Daily Prompt: Fandom

Are you a sports fan? Tell us about fandom. If you’re not, tell us why not.

I remember the word Fandom from the last time we got this prompt. I had never heard of it then and I did not remember it this time, which shows how much my sportsmanship exists. In my younger days I was a keen follower of football, but I wrote all about it the last time I did this repeated blog and do not intend to write it all again. 

Suffice it to be said that in later years I now and again like to watch a football (soccer) match on the television, but I no longer feel the urge to stand in the stadium in the cold weather for 90 minutes watching  22 grown men kick a ball around. Of course if the player is attractive enough to warrant more than a glance, I take more interest.This was the case years ago when the Dutch goalkeeper Erwin Van der Sar was playing for the english team Manchester United. I even went to the lengths of taking a photo from the television.

He retired in 2011 and since I have no great interest in sports.

So I have fulfilled my duty for this prompt and do not have a lot more to say. I am still suffering from my nose cold which is now a head cold and my head does not feel like concentrating writing anything at the moment.

WordPress Daily Prompt: Offside Memories

Team USA is playing today in the soccer World Cup in Brazil. Do you have any funny/harrowing/interesting memories from a sporting event you attended, participated in, or watched?

I took this photo from the TV a few years ago, it was in 2006 before the beginning of the UEFA cup final when Manchester United played Chelsea in the final and Manchester won. At that time Manchester won everything, so no surprise. They had a good looking goalie, Edwin van der Saar and it was worth watching the match only to watch Edwin: tall, blond and in general a good looker. Of course they also had some guy called Rinaldo, a Portuguese who was credited as being god’s gift to woman. Unfortunately he knew it and left a trial of broken hearts on his football tour through the world. He still plays and apart from his womanising talents, I must admit he is a good player.

Of course I do not look at a football match to admire the hairy legs of the players and the hairy details do not look so good on the TV.

There were days, in my teenage years, when I could be found most Saturday afternoons in the football season, standing behind the goal at a local match with a friend of mine. We were sort of football crazy. We both lived in the East End of London. My dad was a supporter of West Ham United, and her dad a supporter of Leyton Orient. This was quite a good combination. The two teams were near to each other by London Underground and when one was playing on its home ground the others were playing away and vice versa, so what could be better. We were covered for a football match every Saturday.

We had a small problem with pocket money. Both being from a working class background, money did not pave the streets, so we were on a tight budget. Train tickets and entrance fees to the matches made a large hole in our meagre budget, but we did everything for football. Luckily the Leyton Orient ground was within walking distance. Of course a train would have been quicker, but we began our walk after lunch and ninety minutes later we were at our destination, tired but happy. It was a pleasant walk, at the beginning in town, but somewhere along the way we entered the River Lea valley. The River Lea was one of the London rivers and at the time of my football days, a little neglected. It was polished up for the 2012 London Olympic games when they found a few remainders of radio-active deposits, but they were cleared away and the River Lea was rediscovered.

I have the memories of walking along the road, parallel to the banks of the river, thinking of the match ahead. Eventually we would arrive at the stadium and stand in our usual place behind the goal for another ninety minutes to watch the game.

There were also the times during the school holidays when my friend and I would take a trip to the stadium with our autograph books waiting for the players to and mixing with other supporters obtaining our longed for signatures. I believe I still have the book somewhere, but I do not remember who the players were. They are now probably grandfathers if still alive. I remember one player who left the stadium, took a look at me and my friend and said “I ain’t signing any books for girls”, so we put him on our black list.

That was Leyton Orient. West Ham United was something different; they were a first league team and had the better players. It was the Bobby Moore time, when he joined the club and became a legend in his own right. I saw him play many games at the Boleyn ground, being named after the local pub, or vice versa. I do not know what Anne Boleyn had to do with the West Ham United football team, but Wikipedia tells me that there was once Boleyn castle nearby which belonged to the Boleyn family. Anne Boleyn was one of Henry VIII wives and was unfortunately beheaded because he wanted to marry again. She was also mother of Queen Elizabeth I.

I am digressing, after all what does football have to do with English royalty, although the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh have been known to place the FA cup into the hands of the winning team. Probably the only time in their lives they have watched a match. They are more used to sitting on the backs of horses on the polo green.

