The recent Unity cup trip to Dubai was a great learning experience for everyone involved.

Having arrived in early hours of Thursday morning we made our way to our hotel which was very close to the airport. Once checked in all the players settled down for a few hours sleep before our first big adventure – Wild Wadi!

With a late (or in some people’s case no) breakfast inside us we headed off to Wild Wadi. Here the players got to travel down water shoots at incredible speeds, practice their surfering, eat and of course shop at the souvenir shop.
With the evening approaching, and a quick visit back to the hotel it was off again to the City Centre Mall for a supper of lovely Lebanese food before the boys had a few hours to shop – again. Everyone knew where to meet and everyone managed to get their on time except Anthony who managed to find an identical exit where he was sitting patiently waiting for everyone else!

    

With a good nights sleep, Friday saw the first games of football. When we eventually found the correct fields we encountered the biggest goals we had ever seen, which Zain used to our advantage in our first game by scoring from a dipping volley. We were up against some tough teams (some under 11’s but also under 12’s and local Dubai club teams coached by a former England International), so it was not surprising that we did not win any games on that day.
To lift the boys spirits we went to an arcade in a different shopping mall where they got to eat pizza, visit a seriously scary Haunted House, play arcade games and also try their hand at paintballing.

Saturday saw some closer games, especially against the eventual winners St. Christopher’s and there were improvements all round but unfortunately we still didn’t manage a win.
That evening we put our woes behind us and went out into the desert for a 4WD safari & some wonderful food under the stars. Some boys got their picture taken holding a falcon, or rode a camel, others spent a fortune riding quad bikes until the sunset while others found the gift shop and in particular the lasers and shockers!

    

Our Dubai trip was almost over. After checking in there were just a few minutes left for some final frantic last minute shopping before boarding the plane back Khartoum.
The journey back was surprisingly uneventful apart from three boys feeling ill and Ali leaving his passport in the airport!