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TRIP TO SENEGAL and GAMBIA, 1992, with WHEN SATURDAY COMES MAGAZINE, for the AFRICAN NATIONS FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT

I had been reading football fanzines since they first started appearing in the mid to late 1980s. The leading  light in the fanzine movement was WSC; I set up a subscription so that I was sent every copy, until the magazine became mainstream enough to be sold in newsagents.

Professional football in the mid to late 1980s was dieing; beset by hooliganism , attendances throughout the 1980s were dropping alarmingly. There were disasters at Hillsborough, Heysel Stadium and Bradford City.

Englands performance at the  1990 World Cup , where they reached the semi-finals, re-ignited an interest in football. I was living in Bath, and during that summer, it was noticeable how many more people were playing football again. On Mondays I would go for a kickaround in Victoria Park with a few mates. Then we would do Thursdays as well. Out little group joined in with other groups, and before long the Thursday kickaround was a full on game lasting from 6pm until we retired to the St James Wine Vaults for beers, around 9pm.  Happy days.

The 1990 World Cup was also significant for the performance of Cameroon. In the first game of the tournament, they famously beat the 1986 Champions, Argentina, 1-0. The goal was scored by François Omam-Biyik, with a header that the Argentinian keeper let squirm beneath his body. The game was also memorable for the crazy tackles on the Argentinian winger, Cannigia.

Cameroon won their next match, against Romania, 2-1, thanks to two goals from the 38 year old Roger Milla. The Cameroon team captured the imagination of the football world; their team was both strong and skilful. African teams had been enjoying some minor successes at World Cup since 1978, but this Cameroon team were the first to ever reach the quarter finals. In that quarter final, they lost 3-2 to England.

In the 1980s, Pele as quoted as saying that an African team would win the World Cup by the year 2000. In the early 1990s, this prediction did not seem ridiculous.  African football was part of the new football culture that was emerging post 1990;  magazines like WSC began to cover African football. We learned that Africa had its own tournament – The African Nations Cup.

In 1991, WSC advertised a trip they were organising to the next tournament, to be played in Senegal in January 1992. My friend John and I saw the ad and discussed going. I wasn’t earning much working in a bookshop, but the ‘budget’ option that WSC was offering looked affordable and I had several months to save up for the trip. We signed up.

So in early January 1992 we left England and landed in Gambia around mid afternoon one Saturday,

The tournament started on January 12^th and was underway by the time we arrived. We met up with the other guys on the trip at Banjul airport and were taken to our hotel a few miles outside of Banjul. At Banjul airport, a Manchester United fan, a young bloke who appeared to have inside knowledge of any football transfers, told John and I , with some excitement, that Leeds United were  about to sign ‘Eric Cantona’ (pronounced then Can-Tone-A). I hadn’t actually heard of this French fellow bt took mental note of the name. 

We were staying a comfortable hotel that backed on to a beach. On that first evening we had a barbecue and beers on the terrace at the back of the hotel. In that initial party – some more people joined the trip a few days later in Senegal – there were perhaps 15-20 people. John and I were in our mid twenties, as were most of the trippers; a few were a bit older. On that first evening we talked about the football teams were supported; John and I were avid Bristol City fans; there were a couple more Bristol City supporters, some Sheffield Wednesday fans, two Leyton Orient supporters, and the usual scattering of Manchester United and Leeds supporters.

The main organiser of the trip was a bloke who I guess was in his late twenties or early thirties. From the start, he gave  an impression that he was working the whole thing out as he went along. He never seemed quite certain as to what should be happening next, and when and where that might be. Later on in the trip there was some moaning form some of the guys who expected the trip to be just a bit more organised. He put most of the confusion down to the fact that ‘this is Africa’ where things are done differently.

That first evening was pretty uneventful anyway. We spent two or three nights in what we would later see as the ‘luxury’ of the Gambian hotel.  You quickly had to get used to being hassled whenever you left the confines of the hotel. We all took a trip in our bus to Banjul, where we were ‘hassled’ en masse. Banjul was small, densely populated, a bit smelly. People were employed either selling any thing they could, or working in the port area. I had bought stacks of biros with me, as the recommended ‘cheap gift’ to give away. Amazingly, the local children seemed delighted to receive a biro and became your friend for life.  

