Tips from Abroad

Firstly, I would like to thank the University Stallions for their ongoing financial support of my research into the state of football throughout India and Thailand. Thanks especially to Rauru, who secretly hiked the team's subs so as to provide me with a travel slush fund.

My only report on Indian football is that there isn't any. Hamish (my nephew - Cricketing Stallions know him) and I purchased a soccer ball in Varanasi, and all the locals crowded around it, asking us what on earth had happened to our cricket ball for it to swell up so bad. We told them we had dropped it in the Ganges (probably the most septic river on Earth). It seems the Indians only care for cricket. I spoke to one Indian man (genuine ethnographic research of course, not a casual convo over a bottle of Kingfisher) and he summed it up like this: Indians are lazy and weak, but skillful. Cricket only requires skill. Hockey requires practice, for which Indians are too lazy. Football requires strength, for which Indians are too weak.

Mish and I had one kick-around on the beach in Goa, hoping the locals would join in. They laughed at us, so we booted the ball off the train on the way to Mumbai. The construction workers that caught it immediately ran to get a bat and stumps.

Thailand, where I am currently researching, is a different story. They play a game like volleyball, but they use their feet, legs and head instead of their arms and hands. I kept asking one man what the game he was playing was called. He didn't quite understand me, and he told me his own name every time. So I'm not sure what the game's called, but I can affirm with great confidence that the man's name was Wang. The game is played with a light woven ball (traditionally made of bamboo, but plastic nowadays), and their control of it is out of this world. Bicycle kicks are the staple, and usually pulled off with unbelievable accuracy. Mish and I watched a full game between some old men. If the Stallions arrived to a game to find opposition this old, there would be grins all round. Ben Hodges would predict his own hat-trick, Aaron would beg to play striker and Graham would dispute claims of genetic inferiority. Hang on - these things happen every game. All the same, confidence levels would first soar, then plummet as these old grandads gave us a schooling.

I have included some random footage of one of the games that was being played in Pai, a village a few hours out of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. After this game, Mish and I were invited to join in. I haven't included footage of that.