Faith in Humanity

Some of the cricket kit Project Front Foot have provided for refugee teams in Normandy

This week, a van from Project Front Foot arrived in Caen and mes’ garage was filled by loads of cricket kit, equipment and clothing, for the refugee cricket teams in Caen and Avranches: bats, pads, gloves, helmets, boxes, lots of cricket clothing including cable-knit sweaters, all donated by various bodies and people in the UK. There are even some junior/Kwik Cricket bats and other bits and pieces.

It all arrived on Thursday and this morning mes and Julia, the social worker for the refugees, have gone through it all, making inventories and dividing it into two equal parts for the two groups.

They are keeping back some extra-warm stuff for refugees who arrive this coming winter and also a bag full of brand new tops which will be prizes in the cricket tournament they’re going to be organising this summer.

Mes and Julia with just some of the kit
This photo is from Thursday evening, before everything was sorted through

Today, the kit began to be distributed. If you want to see what a happy refugee looks like, see the next photograph.

With all the shit going on all over, and my faith in humanity being sorely tested, this story has kept me together in recent times and I have the utmost respect for everyone involved, from mes and Julia to the donors in the UK, the players in Normandy and elsewhere, but especially for Front Foot Forward, who have been doing this stuff for fifteen years.

They started off in the slums of Mumbai (or Bombay, as Ravi would have said) and this next picture is of them doing just that:

This is their website. Please do look at it:

https://projectfrontfoot.org

You can also get more up to the minute news on their Facebook page (if you can face Facebook). It’s https://www.facebook.com/projectfrontfoot

I’ll either post more photos up here or below the line. I want to get this out now, so will not fiddle around any more.

435 thoughts on “Faith in Humanity”

    1. He talks so much sense about the world game (although I don’t agree with him on absolutely everything), and makes the case for a more equitable distribution of ICC funds and the difference just 1% more to associate countries would make. India do not need 40%.

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      2. I’ve not really thought much about it before, but there’s an interesting comparison to be made across governing bodies in terms of distribution of money. You hear a lot about the corruption of IOC and FIFA but I guess those in power naturally have a strong incentive to spread the funds around where they can secure votes fairly cheaply. Whether (and how) this translates into genuine benefit to “grassroots” sports development is a moot point. With the ICC, there is (I assume) no wider “democratic” pressure to attract votes since money-making power is king, hence India’s franchise-fuelled domination. With the Olympics and World Cup, the event is the star and no one country or small clique can exert the equivalent power of India (and previously England/Australia) in cricket. (Of course the IPL event is the star in India but the BCCI owns it!) But India’s dominance gives them a great platform to grow the game internationally and project plenty of soft power along the way (as well as potentially growing eyeballs for the franchise monster). It would be interesting to really understand the motivations/incentives acting on the BCCI – I know there are unkind suggestions that it is increasingly a vehicle for the greater glorification (and enrichment) of Modi and his family/party, but there must be more to it than that? Quite reasonable to ask what England did to expand the associate game when it had the whip hand, but tbf they never had anything like the funds at India’s disposal.

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  2. The men’s T20 World Cup will be available, it says here, for free on ICC.tv in continental Europe (including Netherlands but we’ll see if that happens) so it should/might be free and easy to watch in France, Austria and … Greece.

    The list of countries doesn’t include Colombia, for some reason, and that is a shame. Get a VPN, Peter.

    Scroll down to the bottom.

    https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/what-s-on-icc-tv

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    1. It’s strange sometimes the restrictions that exist on broadcasting and publicising between countries. I recall, last autumn when I had been watching that show ‘Yo ti Llamo’ on Caracol TV I published the stunning rendition of ‘America, America on here. Which would not have been the slightest use, because I sent the same clip, which was YouTube based to my sister in an e-mail. She immediately responded by saying she could not access it because of publicity restrictions by Caracol in the UK. Wierd really, when you think about it, material from that show was not publicised on YouTube until the next day, so allowing people in other countries to see it would neither have affected their viewing figures, or advertising levels which here are often based on viewing figures. Again I sometimes get the same restrictions in reverse, even on cricket columns in the Guardian, where adverts are published and all I will get is a blocked square saying you can’t see this in Colombia.

      Not something I feel really strongly about, but thanks for the tip Romeo. I will give the idea of getting a VPN some thought but given my general lack of interest in T20, not sure I would make such an investment for a single tournament,

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  3. Today would have been the 120th birthday of Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller, pianist, vocalist and pioneer of the jazz and blues in the 1920s as part of the ‘Harlem Renaissance’. A name to put alongside Colman Hawkins, Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong. He only lived through the ’78’ era. These are his first two recordings from 1922 – when he was 18.

    Firstly, ‘Muscle Shoals Blues’ https://youtu.be/3ddDPsfUNx8?si=n_k0AFAKRJ4g8fHw

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  5. Wish he’d get a move on, I need to book 5th July off before everyone else does, that hangover isn’t going to nurse itself.

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  6. Former Great Power (never understood the capitalisation), former owner of empire, joke country as seen from everywhere else although pitied by some, a place consumed by its own history and unable to get over it, has an election with a foregone conclusion.

    The EU elections are from 6 to 9 June. Far more important but British people are now excluded.

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  9. Inspired by the Fats Waller clip from mes, I bring you the Ray Charles 1953 classic performed live in 1989. The original is the soundtrack to my favourite John Candy scene from Planes, Trains & Automobiles where he mimes along to every instrument whilst “driving” the car.

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    1. Yes, sad ending to a very exciting player at the time. Same thing happened to Pataudi, the Indian player. The Nawab, did manage to continue for a while after his accident, but clearly was never quite the same player. Right it’s about 9.30 am here, so about 3.30pm in the UK. Time to do a qucik reappraisal of my fantasy teams. Last round although all my players were in the squads, I had one team who lost three bowlers. Just fortunate that I had young TomAspinwall as a reserve. But not sure why the fantasy cricket gods should select just one of my teams for such harsh treatment.

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  12. USA have beaten Bangladesh in both their T20 WC warm-up games so far.

    There’s a third on Saturday.

    Although I’m not a natural for T20, all this needs watching (in part because there’s no CC while it’s on).

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    2. At least the Captain of the Titanic got 2/3rds of the way across the Atlantic before taking everybody down (and had the decency to go down with them).

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    4. The Derek Trotter of the London Stock Exchange is more likely to be fiddling as he disappears beneath the waves. Child poverty at a scandalous height in the UK and all this Government have ever done is line their own pockets and those of their friends. I feel sick.

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    1. Very interesting article – I was unaware of the sad Steve James back story. My youngest hasn’t bothered with the ECB Level 3 (his partner did it though) as he feels it’s too much of a sausage machine. He’s now off to coach at a prestigious independent school (sadly the only realistic path available to him at present).

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  17. There are going to be two four-day Youth Tests between England under-19s and Sri Lanka under-19s in July, at Wormsley and Cheltenham. I hope they’re on telly/streamed.

    Wormsley – 8-11 July

    Cheltenham – 16-19 July

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