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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“I’ve run four days and I’m about to set off for day five. I’m a bit exhausted,” he told BBC WM.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“I was basically run off the road and circled by a pack of eight of them all barking at me, it was quite terrifying\u2026 I think they wanted to eat my ankles.”<\/p>\n
Dogs in bushes<\/p>\n
Lewis said he wanted to do the challenge from Africa and chose Morocco as it was the closest African nation to the UK.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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 \u2013 it’s such a strange challenge.”<\/p>\n
Lewis, who is travelling by himself, said he had been staying in hotels but has camping gear with him too.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
His previous challenges have included running blindfolded for 24 hours and running from Paris to Rugeley.<\/p>\n
“I thought last year was difficult running home from Paris,” he added. “I had it easy.”<\/p>\n
Lewis has set a target of \u00a3100,000 on his JustGiving page and has so far collected more than \u00a36,300.<\/p>\n
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