Our first taste of the African Nations tournament was in a small town called Ziguinchour. Google tells me that this was about 150 km from Banjul, so would have been one of many long bus journeys we made during the trip. I remember Ziguinchour as being a flat, non-descript town , with surprisingly few people around. I am surprised to discover that the town has a population of 230,000; at the time it seemed much smaller.

The Stade Aline Sitoe Diatta in Ziguinchour was built specifically for the tournament in 1992. It hosted the group games for two groups. Wikipedia tells me that it hosted two games a day on 3 days, January 13^th, 15^th and 17^th. I cannot remember exactly which day we went, but I am certain we watched at least one North African team – so Egypt and /or Algeria.  Having watched the Channel 4 documentary again , in which one of the lads says how much he enjoyed the Congo supporters, we must have gone on January 17^th and watched Algeria 1 Congo 1 and  Ghana 1 Egypt 0.

The Stade Aline Sitoe Diatta , like many of the buildings in Africa, was in a not-quite-finished-state.  It was surrounded by scruffy scrubland. The stadium was made up of several low stands, with an athletics track around the pitch. So all the spectators were a fair distance from the action and it  was difficult to build up an atmosphere.   Wikipedia states the attendance at the Ziguinchour games as being 5000, which I guess was the official capacity of the stadium at the time. I expect the real attendance was somewhat less, as there was plenty of space in the ground. We stood on an open wooden terrace on one side of the ground. Bands of brightly coloured fans played drums and sang throughout the games. I was impressed that each team seemed to have a group of supporters; it must have taken them days to get there from Egypt, Zambia, The Congo and Algeria!

I read now, on Wikipedia: that for the tournament:

“The city Sports and Arts Associations conceived for the first time the concept of having specific suburbs barracking for each national team in order to give a vibrant and joyful atmosphere to the Football tournament that saw Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Zambia, Egypt, Congo play the first half of the Championship in that city”

This might explain some of the support that the teams had at the ground.

The games we watched that day weren’t the best. We saw three goals in two games; that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the games I watched.

 The players weren’t helped by the pitch, which was in a terrible state, rutted, bumpy. All the teams favoured slow, deliberate build-ups, with some skilful play  mixed with industrial strength tackling. When teams reached the opposition penalty area, they appeared reluctant to push too many men forward, relying instead on individual skill to score; unfortunately, the players seemed to panic when near goal, and with no help from the pitch, some of the shooting was wild, shots on goal more likely to end up out of the stadium as in the goal.  This was a theme of the whole tournament: shots that troubled the keeper were a rarity throughout.

After a few days staying in the Gambia, and the day after our trip to Zigiuchour , it was time to head to Dakar for the second stage of the trip. In Dakar, we would watch all the games of the knockout stages of the tournament.

The distance from Banjul to Dakar is 287 kilometres . We were advised that the journey North to Dakar might take 6-8 hours or so but I think the journey was nearer 10. Our bus was small, cramped, hot. It takes some time to get across the Gambia river;  the van was driven on to a small ferry that took us over. January in Senegal is in the dry season; there is no rain between November and May. As we drove north the land grew drier and only sparsely populated. We stopped off at one or two small villages; excited children came out to meet us and we kicked a ball around.

A couple of hours from our destination, bored now after hours in the bus, one of the boys suggested opening a bottle of duty free booze. We all agreed this was a good idea. We all had a nip form a bottle of vodka. I remembered that I had also bought a bottle of vodka at Banjul airport – it was very cheap- and retrieved my bottle from my bag. There were now two or three bottles going round the bus. Once I had started I couldn’t stop; I could legitimately take large slugs from my own bottle. We were stuck in a bus; hot, hungry and dehydrated, and now I was packing down neat vodka. I have no memory of arriving at our destination. I staggered out of the bus and collapsed on to sand.

The next thing I remember was waking up many hours later in some kind of thatched hut. John was asleep on a bed next to one I was sleeping in. I walked out of the hut and found myself on a long sandy beach, with a shallow sea about 50 yards away. I had a dim recollection of how I had got to this place. Physically I felt great, having had a very long sleep. The temperature was around 20; very pleasant indeed. If only all drunken evenings ended like this. I walked along the beach for a bit; there were perhaps twenty more of the beach huts dotted around, and at one end of the beach a large wooden hut, where we would take our meals.  Everything was quiet and peaceful; only a few early risers were wandering along the beach.

