The Ball 2002

Here at the Labrang Monastery the young monks dig football

Gutting news about Dyer and Gerrard being added to the injured list, but we’re keeping our boots polished and training hard with some Tibetan monks tomorrow and Dalai Lama knows who the day after that. So, Sven, once we’ve delivered our ball to the Opening ceremony we’re all yours.

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As I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries, getting content on to this website has been particularly difficult here in China. The internet cafes have plently of quick machines and great connections, but, presumably for cost reasons and to prevent hackers from infecting their machines with viruses, they usually have no CD drives and no floppy drives.

The cafes are full of young folk playing network games, and usually resound with shouts of elation and dismay as the players battle away against each other. A wonderful exception to the difficulties of site maintenance has been this cafe here in Xiahe, where Song Cheng Cheng, the guy who runs it, has been extremely helpful to me.

Song Cheng Cheng

Not only did he find and install a CD drive on this machine, but he has given me adminstrator access to it too. This means that I have full control over the machine, and can install my image editing software, camera drivers and FTP software – in fact all the stuff I need to maintain this site.

Thank you Song Cheng Cheng! You’re a treasure.

Just a quickie to big up Turkey and Greece who are bidding for the Euro 2008 competition together.

Assalum aleikum. Peace be with you.

The Ball crosses The Great Wall

At last, the Ball crosses the Great Wall… heading east from Xinjiang to Gansu provinces. This is the most westerly part of the Great Wall, and it was from here that Chinese undesirables were flung into exile. To the west is Xinjiang, populated mainly by Uyghur people, to the east is Gansu, where the population is increasingly Han Chinese.

Stop Press: the desert was traversed, games were played in Niye and Turpan, and the Ball narrowly missed rolling to a stop in the Turpan Depression. 154m below sea level, 38 degrees in the shade – it’s hotter here than the desert. Now onwards, and incidentally upwards, to the gates of the Great Wall of China…

Chris surfs the dunes

A highlight for me was on the stretch from Korla to Turfan, when, driving through the arid western end of the Tian Shan mountains, we entered a gorge where the craggy hillsides were replaced by huge dunes which covered the rocks as if the sand had been poured on from above.

Pausing for a recording

Maayan and Gersh had left the bus in Korla, both heading for Beijing, so it was only Phil, Tim and me who arrived in Turfan late in the evening. We were delighted by the balmy evening temperature – a significant change from the deep desert, where it had become quite cold at night and we spent a pleasant hour or two in the hotel courtyard browsing through our World Cup planner and guide books, figuring out which games would be worth heading for, and getting a handle on their locations.

Onwards and upwards

The Ball left Niye in the early morning after the Kashgar Allstars’ convincing victory, and headed north across the Tarim Basin and the second largest shifting sands desert on Earth, heading for Korla…

The team in the wilderness

With a full five-a-side compliment of players, ably managed by Abdulwali, our Uyghur fixer, the team that helped Rock the Kashgar set off into the wilderness for five days of kickabout and competition down the Southern Silky Skills Route…

We’re on a Road to Nowhere

The rolling ball gathers momentum as our travelling team swells for the toughest leg so far (see about us for the original home and away line up).

Location

The Taklamakan desert, (through Hotan, Niya, Korla and on to Turpan), apparently its name translates as: ‘you enter but no come out’

Written by Gershon Portnoi

The evening of May 5 will be one few Kashgar locals ever forget after a dramatic night of football in the heart of the old city.

The teams at The Yumulakshahar

The football’s journey to Seoul continued at the Kashgar Colliseum, a gladiator-style pit arena where around 10 international travellers and many local children took part in an epic contest which would have graced the original Rome amphitheatre itself.

The famous bazaar

Our goal in Kashgar was to visit the fabled Sunday market where local life gathers to meet, exchange, barter and haggle. People make long journeys from the outlying regions to attend the market, which echoes with the trading cries of Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Uyghurs.