The Ball 2002

After no sleep, preparing to leave home myself, I felt like telling the trainer to back off nleave me on the bench for a bit. But this game stops for noone — film, play football, catch ferry, hire car, over tape already beautifully captured shots, remember Ive still not slept, remember sunglasses on top of White Cliffs and all under a Spring dawn sun, over the East, the direction of our travel, totally excited and totally tired.

The gaffers asking me to keep my eyes on the ball, but they close.

More from Moscow soon.

Saturday morning in Amsterdam, tired and sleepy

Tuesday morning in Amsterdam, tired and sleepy

At the time when we arrived, Phil had had no sleep for 72 hours, and I’d only caught a fitful four hours on the first night. We were clocking in at five full days of continuous consciousness between us. Too much.

In Flanders

Our first brief pause since leaving English shores was Ypres, in Belgium. We stopped off to try and find the field in which a football game was played between German and British troops during the extraordinary Christmas truce of 1914…

Talking Balls

In the beginning was the Whistle. In this World Cup year, it sounded for me in Battersea Park on the first day of Spring. I had prepared myself for the quest in London, knowing that I would be travelling far from by birthplace, but now that I was in motion, the momentum was starting to build around me.