We were somewhere north of Dakar on the Atlantic coast. Those of us who had paid for the budget option ended up at this beach camp. Those who had paid for the luxury option were staying in a hotel in Dakar itself.. More people had joined the trip: there was an option to join for the Dakar section only and miss the days in the Gambia at the start and end, so our numbers were now swelled. Those joining in Dakar had avoided the marathon bus trip form the Gambia so were refreshed and enthusiastic.

For the rest of the time in Dakar I was known of as the ‘bloke who collapsed off the bus’ .

The trip now became interesting. Where few days in Gambia had a been a gentle introduction to Africa, we were now to experience a more chaotic side.

Some of the guys staying at the Dakar beach site seemed happy enough with it, although there were some muttering about how isolated and insecure it seemed to be. One or two of the guys were unhappy with the organisation. Much of the time there was no clear plan, and the organiser would come and go. We had just the one bus to ferry around all the group, who were now staying in two different venues several miles apart.

We were in Dakar for the length of the knockout stage and watched all the games. There were two games each day. On January 19^th we watched Nigeria vs Zaire and Cameroon vs Senegal.  There was great excitement in Dakar about Senegals game against Cameroon. For the tournament to be a success, Senegal really needed to stay in it.

The games were held at the Stade Léopold Sédar Senghor. The stadium was built in 1985 and gas a capacity of 60,000. It is a concrete bowl design, with 3 side of the stadium open. We always sat in the covered section. There was a running track around the pitch, so all the crowd were a distance from the  action. The Cameroon vs Senegal game was the second game played that day; Wikipedia has the crowd for the early game at 10,000 . The ground gradually filled up for the Senegal game. I remember the ground being packed for this game, but Wikipedia puts the attendance at only 35,000.  The crowd was certainly large and passionate. We’d had a taste of African football in Ziginchoir, but now after several days of the trip we were experiencing what we had come : to watch a football match in a full stadium with committed supporters.

Apart from a group of Cameroon supporters, the crowd was extremely hostile towards the Cameroon players. During the warm-up , the players were jogging and stretching on the athletics track; something untoward must have been said, for suddenly two of three Cameroon players were wading in to the crowd to fight. I remember nothing about the game, except that Cameroon won 1-0. The goal was scored in the 89^th minute. Senegal were out of the cup, a huge blow for the tournament.

After the game had agreed to return at our meeting point: the hotel that the luxury tourists were staying in. This involved a walk of a  mile or so, across an area of wasteland , over a main road , the Route De L’aeroport’, and then into the warren of streets in the HLM Grand Yoff.  Our group became spread out, and as we neared the hotel several got mugged; not with great violence, but enough to lose money or possessions. I was oblivious to much of this going on, and it only became clear when we reached the hotel what had happened. There was a growing sense of anxiety amongst some of the group now.

After a beer in the hotel, and when the crowds outside dispersed, the group of us staying on the beach left for home. In the min-bus. After a short while it became clear that our bus was being followed. Some of the guys were now getting worried. We assumed the people following us were going to check out where we were staying, which was worrying given the openness of the site.

There was one bloke, a Chelsea fan probably in his early thirties, who was starting to panic. I am not sure he had ever been out of London and he could not cope with the randomness of Africa, the lack or organisation, the food, the accommodation etc ad nauseum; he had been grumbling ever since he had arrived in Dakar. He kept telling everyone how he was going to be murdered by a man with a machete. You did wonder why he had decided to come. I think after a few days on the beach he managed to get a transfer to the hotel in Dakar.

I think we tried some detours to shake off the van that was following us, but when we arrived back at the camp everyone was a little nervous. We got some vague assurances that the blokes running the camp would keep us safe; no-one was wholly convinced given that anyone could get on to  the beach from behind it.

Nothing happened during the night and I felt relaxed the next morning. We had another two quarter final matches to watch. So, it was back to Dakar to watch Cote D’Ivoire vs Zambia and Ghana vs Nigeria. Following the problems after the game the previous day, we were advised to make sure we all sat together in the stadium. With Senegal out of the competition, interest amongst the local people dwindled, and crowds were low; Wikipedia reports a crowd of just 3000 for the C’ote D’ivoire game, with 15000 attending the Ghana match. Ghana were the pre-tournament favourites, and included Africas most famous player – Abedi Pele. The extra people at the Ghana game almost certainly went to watch him play. All the people we met in Africa would speak of him. At the time Pele had been playing in France for several years,  currently at Marseilles, so he was well known in Europe. He was undoubtedly the highlight of the tournament for those of us watching it.