So West Ham was my other team. The entrance fee did not cost more than Leyton, but we had to take the underground train. It was further afield. I remember the cemetery where my mum’s family were buried was nearby.

My taste for football remains, but it is not always the same. I am not so interested in the current world cup; I leave it up to Mr. Swiss, although his appetite has been spoilt by the dismal results of the Swiss team. The English have already gone home, so why bother. The States play at midnight this evening. Mr. Swiss finds it will probably be a good match, but I do not think his love of the Americans will credit staying up until midnight.

As far as funny memories are concerned, there are none. One of the directors of Leyton Orient was an impresario in show business and he would often bring visiting stars to the match. It was then that I saw Pat Boone sitting in the stadium. We had then changed places from behind the goal to where the players entered the field as our pocket money was increased and we could afford it.

Times have changed. When I watched a match the players had a minimum wage and the supporters were well behaved. Today West Ham supporters have a reputation of being the rowdiest even most dangerous, and they probably invented hooliganism. My dad once told me he would be too frightened today to go to a live match. I now sit outside on the warm summer evenings reading a book whilst Mr. Swiss and the neighbours watch a World Cup match on the TV. I receive the results by the sounds from the surrounding area. It is much safer and more relaxing.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: Set for Solstice

Today’s Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere). How are you taking advantage of the extra hours of light this time of year? Do you like it, or do you already miss earlier sunsets.

We have some pretty sunsets at this time of the year, especially if we have had good weather during the day. As the golden sun sinks slowly in the West, we do not have John Wayne slowly trotting into the disappearing width of the prairie, as we do not have prairies, just fields, cows, and a few mountains in between. All the same a Swiss sundown has its charm, even from my little village.

One advantage of this solstice thing is that I can stay outside until late and read my Kindle with no problems. I always have a book somewhere and uploading them from good old Aunty Amazon is a quickie and if I am lucky I can snap a free one. Only today I realised I was out of something to read, although not quite. I am in the middle of “Darm mit Charm” which is a German book, translated to “Intestine with charm” written by Giulia Enders, a German lady that has completed her medicine studies. Perhaps not quite an entertaining lecture on the long summer evenings, but she writes with humour. The journey of your food from entering the mouth being dissolved by the taste buds until it is dispelled in the canalisation system can be an interesting study. She throws in a few handy words of advice in the book referring to what and how to eat, so whilst lying on a sunbed outside on the patio in the long evenings, I am doing something for my body.

OK, not everybody’s sort of thing, but today I got an interesting offer to download a free book, a horror story (again in German) from Amazon,  so I might change books midway this evening and do some vampire spotting whilst reading.

What does Mr. Swiss do when I have deserted him for the wide open solstice evenings – no problem? At the moment there is something called “World Cup” in progression in Brasil. Evening my colleagues from over the pond have qualified for this competition. Yes, they are now kicking a round ball across a football field and are not wearing protective helmets or padded  t-shirts. They are exposed to the raw antics of soccer and are doing quite well I hear. So Mr. Swiss is taken care of, he does not feel lonely, having a TV soccer match to watch, although a little disappointed at the moment. I will not use the exact description he applied to the Swiss team yesterday evening when they lost 5:2 against France as profanity is not allowed on a blogging site. Needless today, whilst I was soaking in the intricacies of the human intestine in my book I was subject to cries of despair, distributed around the area where I live from other Swiss male members of the human race, my neighbours and Mr. Swiss, that were watching this catastrophe match. Not only were the Swiss a miserable failure, but they lost against the French, the nation that eat frogs. The Swiss goalie managed to save a penalty, which ensured that the result would not become 2:6, and it seemed that the Swiss goalie was the only person on the field that knew why he was there.

Nevertheless, the solstical evenings can be enjoyable (with the exemption of football matches that the Swiss lose). As it is the month of June, the June beetles tend to have their marriage flight in the area. Around nine in the evening they develop from their weevil state into a fully grown flying beetle and arise in flocks from the earth. Man meets woman, they land on the branches of the trees and it is a real mating orgy: one of the reasons I am not posting a photo, they might not be allowed on a blogging site. Most amusing are our neighbours that stand in the garden, each with a tennis racket in their hand. No, they are not playing a game of tennis or badminton in the warm evenings, they are aiming for the flying June beetles to ensure that no eggs will be given the possibilitiy of developing and  laid in the garden and no weevils will develop to make a feast on the roots of our plants: so is the path of nature. I noticed that this year there are not so many flying beetles, so it seems the reproduction of this species has been reduced due to the tennis match.

