The Ball relies on your help. Please consider donating via Paypal.

Children with an Alive & Kicking ball

The Ball is Dead

Written here on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 by

We arrive at the school with The Ball and a giant replica. Alarmingly for us, the teachers are nowhere to be seen. Andrew talks to the kids about The Ball, but struggles to make himself heard above the cacophony of chatter.

Mayhem and cacophony greets The Ball
Mayhem and cacophony greets The Ball

The children crowd around to sign both balls. And game on… The Ball is kicked around the school-yard in an unruly fashion harking back to the days of village football in England or even the Wall Game at Eton. A huge punt by one young lad and The Ball’s on a classroom roof.

Where's The Ball? Mob football in Windhoek
Where’s The Ball? Mob football in Windhoek

But what’s that? Oh no. The Ball meets a spike on the roof head-on and flops back to earth limp, lifeless and deflated. It needs urgent repairing. We’re a long way from an Alive & Kicking stitching centre and even further from The Ball doctor in Douala. What to do?

We’re recommended a cobbler and that seems like the sensible solution until we hear about a technique for fixing bike punctures. The answer is simple — pump a white sticky substance into The Ball with a syringe.

Injecting the white sticky stuff
Injecting the white sticky stuff

Shake The Ball about, pump it up, bounce it around. And hey, presto, it rolls again…

The sticky stuff finds the hole and seals it
The sticky stuff finds the hole and seals it

The Ball was dead. Long live The Ball.

No comments yet

Be the first to leave one!

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

The 2010 Route

The 2010 route

The Ball 2010 left Battersea Park on 24th Jan 2010 headed to the Opening Ceremony in Johannesburg for the 11th June 2010.

Donate a ball!

Donate a ball!

Pass the ball on! All footballs donated via Alive & Kicking's website before the 2010 World Cup went to Special Olympics programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. But you can still donate a ball to a good cause...

Donate now!

Most recent posts

Most recent comments

  • jacob mwinula-captain of team said:

    hello our friend. It is too late but we appriaciate your thanks for us. This...

  • Wario Donne said:

    it was a great moment!great fun.

  • Joyce Kwelepeta said:

    malawian communities need awareness on specail olympics. There are many people with...

  • Karim said:

    Thank you for post and Wydad is the best

  • Giter said:

    Anyone knows how Grenland is doing?

The Ball 2006

The 2006 Route

The Ball 2006 (Teamgeist) travelled from Battersea Park, London and headed to the Opening Ceremony in Munich, Germany.

The Ball 2002

The 2002 Route

The Ball 2002 (Fevernova) was carried 7000 miles across Europe and Asia to the World Cup finals in Korea & Japan.