A dawn swim to the East beckons

Actually, more than just contemplated…

As we struggled again with bureaucracy, and the seemingly infinite capacity that it has to thwart our plans to carry our symbolic Ball over land and sea to the World Cup, we almost despaired that we would ever get to Korea.

Swimming more than beckons

We set a final test for the Ball – either we get flights, or we swim for it. Since we got no ferry tickets, despite all the effort we had made in Beijing and in Weihai, we realised what the only option left open to us was…

And so to sea

(Many thanks go to Chu Xinxin and her father in Weihai – for their infinite patience in dealing with the stubborn ferry company managers, and for their boundless generosity when I was at my lowest ebb in China. After meeting you, we might even be cheering on the Chinese team for you here in Korea)

With only 4 days to go ’til the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup 2002 Japan/Korea, the ball finally reaches the other side of this 7000 mile wide continent. Holy Smoke, the sea air is welcome since our last sniff of English Channel air, the recent soup of Beijing air, oh yeah, and the self inflicted tab smoking. I can hardly believe that Chris, the ball and I, have made it this far and with only a short ferry trip over the Yellow Sea to the start of a month of football heaven in Korea and Japan, to go. So flicking through the Weidong Ferry Co. brochure we decide to treat ourselves to a Royal Class cabin for the 17 hour ride. “Not so fast, oh World Cup travellers….

…you must go to the passenger service and check it’s OK for you to travel with us, then check with Police that leaving on last day of your Chinese visa is OK”. No plobrem we say, with the aid of our new found Chinese friend Maggie. Two buildings and one hour later we return to the ticket office with the OK from both authorities, only to find that we are still refused tickets on account of the Chinese ferry company worrying that the Korean customs/immigration folk would not let any foreigners in that arrive by boat during the World Cup!

But we not hooligan…

OK, but dutch nutter was refused entry, spend 8 days on our boat and try to kill himself.

Hmmmm… nice?!

Flying OK but sea no good.

[Borrocks] We really need to travel by sea.

Not possible.

To cut a long, 5 hour story short, Maggie, her father, the British Embassy in Beijing with Chris and I, had no joy, but, for the second time on our trip, we made a concession to our surface travel and scored a beautiful top right 40 yard goal as we sped up our journey against time and booked two air tickets to Seoul.

Colin and John from the British Embassy also told us that we may still have plobrems at Yantai airport. But why we say. This is China, comes the reply. Well, tomorrow 3pm we will find out.

During all these negotiations my blood pressure certainly rose and, no doubt, this heavy handed approach to security will provoke and not deter the possibility of violence over the World Cup. Here’s to hoping that patience and football will prevail and that the media don’t fuel the borrocks which tars all football fans with the brush of the warriors. (Wise er… word type things, mate, ed.)

Michael Owin, David Beckerham, China loves you.

Well it’s ‘down on the beach’ for a little expert filming and football for me!

Later, Phil

So how does the ball and the FLH team cover the huge distances they have travelled across mainland China? The answer is the excellent Chinese rail network and its fleet of sleeper carriages.

Buying a ticket at a Chinese train ticket office is initially a challenge. There is no Roman alphabet in sight and staff often speak little or no English. The first step is to find out the Chinese characters for your destination of choice…

There are then tables of prices and train times posted along entire walls of the ticket hall or on colourful, animated LED displays, making for metres and metres of incomprehensible symbols. Simply find out which train numbers will get you to your destination at the correct time; match the train number against the columns of ticket options to ascertain the price; join the queue; and, if the booth is still open by the time you get to the front, try to explain everything to the disinterested clerk. There are four types of ticket in China: soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat and hard seat – did you think a Communist country would call them “classes”?

If the ticket you wanted hasn’t sold out, you will soon be leaving the hustle and bustle of the station behind you in exasperated relief, ticket in hand, wondering where to find a bottle of “pijiu” (beer).

The train stations are grand edifices, usually sporting a stylish gold on red star somewhere on their facade, with waiting rooms for each platform and each ticket type. If you splashed out for the “soft” option, you will be sitting on a plush leather armchair watching satellite TV until your train comes; chose the “hard” option and you get plastic bucket seats and, disconcertingly, less time to board their train.

When the train is ready an army of megaphone wielding station staff are despatched to shepherd the mob along corridors and down stairways with shouted streams of distorted Chinese. There is no chance that you might go the wrong way.