We also have a group of young men living in our apartment block. It seems they meet in the evenings to watch the football match together. Men tend to form flocks, enjoy company of like-minded of the species, uttering their cheers and boos together and, of course, ensuring that they do not suffer from thirst whilst watching the match. This combined with the chirping of the crickets and evening songs of the birds when relaxing in the summer evening air completes the romantic picture of the Sumer solstice.

Yes, I am enjoying the summer solstice, the peace and quiet of nature, especially thanks to the World Football Cup finals.

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WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge: Living History

Your challenge this week? Write about a current event from your own unique, subjective perspective.

As I was not present at the match, and photos from the TV screen usually have strange marks on them, I stole borrowed this photo from the Swiss Blick newspaper. The team are dressed in yellow shirts Brasil style, made especially to win after beating the Slovenian team in their last match. They had already qualified if they had won or lost, so had the shirts made to celebrate at the end of the match.

Who has heard of Switzerland? Of course you all have, you know the country that has almost as many cows as people, where the people eat cheese fondue, where we have cuckoo clocks (which are made in the Black Forest area in Germany), and where we all walk around yodling and spend the week-ends climbing mountains. Where Hornuss,(farmer’s tennis - no, I will not explain that one) and Schwingen (Swiss wrestling – and I will not explain that either) are the Swiss national sportsl. But ….. we can also play football.

By football I do not mean that game played in an ex-British colony called America where they have an oval ball and run around with the ball in their hands, pushing the members of the other team out of the way to reach the goal posts. No, the Swiss play the game with the round ball, eleven players in each team and you get penalised if you happen to handle the ball. That was just to clarify matters, although a few years ago the Football (soccer) World Cup was hosted by our friends over the pond in America with success.  That was the last time that the Swiss team actually managed to reach the finals in the host land.

Now they have done it again. Was it a miracle, was it the talented team of dedicated men, was it the fantastic work of their manager Ottmar Hitzfeld? Who knows, but they will be there playing in one of the 12 stadiums chosen for the games, holding the flag for the Swiss.

Mr. Swiss just said, do not get to euphoric about praising our footballing wizards, those that are at the top have further to fall. So let us stay on the ground and see what will happen. The Swiss team had to qualify for the privilege of being in the land of samba and carnival. They qualified so well, arriving at the top of their section and winning all matches with the exception of one where they had a draw, that they are now in the top group in Brasil. This could be great but it seems in the same group could be Germany (ok, we know them), Brasil and Argentina (we know them as well, but that is not so good) and Spain who we even beat once in an international game.

So the excitement gets slowly dampened into a “keep your fingers crossed, and just be glad to be there” phase.

Not that I will be glued to the TV screen during the World Cup, which is actually in 2014, but I will be have a glance now and again and I am sure Mr. Swiss will keep me in the picture. I am also convinced that if and when the Swiss win a game, our roads will be full of cars with Swiss flags hanging out of the window and horns sounding all night long. Needless to say many supporters will be quenching their thirst in the many restaurants decorated for the occasion (or drowning their sorrows as the case may be).

I had a quick look at this fantastic Swiss team and discovered that most of them had strange sounding names, not very Swiss. Most of the players seem to have their roots in other countries. No problem, they all have a Swiss passport. Even I have one of those, to go to prove that they are not fussy about who they give them to. One of the teams they played to qualify was Albania, and it seems that the level of language understanding was excellent between the two teams.

So there we have the good news from Switzerland and hope it remains good.

You may ask why I say nothing about the British qualification for the Word Cup finals, being born in England of English parents. That is quite easy – I always have a soft spot for the underdogs, for those that are not expected to win.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: Fandom

Are you a sports fan? Tell us about fandom. If you’re not, tell us why not.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us SPORTS.