In the game on the 20^th, Pele scored probably the goal of the tournament as Ghana beat The Congo 2-1; his goal came with the score at 1-1 in the 57^th minute; a solo effort, the goal was compared to Maradona’s against England, and led to Pele being dubbed the ‘African Maradona’ . Ghana’s other goal that day was scored by Tony Yeboah; he was unknown at the time (to me at least, although he was playing for Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany), but went on to play for Leeds United and scored that fantastic goal against Wimbledon that won the goal of the season award in 1995-96. He also scored a very similar goal against Liverpool.

The Ghana game that day was probably the most entertaining game of the tournament. It was pretty much downhill from then on. In the other game that day  Cote D’Ivoire beat the Zambia 1-0 after extra time. This was the first of several Cote D’Ivoire epics that we were to endure. However, they became the team that our group supported. One of the lads starting calling them Cote Ivoire instead of ‘The Ivory Coast’ and from then on they were always referred to in the French form. They had the most colourful and loudest supporters (whether real or fake I don’t know), the best kit, the best name. They were also complete outsiders in football terms then; although they had hosted the African Nations tournament in 1984, they had had no success in world football. By the 2000s, they were qualifying for World Cups and had players like Drogba, Toure, Kalou, Bony. In 1992 I just knew them as a country I could just about picture on a map of West Africa (I liked to ‘read’ atlases so had a theoretical knowledge of the countries of the world).

But by god they hard to watch.

After the games, we had to walk to the hotel again. Following the previous nights escapades, our organiser had found us a security guard, in the shape of a massive African guy. He advised us to keep together on the walk back, and that he would protect us; he ‘knew’ all the boys who would likely follow us and we would be safe. He was armed only with a comb – albeit a huge one,  possibly 18 inches long and made form metal,  used for combing dreadlocks  – so I was somewhat sceptical about his qualifications; we were surrounded all the way by large groups of lads, many no older than 10 or 11, who were interested in some pick pocketing. The Leeds fans amongst us, for whom this kind of thing was normal in the late 1980s, extolled us to ‘stick together Lads’.  Our guard brandished his comb and growled at anyone coming too close, and we made it to the hotel. Inside , there was talk of some attempted muggings just outside the hotel, but we had all made it.  Time for a few more beers before heading home again.

There was still a high level of paranoia within the group , and the grumblings about the trip organisation were at their peak about now. John and I were just quietly getting on with things, making the most of the experiences we had. But we must have been  taken in by the feelings of insecurity, for that night we had what I consider the most frightening experience of my life, all caused by a shirt hanging near the end of a bed. At some point during the night, we both woke up at the same time. I was absolutely convinced that there was a man sitting at the end of Johns bed. I was petrified; this was our worst fear come true: someone had walked on to the beach and just entered our unlocked shack. John was awake too. I whispered to John “John, talk to him!”. John muttered something in return. Neither of us said anything to the man. I think John found a torch and turned it on. As our eyes became accustomed to the new light, we slowly realised that the ‘man’ was the shape we had seen in the dark, caused by a shirt hanging off the back of a chair at the end of Johns bed. The relief was incredible.

After that ‘escape’, we had reached a nadir. There was no bogey man. Some of the fears were ridiculous. Time to relax. The Chelsea fan moved to a hotel in Dakar. There were still grumblings about the apparent lack of organisation, but most of the group got on with things.

Channel 4 were making their documentary about the tournament, narrated by John Salako,  a Nigerian born footballer who was playing for Crystal Palace at the time. He had played for England over the last year or so. Channel 4 had filmed our group going into one of the games. Before one of the game John Salako interviewed some of our group. He was a friendly, enthusiastic bloke. John and I were both interviewed; my pathetic stuttering effort did not make the final cut, but Johns did. When I got home, Mum and Dad said they had seen me on the television, and were a bit worried about the talk of muggings. I have looked up the documentary on You Tube and watched it for the first time in the 26 years since it was first aired. Our ‘section’ of the film is between 17 minutes  and 20 minutes. I am surprised to hear John Salako say that the When Saturday Comes group totalled 80 people; many of those must have come for the Dakar stage only, and stayed in hotels; the group I was with that started and ended in Gambia and stayed on the beach, was much smaller; I picture 20-30 maximum.  Watching the video, some memories come back to me: the Chesterfield fans, the Orient fan with his loud shirts; John with his WSC t-shirt and African cap. That bus that we spent hours and hours on, in the film, parked outside the hotel in Dakar that we used for our base.

