Shedding some light on Senegal - the home of NUFC's new star

Jan 22 2012 by Matthew McKenzie, Sunday Sun

Senegal feels like the centre of the football world for Newcastle fans at the moment, but few know much about the country. Sunday Sun editor MATT MCKENZIE sheds some light

ALONG the vast expanse of Yoff beach, on the northern shore of Dakar – the city that sits at the most western tip of Africa – they’re running.

They’re probably running right now.

And if they’re not jogging along the hot sand, they’re playing football.

Game after furiously-contested game occupies this broad, rubbish-littered beach.

A few kids have commandeered the only proper goals in sight (they lean with a drooping crossbar) but most content themselves with halved tyres as posts and a group acceptance of where the invisible corner flags sit.

The Atlantic Ocean is one touch line, a line in the sand the other.

As one sand pitch ends, another begins, and as I walk along, an Englishman’s toe in the water, these games are gripping to watch.

The joggers wind in and out of the footballers and both are every bit as engrained in my mind now as the mangroves, giraffes, baobab trees and the rest of the brilliant beauty I saw in this country on a visit last year.

For the runners and footballers, this isn’t keep fit; it’s something to do.

In the words of the manager at our guest house in Dakar, the birthplace of Pappis Demba Cisse: “There is no money.” Senegal is a country most Brits know little about, but feels like the centre of the world for most Newcastle fans now Cisse has joined his national team strike partner Demba Ba at St James’ Park.