West Ham United football Stadium

A new word – Fandom: I had to look it up in Wikipedia to make sure I was not being led on, but it exists.

I am not an active person; prefer to watch than play, but in my school days I was in the school land hockey team as a defender. It was the only game that resembled anything like football, for ladies to play.

Tennis was not my thing, the ball always seemed to go upwards instead of forwards when I hit it and I never did understand the scoring system. Even today the game just bores me, although now and again Switzerland wins something, so we all cheer and are happy. Formula 1 2, 3 and all the rest is too noisy for my taste: cars racing around a track, poisoning the air with their fumes. The drivers are celebrated afterwards, but I wonder if it is because they survived.

Bicycle racing is quite popular in Switzerland. There is a tour de Suisse, where they sometimes even race through our little village and I have even been known to stand on the road side with my camera. There is also a Tour de France and a Giro d’Italia, the same sort of thing, just taking place in other countries. I quite like watching it on TV, mainly because of the scenery shown. I cannot ride a two wheeled bike, have balance problems, something I have never really given up on, but Mr. Swiss says “No” too dangerous for me, thinking of broken arms, legs and anything else you can break.

My real love was and still is football. I do not mean that game played in the states where they all wear helmets for protection, have a slightly egg-shaped ball and do a Superbowl once a year. My oldest son has been known, in his younger years, to stay up until early in the morning to watch this exciting and brutal energetic game. He even explained the rules to me, but I got lost on the way.

No, I am talking about football, the one with the round ball,  known as soccer on my side of the pond: 10 men chasing a ball and one in the goal. Look at my first photo, my team stadium, West Ham United. My dad was a West Ham supporter and so am I. I spent many Saturdays at the Boleyn ground, Upton Park watching my team win (or lose now and again), it was just in my blood. Claret and blue are their colours and do not forget the great Bobby Moore was their captain and played for them. I even saw him play one of his first professional games for the club, being then just a young teenager.

I remember when West Ham won the English cup final in 1964. The next day on Sunday morning dad and I made ourselves ready to go to Stratford High Road (East end of London and where my dad originated) to watch the players arrive at the town hall. A large coach came along the road with all the team, and stopped. They left the coach and were afterwards seen on the balcony of the town hall proudly showing the cup. I have never forgotten that moment. Of course, afterwards, dad and I retired to a public house/bar where he was a regular when a young man. He was so happy, he had seen our team with the cup and in the public house met all his old friends from earlier days. That was a fun morning. A week later we all met up again in the same pub on a Satuday evening and mum came with us.

So yes, I was a football fan: I still sort of am, but as the years go past, the glory days of earlier fade. Now football has become a money game. Footballers earn more than millionaires, are millionaires, and a lot of the sparkle and team spirit as dwindled over the years. I knew every name of the West Ham/England team during the beginning of the sixties, and today the English team players have names you cannot even pronounce, are no longer English, and the national team seems to have shrunk to the leftovers with a British passport who can be lucky to be encouraged and have a chance with a good trainer.

Here is a photo of a monument to be seen near the West Ham stadium showing their best players: Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, all of whom I saw play for West Ham when they first player for the first team, and also including Ray Wilson who I do not remember.

All photos taken by myself on a London visit to West Ham United Stadium, Upton Park

Well I was asked about Fandom, and there it is. Of course, I also like to read Scandinavian detective stories, fantasy and horror fiction and some German thrillers, as well as a few British, I do not actuall read books, I devour them. Just call me a book fan. I just noticed if I continue I will write the longest blog of the year (a chance to enter the Guiness book of records?), so I will leave you with the West Ham team and Bobby Moore holding the cup on the statue.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: Sweet Sixteen

When you were 16, what did you think your life would look like? Does it look like that? Is that a good thing?


I was sixteen fifty years ago. When I write it, I almost get a panic thinking that I am now writing about me so many years ago. My first memory is a record from Neil Sedaka and his hit record Happy birthday Sweet Sixteen. I still know the words and could even sing along.

Going back so many years, I think I did have a sneaking suspicion that I would go somewhere else when older. I was lucky to visit a so-called grammar school in the London City and we had good teachers and a good education. We even wore white socks in brown lace up shoes. No high heels or platform soles. It was the goood old days where you did what you mum told you, and attended your studies. School uniform was green and we wore a tie with a shirt like blouse.

