The Ball 2010

Too quickly on the road again. We’d have loved to have stayed longer in Sidi Moumen, but The Ball has an appointment to visit the Dancing Shantytowns project of the Association Marocaine L’Heure Joyeuse.

There we meet Rokaya El Boudrari and the kids from the local shantytown who are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of The Ball. She explains to us that Dancing Shantytowns aims to provide health care programs and promote education amongst the young and poor people in Casablanca.

Rokaya El Boudrari

Andrew introduces The Ball to the kids, letting them know what it was about and why it was there. And then The Ball is played with in a real game of football on a street football pitch. The first proper game since Battersea Park. Being much taller than the kids, Andrew is able to score two fantastic headers, which will be talked about for some time to come. Or so he says.

The visit is wrapped up with the kids displaying their breakdance and freestyle skills with The Ball. We begin to understand the importance of the project to the children and the respect that they have for it. And it’s contagious because we feel that respect just as much.

Many thanks to all at L’Heure Joyeuse for such a warm reception and to Chris Lunch for putting us in touch.

Saturday night in Casablanca was a long one. Mexican dinner followed by a club at the waterfront and conversation until very late back at our host Zaki’s apartment. After just a few hours sleep, we were on our way to the Sidi Moumen Cultural Center run by the Neighborhoods Association IDMAJ. Idmaj means “integration” in Arabic.

We headed over there from downtown Casablanca at the invitation of Nicole Matuska, who works with the girl’s football team at the centre. We thought we were turning up for a kick-about. Nothing more, nothing less.

As we entered the centre’s club house, hundreds of kids from this notorious socially-disadvantaged neighbourhood welcomed it with songs, chants, rapping and speeches. We were overcome with emotion. What a surprise. What a welcome.

Then it was time for football. Andrew ran some exercises with the children so that everyone who wanted to would get the chance to kick The Ball. We felt truly honoured by the disciplined behaviour and the boundless enthusiasm. The Ball acquired hundreds more signatures.

What an inspiring place. We are full of admiration for the centre and the opportunities it offers the young people who attend. Many thanks to Vice-President Mohammed Aaitouna who led us around on the tour and to Asmaa, Rabab, Hassan, Housine, Chaima, Said, Ilham, the kids of the centre and the Tacharouk Football Association kids. Special thanks to Nicole and Lisa Matuska.

We are sitting across the road from the medina entrance in the rather souless modern centre of Rabat, sipping strong double expressos and checking email, having been attracted by the “Gratis Wifi” sign out front.

Andrew strikes up a conversation with his neighbour.
“Do you like football?”, he asks. The man certainly looks like a footballer, dressed as he is from top to toe in sports apparel.
“Everyone in Morocco likes football”, comes the reply.

It turns out that Hassan’s life revolves around football. Not only was he a professional footballer, but he was a former national team player. Now he’s a goalkeeping coach for the Real Madrid Academy, based in Rabat.

The next thing we know he’s on the phone to his friend — coach and famous Moroccan football commentator, Hicham Jdran. Jdran is in a hurry. He has to get to a game where he will provide the expert analysis for Morocco TV1. He signs The Ball in his car at the stop lights, gives us the thumbs up and is off.

The Ball seems to magically draw people into its orbit. We don’t know how this happens, but we like it.

Just as they said they would be, Tarik and the lads from UFM were there to meet us at Rabat train station. They had a plan for The Ball. The parliament building, the medina, the beach: all with The Ball and all freestyle. And so it was.

The freestylers rapped about The Ball in Moroccan Arabic, they juggled The Ball and they took us to the beach where we met many young Moroccans who gave us our first taste of beach football.

You spin me right round baby

The Ball gets ahead on the way to the beach

Beach football pitch in Rabat

Andrew and the beach football team

The UFM team and The Ball

Our first internet café on the African continent turned out to be one of the most beautiful cafés we could hope to have spent time in: the remarkable Café Clock in the medina in Fez.

Walk a short way from the medina’s Bab Boujloud — the “Blue Gate” — through the aptly named “butchers’ guzzar” presided over by the “camel” shown in a previous post, turn left into the narrowest of alleyways, then left again into a small doorway… and emerge into what seems to be a palace.