Here is the Channel 4 documentary on YouTube:

We had two free days between the quarter and semi-finals. On one of the days we had had a day trip to Lake Retba. This was a reasonably short drive in the bus. The Lake is 18 miles north east of Dakar and is named for its pink waters, caused by the type of alga that live within it.

I took one or two photos at the lake which survived (although I have no idea where they are now). John is wearing his ‘James’ tour t-shirt.  We wandered around the lake for a bit. There wasn’t an awful  to do really; once you have seen one pink lake you have seen them all. We either drove or walked to a local village , where we spent an hour or two being befriended by the local children, in a much friendlier way than with the boys round the stadium in Dakar.

We mooched around the beach camp too. Local teenagers and young people would wander down to the beach during the day. They were friendly and interested in what we were doing. The boys would kick a ball around and we would pay a few matches: Senegal vs the UK. The way the local boys played seemed to mirror the football we were watching. They had loads of skill, which they liked to demonstrate; they tended to over play, making that extra touch or pass in midfield instead of shooting or passing forward. In the games we played, they were miles better than us, but not shooting was, I felt, a flaw in their tactics. Our team, a motley collection of British blokes, uniformly un-athletic, always won. We hit the ball down the wings, crossed it and scored . Simple.

 I took some walks inland, away from the beach. One of the local boys took me to his hut and I met his family. I gave him a t-shirt and it was all very amicable.

I don’t remember  what we ate at the beach camp. When not in Dakar, we had our meals in the beach hut. I tried to eat as little as possible as the toilet facilities on the site were pretty basic; a fly infested hole in the ground type of thing. One day, the guys running the camp said we would be having goat curry that evening; there were a few goats at the camp, and we  were invited to choose the animal that we would like to eat later.

The semi-finals  were held on Thursday January 23^rd.  Again, we had our ‘security guard’ for the journey back. The crowd for both games was decent – Wikipedia shows 30.000, so the stadium would have been about half full.  The first game was Ghana vs Nigeria; Ghana won 2-1, with Abede Pele again being the outstanding player. Nigeria took the lead early in the game, before Pele equalised just before half-time. The brilliantly named Prince Polley scored the winner for Ghana in the second half.

The second game was Le Cote D’ivoire vs Cameroon. Cameroon, the giants of African football, were expected to win, but Le Cote D’ivoire dug in and ground out a 0-0 draw after extra time before winning on penalties. The game was gruelling to watch. The ‘seats’ in the stadium were just concrete steps that were exceedingly uncomfortable to sit on; we were now aware of this and some of the group bought cushions, pillows, or just spare clothes to sit on.  The football was frustrating to watch; on the rare occasions that one of the teams contrived to get towards the opposition box, the action inevitably ended with a shot that ended up somewhere within the vast concrete confines of the outer reaches of the stadium. BY the end of the game I think quite a few of the group had had enough of the football, and were pining for Chesterfield, Leyton Orient and Plymouth.

We had another football- free day on the  24^th. On one of our ‘free’ days, I forget which, we had a trip into central Dakar, to look round the more cosmopolitan parts of the city. John and I wandered alone slightly off the ‘beaten track’. We ended up in a pleasant and quiet ‘jardin’ just outside of the city centre. After a few minutes we were approached by 3 or 4 young men. I kind of knew what was about to happen, that we were about to be asked to pay the local ‘tourist tax’.  I had travelled round Morroco the previous year and had experience of the various ways that travellers are relieved of their money and possessions.

To start with, the men were friendly, asking us where we were from and what it was like living in England. After a few minutes the conversation turned to money, and the men politely informed us that we needed to hand over all the money we had on us. I think it is fair to say that John and my powers of persuasion were lacking, and we duly handed over all the money we had on us (not that much, as we were prepared for this kind of thing).  Later, I pondered on how we had survived several post-match evenings where pick pockets and potential muggers were everywhere, and yet here we had been robbed in broad daylight in a serene and genteel park. How had we been so naïve to think we could just stroll around wherever we wanted. I felt like an idiot.