Yes, you are coming with me…

Once aboard, there is a relaxed air as people stow their luggage and sit and chat. We have mainly been using hard sleepers, which cost around UK30 for an overnight 12-15 hour journey and provide a comfortable (not at all hard) bed in an open six-person cabin – the beds are arranged in two columns of three, with the top berth not being advised to those with a nervous disposition or frequent dreams of flying.

Phil entertains a captive audience in the hard sleeper

You can pass the time sitting on the lower bunks or at small tables by the window. Even better, you can retire to the restaurant car where a compact but fully equipped kitchen is packed full of Chinese chefs throwing stainless steel utensils around and screaming to each other through clouds of steam. The food isn’t at all bad, provided you chose carefully – on my journey to Hangzhou yesterday I mistakenly ordered what I can only imagine would translate as “rice and bones”. Even Chinese diners looked at it doubtfully.

And if the worst comes to the worst – a spotlessly clean Chinese train toilet

Phil was on the menu for this conductress, however

Later on the restaurant car is where the police officers retire to smoke and drink, and where you too can drink and maybe play Mah Jong, provided the police take a shine to you (and you give em ciggies).

The Hard Seat kippers

If you failed to book a sleeper ticket and want to avoid spending a night sitting bolt upright in a cramped seat or sleeping on the floor, across an aisle or in an overhead luggage rack, you must seek out the mysterious and elusive “upgrades conductor” – the guardian at the gateway to your night of comfort. At rigidly defined, yet undiscolosed times he may be found sitting in semi-darkness at a smoke-shrouded desk half way up the train, poring over scribbled sheets of thin paper and leafing through books of plastic tokens. He is surrounded by a gang of smoking cronies who laugh and cajole you as you approach. Should he grant you an audience, he will nod briefly and then proceed to communicate with you in indecipherable rapid-fire Chinese.

Only a wad of banknotes, waved with just the right degree of enthusiasm, will appease him, whereupon he will scribble further annotations in his various log books before handing you your precious upgrade token.

Sorry Tim, no beds left…

Turns out we were kipping in the spare staff bunks right above him actually – he carried on smoking right through the night.

The Ball found a quick visit to Tianamen Square irresistable, though it seemed like a place in which it would not be made welcome, despite China’s qualification for the World Cup finals for the first time this year. It decided to head onwards very quickly…

However, before it could roll onwards, the intrepid travellers conceded a goal to time in Beijing… the Forbidden City was forbidden by time-constraints as we struggled to arrange the final leg of our journey by surface, photocopying, typing letters, visiting embassies and writing emails. We got our trip description translated into Korean, and wondered what on earth it now says – it’s been “Chinese whispered” from English through Russian and Chinese into Korean. Well, here it is…

play in popup

Outside the Terracota Army near Xi’an (where I launched a beautiful free kick over a wall of imitation statues) there are many tourist-tat-traders / thieves. We were surrounded quickly, our pockets felt and as always the Ball received much attention. This warrior couldn’t resist a touch:

Click here to download the MPEG clip with warrior’s kick and celebration dance

Shortly afterwards, as our attentions were bombarded with diversions, I noticed the ball gone…

…asking Chris, Rob and Tim if they have seen our precious item, I get the response that the old man had it.

The moment of theft – caught on film

click here to download the MPEG movie clip

Where is he?

Don’t know, I think he went that way, one of them says.

I look in the direction of pointing, don’t see him and so hurry off. Asking along the row of stalls bordering the street, my football mime pays off as I am directed round the next corner. From there I finally spy the Ball 100 yards up the road being kicked further into the distance by a group of 5 or so. I gently quicken my pace, not disturbing their flight, and reach them to be greeted by protestations as I ask for the ball back!

Click here to see Chris’ footage of my final grab back. You can just make out a guy to my left with his hand in my pocket who, as I turn back down the street, is suggesting that I give him 2 dollars for the Ball. I refused.

Ball recovery from thieves in Xi’an.

Xi’an provided us with a day’s break between Xiahe and Beijing, and, of course, the classic photo-opportunity of playing football in and amongst the Terracotta Army.

Spot the player

Another near-lethal challenge from the infamous Battersea Park fouler (see the match report of our recreation of the 1864, Battersea Park, first ever football game played to FA rules) led to the awarding of a free kick by common consent. Sorry, ref, but you just weren’t around when we needed you…

The fouler strikes again

From the resulting free kick, Phil spanked a curling right foot kick over the defensive wall of imitation terracotta warriors.

The free kick is taken

And so to Beijing, with the wind at our backs, as well as the owner of the imitation warrior factory – if he ever sees these pictures. I want to let him know, though, that his staff loved the spectacle… mea culpa, nonetheless.

