The Happy Pod: Football while fasting -- Egypt's Ramadan pastime
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What is The Happy Pod and who is Alex Ritson?
This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Series. I'm Alex Ritson and in this edition... No, no food, no water throughout the day.
It's just adrenaline and passion.
As the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close, street football tournaments take over streets across Egypt. We also hear how a routine sweep with a metal detector led to one of the UK's biggest archaeological discoveries.
It will inspire people, it will generate interest, it will generate enthusiasm and hopefully it will make people say, you know, I've always wanted to go on a dig, I'll go and do it now.
A family of beavers in the Czech Republic saved the government millions of dollars, building a dam exactly where authorities planned.
Why is football significant during Ramadan in Egypt?
And I'm Gary O'Donoghue. Normally you hear me reporting from Washington. This week I'm on the Happy Pod with my own story of perseverance.
Ramadan is a time of prayer and reflection for Muslims worldwide. In Egypt, they also mark it using one of their nationwide passions, football. Since the 1960s, street tournaments have spread to nearly every town, involving everyone from children to old men. Some professional footballers take breaks from the training schedules... to take part in the communities that first taught them to love the sport, often undeterred by heavy fines imposed by their clubs. It's been a lifelong passion for 70-year-old El-Sayed Mohamed, who used to play with a ball made out of old socks. He says the tradition has much evolved since the early tournaments.
I started playing when I was 15 years, maybe. Even in 60, I played football with the same age of people in Ramadan, which is very interesting. We used to buy a trophy, and then we'd go around other districts, and then here the people start to participate. We played in the street. You can imagine how wide is the street. Very competitive. You cannot feel that you are fasting when you are playing. No water, no food, but it's still very exciting. Every Ramadan, we know that we are going to be fasting. We are going to play the tournament in this Ramadan.
I got more from the sports journalist Mohamed Koudba.
whether it's in a small alley, whether it's in a five-a-side proper pitch, you would find it somewhere, and you would find some of it even broadcasted on the live television. It's just a cultural phenomenon that showcases how obsessed Egyptians are with football. Decades-long tradition now, and it's still going strong, I have to say.
And some professional footballers get involved too, risking the anger of their clubs.
Yes, let me tell you that some of the professional players for the elite clubs, we're talking about clubs that won the African Champions League multiple times. Try and get away with the cheeky game of street football in Ramadan. And if they get caught, they get heavily fined. And there are special Ramadan football tournaments for former professionals. So you would see players who have been all over European football, who won Africa Cup of Nations several times. They would compete against each other and it would be as heated as what they used to have back in the days. It just rekindles the passion towards where they've come through because most Egyptian professional footballers have come through the youth systems.
And before that, it was just street football that introduced them to proper clubs, actually.
Yeah, and as you say, this happens during the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is when Muslims fast, so they're playing these games of street football. Well, you'd have thought when they least wanted to be playing football, when they've not had anything to eat.
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