Anyhow, there were still some potentially great football matches to watch; finally, on January 25^th came the game we had all been waiting for : the Third place match between Cameroon and Nigeria.  Attendance at this game was considered  ‘optional’ . Quite a few of the guys opted out. John and I considered it, but decided to go. There weren’t a lot of other options on offer, and there is always that feeling that you have to go to the game, that masochistic pride in endurance. And after all, we had paid to come and watch football, that was the point of the trip. And as this was just the one game, we would only have to sit on the concrete steps for about 2 hours as opposed to 4.

The crowd for the Third place game was tiny; Wikipedia states 2000. Local people were apparently let in for free, so most of the ‘crowd’,  apart from the small remaining pockets of Nigeria and Cameroon fans, consisted of street urchins. I ended up sitting near a man, probably a bit older than me, who started up a conversation. After a while he offered me some of his lunch : a baguette filled  with fish. Now I am not a fish lover; nowadays I can eat cod form the chip shop, but back then I never touched fish; the smelly varieties made me nauseous at the very thought. This was a pungent grey, silvery fish, mashed to a pulp, that had been stewing in the heat for god knows how long. A combination of politeness and fear  meant I had to accept the offer of half of the mans sandwich; I had to eat some of it to show my appreciation; I took a bite and gagged. I just about held it down. I managed to nibble at some of the bread to show I was still enjoying he sandwich, and when the man had turned his attention elsewhere, I put the last of the fish into my pocket. I then had to endure the last 30 minutes or so of the game with the taste of rotting fish in my mouth and the smell of rotting fish coming from my trousers. My arse was crying from being sat on the concrete steps again, I was being constantly stared at by boys who wanted to rob me,  and the game was dire. I had had enough of the African Nations tournament. It got slightly better: there were three goals in the final 15 minutes, Nigeria beating Cameroon 2-1.

On one of the final evenings in Senegal, perhaps after the third Place match, I experienced one of the highlights of the whole time in Africa; a trip to see Youssou N’Dour play in his hometown. This was before he had a worldwide hit with ‘Seven Seconds’, but he had by now released several albums; we had all heard of him so he must have been in the public consciousness at the time. A quick seaerch on Google informs me that he was one of the headline acts in the 1988 Amnesty International “Human Rights Now!” tour alongside Peeter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Tracey Chapman.

It was early evening when our organiser announced that he had found out that the gig was to take place, and that we could buy tickets for it. By this time in the trip, I was exhausted, and just wanted to go to sleep; but John and I decided that seeing Yussou N’Dour play in his home town was an opportunity not to be missed. A small group of us went; perhaps a dozen or so.

We drove in the bus to a nighclub in an affluent part of Dakar. It was fairly small, with a low ceiling; the rear of the nightclub opened on to a large yard; I faintly recall there being a swimming pool. Youssou N’Dour may have played outside, but I cannot be certain.

What was unforgettable was the sophistication of the audience. Clearly most of them were the sons and daughters of Dakars ‘elite’. Beautifully dressed, impeccably mannered, supremely self-confident, they floated around the club. Our group of British blokes, and one girl, were out of our depth: unshaven, dressed in ragged t-shirts and shorts, with fists around beers, we clumsily ‘danced’ to the music. It was a wonderful evening.

Back to football, the Final was upon us: January 26^th 2992.

We learned that Abedi Pele would be suspended, as he had received two yellow cards in the previous games. This was a massive blow for Ghana and for the tournament and was  big news; when we saw snatches of TV news it was mentioned, and all the local people knew that Pele would not play. I guess we kind of hoped that the final would be an exciting game but Peles absence didn’t bode well and the game ended up being as tough to watch as we feared it might be. There was a decent crowd – 35,000, and the Ivory Coast and Ghana supporters were colourful and in full voice, so the atmosphere was decent. Any optimism that it might be an open exciting game petered out after 20 minutes or so, and I recall nothing  about the game except that it was interminable. Ghana were the better team but Cote D’Ivoire defended stoutly as they had done throughout the tournament, safe in the knowledge that any shots against them would likely end up out of the ground. Watching the highlights now, I see that Nii Lamptey hit the post in the final minute for Ghana; I don’t remember that.