Written by Phil and Chris

The Ball rolls onwards

To my surprise, we’ve found a hospitable, vibrant and cosmopolitan city full of life and colour. And, as always seems to be the case, the individual people are peace-loving and friendly, despite my preconceptions derived from my experiences with Uyghur and Tibetan folk. Perhaps it is only collectively that we discriminate so cruelly against one another.

Anyway, the mission for tomorrow is to secure boat tickets to Korea from the CITS, see the sculpted warriors, and catch our onward train to Beijing – for which we only have hard seat tickets. I pray that we can get upgrades to a sleeper carriage when we get on the train.

And (at 3.30am) so to bed…

Meeting in the Labrang Monastery Restaurant with English speaking Gonpo, after a morning spent designing possible signs for their front door (with all the spelling mistakes of course, well, would we?)

Yes yes game with the monks will be good. Turn to three young monks, big smiles all round. Right, so tomorrow on the Tibetan middle school pitch 6 o’clock yeah, grin, yeah. Woah, hold it, not so fast, fourth monk say different, gonpo listens. What can he be saying? The mood has fallen. They cannot play here, they will be seen by concerned elder monks (see political comment here), the grasslands will be better. For the love of Jesus Dalai Lama Christ ‘n’ football ‘n’ life on this competitive road, let’s do it. Agree, agree. Our third game in as many days at 3000 metres. Ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole.

Well, secret from the authorities it was, we and they then bigged it up in a beautiful exchange of rules, tackles and yet again, this beautiful game…

The road we took was rocky, washed away and rock strewn in places, the van, packed to the gills with our new friends, Tim the boy Noble, Chris, Rob, new recruit French lad Cyrille and as we all sang ole, ole I reached forward to snap this photo.

The team bus

Mountains grew taller all around us and the road opened up into a mile wide, flat valley floor, greener than anywhere we had seen for the last six weeks of desert travel. The air was refreshingly damp and as J—–, with the other monks, excitedly pointed into the lush middle distance, I made out a field with robed bodies weaving to and fro. Jeepers, this was heavenly. My heartbeat quickened, my breath grew shorter and we all piled out of the van grinning from ear to ear for our first game on grass for the entire trip.

The Grasslands and the game

The game was ragged helped by the lumpy, sometimes heathery surface, and the games were fiercely contested as the mixed teams battled to bang the ball between two five foot branches driven into the ground at each end of a 40 yard pitch. A few of the monks were practised in this art (what’s this, football and art? – ed.) and others less so, however anger and laughter littered the game as smiles and handshakes ended it.

Rob’n'Phil in Grassland heaven

Love to all involved,

Missing your tackles and passes already,

(That’s enough now – ed.)

Phil

The second of our games in Xiahe was played against the Tibetan Middle School team. It seemed touch-and-go whether it would take place, as the first rain that we had seen since Kazakhstan came pouring out of the sky and on to the pitch. Undeterred, the school team turned out in force to face the tourists, now bolstered by Rob’s arrival from London and Tim’s reappearance from Jiayuguan.

At first we thought that we would be playing a combined monks-and-others team as we had the previous day, but politics intervened…

When we arrived at the venue, we discovered a crowd of monks waiting for us at the entrance to the pitch. As we chatted to them I thought I was chatting with the opposition, but it soon became clear that they were not here to play but to watch us play the school team (none of whom were monks) all of whom were wearing Bayern Munich shirts.

The opposition

The young monks seemed genuinely sad that they would not be involved, and I wondered why they had been able to play the day before at the Chinese school, but were unable to play here. It was a surreal scene playing against the Bayern-clad school team with an audience of purple-clad monks in an increasingly heavy downpour.

Monks love the ball

The school pitch was, like many of the previous pitches that we have played on in eastern China, lacking a single blade of grass. Instead, it consisted chiefly of sandy soil which clogged together in the rain leaving a tacky top layer which slid against a dry base. The tourist team was severely hampered by their lack of studs, but nonetheless triumphed 4-2 against the tentative Tibetans. However, as a consequence, I had to retire with a back injury sustained while trying to reach a long ball five minutes before the final whistle.

During the game, Rob had decided to step back from the action and record video of the match. While he was filming (with his own personal umbrella crew) he learnt that about two years ago, in response to increasing interest among the monks in football, the Chinese authorities had declared that they would be punished with beatings if they were caught playing the game. J_____ S_____, one of the young monks, had taken it upon himself to referee the match, but Rob’s discovery (if true) explained why none of the other monks felt able to take part in any other capacity.