Of course we had other thoughts. My thoughts at that time was perhaps meeting a professional footballer, get married and enjoy the future. By football I mean soccer for the friends over the pond. You know it is different to American football. We don't wear helmets or protective clothing or run with the ball, We have to kick it. I did qualify for the school hockey team, as it was the nearest sport we had to football. Same formation, but we had sticks and a small wooden ball.

Oh, how innocent and stupid can you be. Every Saturday I would make my way to the Boleyn Ground at Upton Park to watch a match with West Ham United. Bobby Moore was then the captain and the football world was OK. If West Ham were away playing, I would go to Brisbane Road where Leyton Orient played, another football team from the East End of London. My schoolfriend was just as keen on football and we went together. I think she also had dreams of perhaps a footballer once seeing her standing watching a match, with love at first sight. Oh, were we naive in those days.

Anyhow that was not to be. My Saturday evening fun was going to Leicester Square Mecca dance hall with some other girls I knew. Dressed in the newest fashion, wearing our stilettos and perhaps a visit to the hairdressers was made in the afternoon. I remember our hairstyles were towered on our heads, so called back-combing: and what a tangle it was. Leicester Square was quite international and I think it was the meeting place off all the foreign english students staying in London. I was learning French at the time, and had started evening classes in Italian (my own idea, nothing to do with school), so I found it fun to try out my languages on these foreigners. I think mum was waiting for the day when I would meet a nice english bloke when dancing.

I did not really know then that I would want to travel and work in another country. That came later. I did know that oncre I was older and independent I wanted to live on my own in an appartment or perhaps with a girlfriend. Just go somewhere else, see other places, meet other people  and stand on my own two legs.

Anyhow, everything eventually turned out for the best. I had a commecial course at school, typing, shorthand, bookkeeping and all that jazz and after school had my first job in London working for the P & O Shipping company, with the idea of working on the ocean passenger liners as a purserette one day (sort of an office job on a ship - at least I could travel). This was also not to be as the shipping companies with passengers were gradually making way for the aircraft and the job no longer existed. I worked temporary for a while, a different place every week in a different office, earning well and I enjoyed the changes. I then saw a advert in an english newspaper for a secretary in Switzerland. I applied, got the job and arrived on my twentieth birthday in Zürich. The rest took after itself. Meeting Mr. Swiss a couple of years later, having children and working in Switzerland, learning the language. I have a Swiss passport, as well as a British passport. In a way I did achieve what I wanted, but things are never exactly as you think.

And my footballer? Well Mr. Swiss likes to watch a match on the TV and so do I, but you cannot have everything.

Goodbye EURO2008 from Switzerland and The Wonder of Bern

I prefer using my own photos when I blog, although it is not always possible. This shows the match Holland:France where Holland won 4:1 against France. These were the closing scenes after the victory where the Dutch players spoke to their fans and families and took their children in their arms. Note on the right Edwin Van Der Sar - my favourite of the tournament (but my husband always said it is not how they look but how they play). So I wrote a few thoughts down after the tournament and here they are.

The last football match of the EURO2008 has now been played in Switzerland, the final matches now being taken over by our neighbours in Austria. The dice have tumbled and on Sunday we have the final Germany v Spain. I can only say may the best team win, being a European with my roots in England and now many in Switzerland I have no priorities any more. England didn’t get there and Switzerland only made a short visit.

Switzerland was the host land. The games were played in the towns of Basel, Bern, Zürich and Geneva. I live in a village just down the road from the town of Solothurn. Solothurn is sort of between Basel and Bern so we were not involved to a large extent. Zürich is in the East and Geneva in the West. Our town, as many others in Switzerland, had a large screen sponsored by the Union Bank of Switzerland where you could watch the match live with friends and fellow supporters. I heard that was not such a success as hoped for, most people staying at home in comfort or sharing with their colleagues in a favourite restaurant.

