of three halves. Yes, three halves. The first had no rules and provided an entertaining free-for-all on the pitch, much to the delight of the spectators.

The second half was played under the first set of FA rules and at least resembled a game of football. The last half was played with today’s modern rules, although I’m not sure how many of those present understood and could explain the offside rule as it now exists and all that passive and active nonsense.

To paraphrase the late, great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, “If he’s not active and interfering with play what is he doing on the pitch?” Eh?

Of course that moustache is real!

The two teams dressed as Victorians for the occasion, proving you don't need to put out your pipe to enjoy a game of football. The game went well, apart than the odd wag claiming the referee needed a monocle.

For the next leg of my journey Dan Magness from the Freestyle Football Federation took me on a world record attempt for the longest distance covered keeping a football off the ground.

I said I didn't know Graham Taylor was back managing England. Turns out he meant doing keepy-uppys through London, visiting all five Premier League grounds. And there I was thinking Arsene Wenger's hopes of staying in the title race were optimistic.

Once we were off I quickly realised that Dan's pretty handy with a football. Yes, we took a six-mile detour when we got lost on our way to White Hart Lane for the Spurs-Fulham game, but you try and make sense of a London A to Z when you’ve been juggling a ball since eight in the morning.

I was very proud when Dan broke the record covering 36 miles in 14 hours. I can't think of anyone else capable of keeping me air bound over 100,000 consecutive times whilst negotiating London’s streets, its traffic and tourists.

Dan's record - click to watch Sky News report

After helping Dan set his new world record it was off to Belgium – Brussels to be more precise, home city of 29-times Belgian champions RSC Anderlecht. Moroccan international midfielder Mbark Boussoufa practised his free-kicks with me out on the pitch of the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium.

He's the first of many young Africans whose skills I will enjoy testing in the coming months. Mbark has a nice touch, much better than those cloggers in Battersea.

I'm not alone on this trip. Andrew and Sven from the Spirit of Football are with me. We're using Sven's Lancia for some of the journey.

I hope they're not expecting me to bring any mechanic skills to the table. They've made this kind of pilgrimage to the last two World Cups in Japan and Germany. They're clearly mad. Next stop Amsterdam.

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