Football has always been popular — of that there can be no doubt. Phil found this video today which (starting at around 1:20) tells the story of a football being found behind the panelling in a bedchamber once used by Mary Queen of Scots:
That makes the ball that was discovered well over 400 years old.
The reason that The Ball’s “Olympian” journey kicks off from Battersea Park is not because it celebrates the first game of football, but because the game was the first to be played under FA rules. It is the astonishing spread of those rules which allows the world to play the game together — and that’s something well worth celebrating…
Spirit of Football is by no means the only project looking to support African organisations through the donation of footballs — have a look at Footballs for Fun, who are also partners of Alive & Kicking, and who are also supporting their initiative to see 100,000 balls donated to Africa as a result of the 2010 World Cup:
So the last entry on the blog put the case against football, or at least the hype surrounding it. This one shows the flip side of the hype and how it can sometimes be a good thing:
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Sometimes you just have to put the counter-argument. Especially when it’s as well put as this:
Check out the football game action at about 1min 50sec into the video:
This impresses and terrifies me at one and the same time.
Fans will be friends.
Hands across the ocean.
Hands across the sea.
Hands touching hands.
Singing songs is free.Fans willl be friends, my friend.
Playing football in the streets.
The Ball is the ball my friend.
The language everybody speaks.
Thanks Mark!
Sweetness and light broke out on the 21st September this year as the World Peace Day campaign reached Herzogenaurach…
Oder auf Deutsch:
Seems like football was one of the impulses for the founding of the project:
In early 2000, Jeremy Gilley, filmmaker and founder of Peace One Day, was standing on the sidelines of a football (soccer) match in Somalia. Next to him, stood a boy – no older than nine – who was holding a machine gun. Jeremy was struck by the simple fact that football was the only thing in this war-torn country that could overturn conflict and bring people together.
While travelling in the Middle East, a few months later, Jeremy heard further tales of two opposing sides coming together in peace on the football pitch. “I realised then that football was the perfect game to play on Peace Day, in a gesture reminiscent of the Christmas Truce, during World War I, when soldiers from both the German and English sides came out of their trenches to play a game of football.”
[Source]
Big respect to Jeremy Gilley for this amazing campaign.
The Ball at Rot-Weiss ErfurtThe Ball was a guest of honour in Stiegerwald Stadion in Erfurt on Saturday September 19th. The Ball was introduced to the crowd by the stadium speaker before kick-off, it sat in the home team’s dugout, and it met a few famous German footballers before taking its place in the main stand to watch a rather dour match. For the record, Rot Weiss Erfurt were defeated 2-1 by Wehen-Weisbaden.
The Ball in Erfurt with famous DDR footballer Rüdiger Schnuphase
The Ball in BerlinThe Ball was a guest at the closing event of the Goethe-Institut project Languages without Borders (Sprachen ohne Grenzen) in Berlin on Thursday September 17. The Ball was there to present its partner project Todo-Aleman, the Goethe-Institut’s interactive 3 language youth portal.
For more information about this event (in German) please follow this link.
The ceremonial start of the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour took place at FIFA HQ today. Ray Stubbs, who recently left the BBC, introduced the speakers including Sepp Blatter, Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola and legendary Cameroon striker, Roger Milla. But it was left to Joseph Tripodi, a marketing guy from Coca Cola to outline their plans…
Update: it seems you can now watch an archived copy of the live stream at the FIFA website – click on the link in the middle of the page to open a popup window that contains the video.
Okay, so the trophy will visit a lot of countries, incuding every African country. Which is nice. And they’ve chosen Somalian rapper K’naan to write the theme tune. Here’s what he sounds like…
However, the tour itself was perhaps the least interesting thing that Coca Cola announced… what I liked most was what they call the Coca Cola Celebration Award, which will be awarded to the the footballer responsible for most popular post-goal celebration at the World Cup – as voted for by the public. Each time a goal is scored which is followed by a celebration that can be considered a dance, Coca Cola will also donate money (although they didn’t say how much) to their Water For Schools fund.
Sounds like Peter Crouch is going to have to teach all the England players his robot dance if they’re going to qualify for the award…
