Desperately seeking Maradona

This summer, you can flop on the couch while watching five far more energetic guys in their quest to meet their hero. Georgia Lewis caught up with three of the guys from In The Hands Of the Gods when they were in Dubai.

May 2008

Five guys had a dream and the dream became a movie that ended up taking the Cannes Film Festival by storm. The movie is In The Hands Of The Gods and the five guys with a dream are Danny Robinson, Paul ‘Woody’ Wood, Jeremy Lynch, Sami Hall and Mikey Fisher.

They embarked on a journey across South America to meet Diego Maradona, their footballing idol, and to fund the excursion, they raised money by busking.
But these guys weren’t your everyday run-of-the-mill buskers. While the average London tube busker is probably tunelessly trying to be Bob Dylan or standing very still while being painted silver, these guys had a unique talent to help them earn their keep. These guys are freestyle footballers and performed their fleet-of-foot tricks to ensure they didn’t starve or sleep too rough while they attempted to reach Buenos Aires to meet Maradona.

Danny (blonde spiky hair, cheeky), Woody (the good-looking yet still humble leader) and Jeremy (cool, quiet corn-rowed university student) were in Dubai for the launch of the DVD of In The Hands Of The Gods and they explained to us how they convinced the producers to fund their big adventure.

Production company Fulwell 73 was interested in the idea of a film about five guys freestyle football-busking across South America but they needed to be convinced that the lads were capable of making enough money by busking to not send the film project into bankruptcy.

They ably proved this after a day’s busking in London’s Covent Garden. “The idea was to busk for a meal to show them that we could do it,” said Woody. “They thought we’d end up eating in Pizza Hut but we dragged our way into the Savoy and had a three course meal!”

They’d raised nearly £500 - when you consider the average London busker makes around £40 a day, its little wonder the film was soon enthusiastically supported by investors.

Paying for the meal proved a tad embarrassing though. It’s not as if they were dressed for the occasion either.
“We’re in these scrubby tracksuits and we looked quite bad and there’s people coming out in tuxedos and ladies in elegant dresses,” said Danny. “Our waitress, a lovely lady, came over and said: ‘How are you going to pay?’ and obviously we’d been busking so people were just chucking in whatever they had so we’ve got mainly coins. In a rugby helmet.”

The guys split into groups and started their journey to Buenos Aires from different locations and once they hit the road, it certainly wasn’t a case of eating at the Savoy every night.

Woody and Danny travelled together from New York and were pretty resourceful from the get-go. “The first three nights we managed to get accommodation in New York and then after that we were on our own,” said Woody. “So what we did with the money that we earned, we invested in a minivan so we hired that to get us from A to B and worst comes to the worst, we can sleep in it.”

“Well, the worst did come to the worst and we ended up sleeping in that van for more or less the whole trip!” said Danny.

When asked about the low points of the trip, Danny was quick to say: “Eating Cornflakes out of the box for three meals a day.”
Just as well there were plenty of highlights along the route to Maradona. ”New York was brilliant - at the top of the Rockefeller Centre looking over New York as the sun was setting,” said Woody.

After New York, the five guys split up and Jeremy and Danny’s route took them to Mexico: “Acapulco was just buzzing altogether,” Jeremy said. “I had the best time, all the crowds, it was like having a really good party every day.”

“Woody got to see Guatemala and Brazil and me and Jeremy stayed in Mexico and got enough money to back to the States because we weren’t making much money in Mexico,” said Danny. “We went to LA, to Vegas and Hollywood and that was amazing. I’d never been to these places anyway so to see all that was really good.”

Danny also said that Brazil with sights of Rio de Janeiro and Copacabana Beach blew him away and he found Guatemala to be “a humbling experience.”

So when the guys got to Buenos Aires, did they get to meet Maradona? We’re not at liberty to say and you’ll have to get the DVD for yourself to find out. But since the film’s release, they not only enjoyed the star treatment when they visited Dubai to promote the DVD but the big screen premiere of the film in Cannes was a big hit too.

They performed their freestyle football tricks in Cannes and got to rub shoulders with some big stars as well. Jude Law and Chris Rock saw them strut their stuff but meeting Jessica Simpson was a definite highlight. Danny claims they just invited her over and she happily came over. And Woody claims she wanted a picture with him. “Yeah, she was very impressed,” said Woody with a knowing grin.

It has been an amazing journey for the guys who started out as kids with a talent for an above-average kickabout. They’re able to make a living out of freestyle footballing, which sure as hell beats sitting in an office or drudging it out in a factory every day. While Danny is planning to visit Australia, Jeremy will probably be the one that we next see in the spotlight. He has made it to the final of hit TV show Britain’s Got Talent so it’ll be interesting to see if he can go all the way with that particular quest. But Jeremy also has a university degree to complete as well – he had exams to do as soon as he got back to the UK from Dubai.

Even so, after meeting three of the five guys from this engaging and entertaining documentary, one can’t help but think they’ve got the skill, charm and determination to achieve more of their dreams, with or without a university degree.