Village of The Damned United

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Apart from teaching here, I also go down and help coach the kids footy team after school for a couple of hours. I'm not exactly Kenny Dalglish, but id say I'm near enough Roy Hodgson level. The kids are amazing players, and have fantastic touch, technique and are all fit and strong. Bit of a cliche, but they have all this yet are tactically naive. Its hard to get through to them that they need to stay in positions and pass, instead of trying to take everyone on by themselves.

When they play, everyone in the village comes to watch and they get a few hundred spectators. They even bring down flags and vuvuzella's. A load of people from USIL donated shirts before I came over and the lads all wear them now. The shirts they had previously were pretty crappy, and the kids were made up that i had shirts for them. Only problem now is that they have started wearing them literally 24/7.

After training I sometimes take my laptop down and watch a film with them. Obviously they want to watch footy stuff, so we've watched Shaolin Soccer, The Damned United, and Soccer Dog so far, as well as a few compilation goal videos. I tried to get them to watch The Office for something a bit different, but they didn't know what an office was. I explained that it was a place you went to work and sat at a computer all day, but they still didn't really get it. So I said it was like a bank. Then they asked why the bank was selling paper. I said, well its not really a bank, but that was the only thing I could think that they knew in English. Then they asked what jelly was, during the scene when the stapler was in the jelly. Ummm, water and some sort of sugary gelatine i think, that turns from liquid to solid when placed in a fridge for 4-6 hou... FORGET IT, you just watched a ninja jump 25 foot in the air and score an overhead kick that sets the ball on fire, YET YOU DON'T QUESTION ANY OF THAT.

Aside from the footy, and school, not much has happened these last few days. I had a walk round a part of the village I haven't saw before yesterday, and found 'the gym'. It was literally just a bench they had made and a pole with some makeshift weights on it. This area seemed a bit poorer than the rest, and I couldn't believe some of the places people were sleeping/living in. Although there as one massive house that was gated and had 5 satellite dishes on the roof. I asked who lived there and they said they didn't know. Bin Laden hideout #2?

Haven't had any rain for a while now, which means no shower for the last 2 days, and no cleaning clothes for the last 5 days. I had to go to football training in the most ridiculous outfit the other day as I had literally nothing to wear that wasn't soaking wet and stinking. I looked like a gay PE teacher from 1972. I had to stop playing after 5 minutes in case a bollock fell out of the short shorts.

Also today I came home and saw a man in the front of the house, I asked if he was OK, and he said he was looking for his chickens eggs as they had ran away and been laying them somewhere in the village. There's literally NO WAY he is going to find them. The village is pretty big and he was looking behind these massive bushes that went on for about 200metres and were about 8foot deep, plus animals would've ate them by now anyway. I said good luck, but there's no way hes going to find them.

Turns out he found them in the end

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Photos

Hostel
Hostel where the footy kids stay at

Footy pitch
The crowd get a bit boisterous and run on the pitch every now and again. Its only Under 14's football!

Hideout
Not sure whats going on here

Shack
Someone lives here

Shack
and here

Cauldron
Cauldron outside the shack. Maybe a witch lives there.

Gym
Better than the YMCA in St Helens

Never gonna find em!
He found his eggs about 5 minutes later

Mr McIntyre
How can I expect respect wearing THIS