Founded three years ago by Mike, an Englishman fed up with the drudgery of daily life in London, Café Clock now seems to be an essential stop for travellers in Fez. Mike has a keen nose for the best of Moroccan cooking and a finely tuned ear for the tales of those who pass through his establishment.

Thanks for your hospitality, your fantastic breakfast and your broadband. We’d have been struggling to keep up without all three. Café Clock has certainly left its mark on The Ball…

We bumped into Nathaniel in Fez — an American nomad who renews his European visas by nipping over to Morocco every six months. Schengen doesn’t do him as many favours as it does us Europeans.

“I don’t like football. I don’t even watch it,” he told us. “But your project is not about football. It’s The Ball, but it’s more about travel and play.”

Moroccan men love to play, watch and talk about football. Walking through the massive, spectacular Medina in Fez on an evening of European football you will see a multitude of TVs playing football, hear the blur of football commentary, the chatter of men, young and old, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes and the smells of a myriad of exotic foods wafting into the air. But where are the women? Where are the girls?

Boys come up and want to kick The Ball or they want to have The Ball.
“Please sir, give me the ball.” Or they want to buy The Ball.
“How much for The Ball? I give you 25 Euros”
“It’s priceless, not for sale”, we reply. Strange to be offered money for The Ball. By this time, word has got around town that some crazy guys are in town with a ball. They don’t know that it is not just any ball and that this ball cannot be bought.

We’re dribbling The Ball through the medina, meeting people left, right and center, when two young girls come along and, in a flash, The Ball has been booted off down a side alley. We all race after it, laughing, giggling, but also slightly fearful of losing sight and control of The Ball.

We have an enormous responsibility. We must bring this one ball to the World Cup. And on time too.

In Fez we are constantly asked the same question. “Who has signed The Ball?”

“Julio Cesar”, Andrew says.
“Julio Cesar, from Inter Milan?”
“Yes, that’s right.” They know their football here. “Mbark Boussouffa,” he continues.
“What? Mbark Boussouffa? He’s Moroccan. He was player of the year in Belgium.”

We show the video clip of Mbark Boussouffa and The Ball at RSC Anderlecht. He’s a national hero in Morocco we’ve found out. The old football adage that a team is more than any individual player finds an exception with Mbark. When the Moroccan coach didn’t pick Boussouffa, he got fired.

One person in a group learns more about The Ball. He then tells the others in Moroccan.
“Can you please show my friend the Mbark video?”
“Of course.”

Moroccans are very proud of their football exports. They’ll happily tell you that every team in the French first division contains a Moroccan player and all top European leagues contain Moroccan stars.

Arriving in Fez… lost. Looking for the road to Azrou. Wrong turn here, wrong turn there.

Two young lads on a moped flagging us down.
“Follow us”, they said.
We did.

So here we are driving across town through Fez rush hour, in the dark, following two lads on the slowest moped in town. Thankfully slow, as it just happened to have no lights on. But they got us to our destination: –’s.

We were promptly invited into –’s parents house where Christian and Andrew kicked off into an argument, followed quickly with a hug to make-up.
“Sorry,” we apologised for our public scrap.
“No problem at all,” came the answer. We were assured that this was the way things happened here too.

In any case we got a real insight into Moroccan culture; fantastic mint tea, home-made dinner eaten with hands for cutlery. And after dinner, –’s father produced the quote of the night:
“The world is round. The Ball is round.”
Despite language problems we were able to make each other understood through the common language of football.

In case you’re wondering why there are no photos illustrating the story, it turns out that the Fez police take a very dim view of Moroccans associating with visitors. We were told that locals have to register their friendships with the police so as not to be mistaken for unofficial tour guides. Which means we have to protect the anonymity of the people in this story. So, instead, here’s a picture of a camel which we dedicate to all bureaucracy when it fails to distinguish between the sensible and the ridiculous:

Onwards to Fez via some remarkable Roman ruins and the chance to take a photo of The Ball with an Olympian feel.

As we wander about looking at the site, Andrew bumps into a fellow Liverpool and Rangers supporter. The chances of that happening? Perhaps only an Olympian god could calculate them.