Baz Gascoyne on building a playground in Tanzania

No Passion, No Commitment, No Team Spirit, No Idea, No Fun and No Energy and Bad Management. These are the reasons that were given for the England failure and poor performances at this year's World Cup. I bet that has been so reassuring to the thousands of supporters who flew out to South Africa to cheer on their team known as AKA 'The Golden Generation'.

The trip cost the supporters thousands of pounds. It has been estimated that England fans alone will have spent over £300 million pounds in flights, tickets for games, food & accommodation, replica shirts and drink.

On average people have paid anything between £5,000 - £8,000 each for the nightmare in South Africa. They have re- mortgaged their homes, taken out bank loans, resigned from their jobs or lost their jobs just so they could go on their dream trip to see England win the World Cup! Money well spent there then.

I do not doubt the commitment of the supporters but I would love to ask them do they think it was money well spent?

So 23 household names failed to deliver but in another part of Africa - Tanzania to be exact - six men, unknown to most of the UK, delivered their dream.

On Saturday 12th July I and five other men flew from Heathrow to Mwanza in Tanzania to build a play area in a village called Bukumbi. I had the privilege five years ago to go and visit my friend Ian Wilson and his wife and family and see first hand the great work they and Bridge2aid are doing out there. Whilst out there we visited the village of Bukumbi.

Bukumbi houses approximately 300 'maskini' (the local term for the poorest of the poor) with leprosy. People have been living in squalid conditions for most of their lives with a lack of food & irregular access to medical care.

Whilst there I watched some children playing with a bike tyre, their only toy. I showed them how to spin it backwards, a feat that caused mass amazement as they'd never seen anything like it. I turned to my wife and said "Surely we can raise enough money to give them something better than an old bike tyre."

Five years on, having organised comedy evenings, jazz evenings and a Christmas extravaganza to raise the £3,000 for the play equipment, the six of us were on route to do the building work, having also committed our own money to fund our place on the trip. I was also looking forward to seeing the improved sanitation, medical provision, housing & water supply that had been developed over the last five years through the work of Bridge2Aid.

So Monday morning, arriving at Bukumbi with tears streaming down my cheeks, we began our work. With lots of fun, laughter, hard work, camaderie & banter, the six of us, with the help of some of the older teenagers, finished the work by Friday lunchtime, in time for a grand village opening.

Seeing all the children laughing and excitedly playing on the equipment whilst some of the elder villagers sat on our bench to watch and chat, brought my dream five years earlier to a positive fulfilment.

After the England football defeat, one fan who'd paid over £5,000 to follow the team to South Africa remarked "That's it for us now. We've paid a lot of money over the past 12 or 14 years and I can't see where we're getting our reward from." Another said, "We paid a lot of money to come here; you just start to wonder if it's worth it."

As a team we'd paid & raised a lot of money to go there - we consider it well worth it.

As you journey through life, take time to stop and ponder - where are you investing your time and money? At the end of the day, will it be worth it?