The game went to extra time; still no goals. Cote D’Ivoire actually have a chance in the 120^th minute, but fluff it. Finally, we had the inevitable penalties. In keeping with the rest of the game and the tournament, even the penalties dragged on and on. Most were scored, which made you wonder why the players couldn’t side-foot a ball into the corner of a goal during open play. Even the goal keepers got to take penalties; both scored. From Wikipedia: “The penalty shootout was significant in that it was the first in the final of a major international tournament that every player on the pitch took a penalty”.  Eventually, someone had to miss, and it was Ghana who did so, with their 11^th penalty. Cote D’Ivoires ‘winning’ penalty, taken before Ghanas miss, was a feeble effort; you wonder how the Ghana keeper did not save it. It was kind of fitting that it should have been the winning shot. Against all odds, Cote D’Ivoire had won their first ever trophy and their small group of fans, who had been wonderful throughout, were delirious with joy. Their team had won the trophy without scoring a single goal within the first 90 minutes of a game in the knockout stages. In the knockout stages, they scored just the single goal, against Zambia in extra time in the quarter final. Ghana were clearly the best side in the tournament, but without Pele in the final, they didn’t have the players brave and skilful to score or make a goal.

I have been derogatory about the standard and entertainment of the football at this tournament. It was hard work at the time. I have been watching You Tube videos of the games and in defence of the players, the pitches weren’t great, with the ball bouncing horribly on rock hard ground. There is a video of a Cote D’Ivoir game from the group stage in Ziguinchour; a Cote Divoire player scores a very fine goal after skilfully controlling a ball that bobbles horribly.

I remember the pitch at the Stadium in Dakar as being not much better: dry, devoid of grass and bumpy. But watching the Channel 4 documentary, it interesting that John Salako , before the group games in Dakar, says that the pitch has been watered and that playing conditions are ‘perfect’.  I have just been watching the Final highlights, and it is striking how green the pitch actually is; even a grassed section behind the goal is green. Given how dry and dusty everything was outside the stadium, it is clear that the pitch was watered extensively.  I had never seen action from the groups games in Dakar before now, and they look like there was more action than in the knockout stages to come.

I think it was after the final that we all drove in the bus to the hotel that was housing many of the players and officials. As on much of the trip, this jaunt to the hotel was not on any itinerary; after the game we had met, as usual, at our hotel in Dakar; the organiser said we could go to the hotel where we might be able to meet some players; there was vague talk of their being a post tournament party going on. The hotel was a vast building on the edges of the city; it had a pink tinge from the type of stone used to build it. Once inside, we hung around the vast lobby, not really sure what to do; we may have found beers, i do not remember clearly. We were there for an hour or two, and nothing much happened. We saw Michel Platini walking around, looking busy. Platini had been perhaps the best European footballer of the 1980s; a beautiful player who was part of the wonderful French team of the 1982 and 1986 World cups, and the 1984 European championships, which he almost single-handedly won for France. He had retired as a player in the late 1980s, and at this time was managing the French national team.

Having spotted Michel Platini, but seen little else of interest, we drove back to camp, for our last night at the beach.

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With the football over, those who had come only for the Dakar section of the trip, left for home . The rest of us were to head back to Gambia for two or three more days, before our holiday ended.

I avoided duty free vodka on the journey back to Gambia. I probably read a book and kept my head down. I remember nothing about the trip back, except for vague memories of stopping off in isolated villages along the way and kicking a football around with the local children.

Back in the Gambia, we had the privilege of staying a room in a hotel; this seemed like the ultimate luxury. The room had a lock on it, so you could go to bed reasonably confident that you wouldn’t wake to see an intruder sat at the end of your bed.  After the chaos of the week on Dakar, where you never knew what might happen next, life in these last couple of days in the Gambia was relatively relaxed, even boring. There was a swimming pool in the hotel compound and we held a competition; I beat ‘Late Boy’ much to his shock.

I ventured out alone once or twice, on to the beach or round the local market. I was constantly hassled and had to accept that I did not have the skills to deal with it; I needed assertiveness training badly, but accepted the hassle as a necessary irritant if I was to get out.

We went out for beers in the local bars and were approached by local prostitutes. One evening a group of them joined us at our table; John, who enjoyed the company of women, starting chatting amiably with them, as he was good at doing, asking them interesting questions about their lives. As one of the women edged closer to John, I was thinking to myself, “Come on mate, be careful”. Early in the trip, our organiser had spoke to us about about the prevalence of AIDS in West Africa, and that there was a good chance that a prostitute would be a carrier. At some point in the evening one or two of the blokes decided it was time to move on.

That was pretty much it it had been an incredible trip, but I was glad to get back to England to be honest, back to late January gloom and rain.

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