2002

Gonpo our Tibetan manager

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…

Rain in Xiahe threatens to drown our plans

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…

We advertise for a game

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…

If you watch the games, don’t watch the adverts

As an aside to our trip, but of significant consequence to it, I’d like to mention the Football Fan’s Union and their campaign to ‘Can the Commercials‘. It seems that as many as 30 English football clubs face ruin because the Football League are owed UKP178.5million by ITV Digital. So if you watch the Opening Ceremony in England, don’t watch the adverts, but do go to the site and register your support. Simple as that.

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.

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.

Shadows on the road

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…

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…