J_____, I hope this doesn’t get you into trouble

Suddenly I realised how political football could be, and how what we (and they) were doing was, in a sense, subversive. The game that was planned for the following day was in direct defiance of the Chinese authorities – it was a direct expression of the monks commitment to freedom of action and freedom of thought. The monks felt that they had to comply with the wishes of their elders – who were presumably only trying to appease the Chinese and avoid conflict – and they did this by abstaining from playing. This game served only to highlight the issue in my mind.

The loneliness of the long-distance monk

But what remained etched in my consciousness at the end of game was my memory of the previous day’s captain, a gentle monk with a passion for the game (and whose name I have, to my shame, forgotten) and the story of his best friend.

When I visited his quarters, he had shown me a photo album packed full of photos of himself and his friends playing football, and as we skipped our way through the photos, I mentioned that, ten years ago, I had visited Dharamsala in India and had met the Dalai Lama at his home in exile. He glanced at me with a distant look in his eye, and turning to a particular photo of himself and a friend of his, pointed at his friend, put an outstretched forefinger to his head and said “Chinese” and “bang”.

His best friend and footballing companion, it seemed, had been trying to get to Dharamsala to see his spiritual leader, when he had been shot dead by the Chinese. I understood again (as I had done with the Kashgar team) how contemptuously China treats its minorities, but this time the stakes were life and death. I also knew that his and J_____’s commitment to playing football – despite the consequences – was as nothing compared to the responsibility they live with every day of their monastic lives.

All I have to offer is my deepest respect to every one of the Tibetan footballers we met, you showed us such kindness and such a passion for the beautiful game. Gwajinche, my friends.

Our stay in Xiahe has – surprisingly – produced more games of football than anywhere else we have visited during this trip. The Tibetans are crazy about football, and play at every opportunity. With the help of Gonpo, who runs tours of the area and who speaks great English, we advertised our presence in Xiahe by posting a notice in Tibetan at the entrance to the monastery. Even though we managed to get the wrong date on the poster, many people started to contact us, and we played three games on three consecutive days.

The team captains shake hands

The first game took place on a school playing ‘field’ in the Chinese part of town…

…after we met a monk in our favourite restaurant just inside the grounds of the monastery. He had seen me updating the website in the internet cafe mentioned previously, and had spotted us eating lunch. After a bit of sign language, it became clear that he was a football enthusiast, and he started signalling ‘bed’ and ‘come along’ to me. Wary of these kinds of messages after Rob’s experience of buddhist monks in Korea, I followed him back to his quarters in the monastery, and was pleasantly surprised when he pulled out… a Juventus shirt and a pair of football boots.

The setting for the first game in Xiahe

As we wandered through town towards the school, we gathered the usual crowd of bemused spectators and boisterous youngsters, and, by the time we arrived at the pitch, we seemed to have enough players for a game on the full size pitch. Little did I realise how 9-a-side on a full size pitch in the rarified atmosphere of Xiahe (which lies at 3000m altitude) would affect me… I had at times been gasping for air just walking along the street, but five minutes into the game, I felt as though my legs had a will of their own. Mainly a will to sit down.

Brazil and Inter Milan vie for the ball

The locals, however, with none of the disadvantages of a single day’s acclimatisation, were fiercely competitive, and the match between the monks (and me) and the, er, non-monks (and Phil) was played at a furious pace, with so many breakaways, owing to the relative lack of players for the size of the pitch, that I had a hard time keeping up with the play. Phil, however, seemed to revel in the atmosphere… rather too much for my liking, as the following picture illustrates:

Phil tries to kill Chris

Early on in the game, Phil and I had challenged for the ball in midfield, and I had come off considerably worse, with a knee to the groin (as it were) which put me out of the game for a good five minutes while I tried to regain my breathing. Not an inconsiderable feat, given the lack of oxygen in the air. After the incident, I had said to Phil that that was the second time he had put me out of action in the trip (the first being at Battersea Park, when we also collided, and I bruised my foot) and he said to me, “perhaps the next time will be the last…”

So when we collided again in the second half, and, as a result of the challenge, I felt that I had come within an inch of hospitalisation, I thought that his words might have had a prophetic ring to them. Fortunately, Phil has better coordination than I gave him credit for, and, equally fortunately, he is no more prophet than he is pied piper… and when it comes to injuries, I seem to be far better at inflicting them upon myself. Which I promptly did in the game the following day…