Dribbling a football from Africa to Rugeley for charity

A man has faced wild dogs, rocky roads and exhaustion as he attempts to dribble a football from Africa to his home in Staffordshire to raise money for charity.

James Lewis started the challenge in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Friday and aims to make it home to Rugeley by 19 July to watch the 2026 World Cup final.

It is the latest in a number of challenges he has undertaken to raise money for St Giles Hospice, which looked after his dad David Lewis in 2011 before he died.

"I've run four days and I'm about to set off for day five. I'm a bit exhausted," he told BBC WM.

"The Moroccans have been really lovely to me," he added. "However, the dogs seems to hate me, especially when I'm running past them dribbling a football.

"I was basically run off the road and circled by a pack of eight of them all barking at me, it was quite terrifying… I think they wanted to eat my ankles."

Lewis said he wanted to do the challenge from Africa and chose Morocco as it was the closest African nation to the UK.

He said his current stretch was taking him along the N9, one of the country's main roads, and it was "quite hard" to run while constantly keeping control of the football.

"In some places, the hard shoulder I'm running on is one metre or two metres wide but sometimes it's half a metre wide and it's just rocky road," he said.

"That combined with the wind, the cars being less than half a metre away from you and the added element of dogs in the bushes barking at you – it's such a strange challenge."

Lewis, who is travelling by himself, said he had been staying in hotels but has camping gear with him too.

The current leg of his route will take him to the Port of Tangier, where he will cross the Strait of Gibraltar before heading into Spain.

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