Rob was invited to Syria in the Middle East with a group of freestylers to help promote the changing hands of a massive Telecommunications Network.

It involved spending 4 days in Damascus, 3 days in Aleppo and another 2 days in Latakia.

They spent the days demonstrating in the streets as well as on stages strategically dotted around the country with the branded T-shirts.

“Syria was a great experience, as being in the Middle East it was at times a little uneasy being from the West. We were really well appreciated and very well looked after during our stay”

Rob and the group traveled to 3 cities during their stay which was quite interesting.

“On each of the trips we would pass signs for Baghdad, Beirut etc. So we were having conversations about how close we were to the unrest that was going on in these regions.”

“We were performing for 4 hours a day, one hour in the morning and a further 3 hours in the evening. It took a little while to get used to the heat as it was over 42C in the shade so you can imagine we didn’t spend too much time outdoors, in the afternoons anyway”

“The kids as well as the adults again in this part of the world are strangers to soccer skills/freestyling so they were fascinated by what we were doing. They all had their phones out recording everything that we did with the ball……It was amazing”

The set up for the demonstrations were on stages that were linked up to music systems that played music to help alert the passers by as to what was going on. Once they came to the stages to see the freestyling in action, they pretty much stayed there till Rob and the lads had finished.

“All in all it was an experience that gave me a little insight into the Syrian life of which is something I can take away with me for future visits to that part of the world".