An electric welcome for 48 nations
Posted on 28/07/2007
Kate Wilson is back. You may remember that Kate was selected as a reporter by The Foyer, the organisation housing disadvantaged young people in the UK, to report in Cape Town last year. This year Kate has made her own way to Copenhagen to report once more on the Homeless World Cup. Kate was at the Mayor's Welcoming Party. Here is her report."The teams all arrived and took their seats, they got straight into the spirit of things and within minutes every team was on their feet cheering, singing and clapping, the atmosphere was enticing and the media stared running around trying to capture the moment.
The Copenhagen Mayor of Social Affairs took the stage and proceeded to welcome the players to Denmark, he informed them all that it was a great honor to be in City Hall as normally the hall is reserved for politicians and such like. He informed everybody that of all the projects he had been associated with the Homeless World Cup was the most outstanding.
The Danish Minister of Social Affairs also came to the stage and welcomed everyone to Denmark, the Minister underlined the importance of the Homeless World Cup and showed her appreciation of hosting the tournament in Copenhagen.
Then everybody was told to help themselves to the food, which was a superb buffet with pancakes, which is a great tradition of Denmark.
After the food had been eaten the Danish team took to the stage where the players started to sing a song he had written especially for the Homeless World Cup. Again everyone got to their feet started to dance and clap even the media joined in!Mel young also came onto the stage but the crowd started to whistle and clap and it took a while for them all to settle down, at which point Mel made a speech that was as inspiring as ever. Then the Russian captained was asked to bring the Homeless World Cup trophy to the stage as Homeless World Cup tradition has always done.
They then proceeded to the draw. 4 Danish children stood in front of 4 bowls in the first bowl were the top 12 seeded teams the second bowl the 13-24 seeded teams, the 3rd bowl the 25- 36th seeded teams and the fourth bowl the 37th - 48th seeded teams.
Kate Wilson
Download the Danish welcome song here.
Photo credit: Mark Shipperlee - HWC 2007
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