So what happened. Well one match Switzerland v Turkey was more or less played under water. There was a cloud burst and everyone got wet and the ball just swam around. The result being that in Basel the turf had to be replaced by a lightening action for the next match. Actually Basel is one of our best pitches. The games in Bern also had their excitement. The pitch in Bern was rebuilt a couple of years ago and now goes by the name of Stade de Suisse. During the normal football days it is the home of Bern Young Boys. During the EM 2008 it was taken over by our Dutch colleagues. The orange team played mostly in Bern and the results were clear. All camping places in the area suddenly took on an orange hue. We share four languages in Switzerland, but we suddenly had a fifth, Dutch. The squares and streets of Bern were populated by people clad in orange and there was a problem with supplies of beer to the restaurants in Bern.

Speaking as a normal average person there was no great problem in Switzerland. Hooliganism was not more than usual (if Basel meet Zürich in a match there is usually an amount of disagreement – Basel people and Zürich people are known to be on two different wave lengths in Switzerland).

So now Switzerland can go back to its normal lazy days of Summer, entertaining tourists in the Bernese overland, Lucern and Lugano. The gnomes can start distributing their gold bars and talk amongst the people is back to the price of bread and milk and not who should have won, and whether it should have been a penalty or not.

I would now like to take you back to 1954. My husband was then 15 years old and I was 8 years old somewhere in the East end of London, not even thinking that a husband could exist somewhere in the world. 1954 was the year that the Jules Rimet cup came to Switzerland. Eight years after the war Europe was still recovering from what had happened and things were sort of getting back to normal. The football games that had been stopped during the war were returning to a normal situation.
The teams involved in in the tournament were stationed in Switzerland in various towns and qualification matches had been played.

It so happened that the Germans were situated in Spiez in the Bernese Overland on the Lake of Thun and the Hungarians in Solothurn. This was the day of the Hungarian success as football had not been seen for years, the hero of Hungary being Ferenc Puskas their captain. Now imagine my husband a 15 year old school boy knowing that the Hungarians were training on the football ground of Solothurn. Of course, he went to see them training along with many other school children of the time. One of his best school colleagues were the Häner brothers who were both involved in football in later life as physiotherapists for the Swiss National Football team and Young Boys Bern. The memories of this training camp in Solothurn left a long lasting impression, especially as the final for the Rimet cup was played between Hungary and Germany. This match was eventually known as the Wonder of Bern. I don’t know how many here remember the match, but it was apparently really a miracle. Hungary went into the lead in the first half scoring two goals and the way the Hungarians had been playing up to then it was expected that this is the winning team, but this was not to be. Germany caught up in the second half and it was 2:2 and then the unbelievable happened. Six minutes before the end of the game Germany scored to go into the lead 3:2. Was this the wonder or not. Just before the end of the game Ferenc Puskas scored the equalizer making it 3:3 and the goal was disallowed by the referee as the English linesman said it was offside. Since that day this match has been known as the Wonder of Bern. I was reading some reports of the match, but it seems that film coverage was not exactly perfect and it is still being discussed today whether it was or was not a goal. I would also mention that it seems it was the first time a football team, the Germans, wore football boots with screw on studs supplied by the company Adidas.

Many years have now gone by, Ferenc Puskas, the football legend, died in 2006, but his name will never be fogotton. A film “Der Wunder von Bern” was made over this World Cup 1954 and has been shown on European television, unfortunately only available in the German language and even includes interviews with people from Solothurn. I found a YouTube film of the match 1954 where at the beginning the Hungarians are shown in their training camp in Solothurn, afterwards the German in Spiez, but unfortunately only in French. I would add that my husband told me they played a friendly match with our local Solothurn football team. He couldn’t remember the exact result but it was something like Hungary 12: Solothurn 0.

Life Goes On

Despite all this football that seems to be taking up most of my life in the evenings at the moment, I have been a bit absent in the blog section so can now perhaps do a bit of catching up.

I am at the moment not a working woman but a recovering woman. After a breakdown last week, I am off work until the summer holidays and afterwards on 50%. I have the "burn out" syndrome and would not recommend it to anyone. At the moment I am trying to come to grips with my situation. You don't notice it coming, but probably others do. I feel like one of my cats at the moment, sleeping at every possible opportunity.

However, I have my camera, my computer and can take it easy at home and according to doctor's orders I should get out and about and not retire between my four walls. I even think the football helps me to take my mind off things in the evening.

I noticed in town that at the moment it is our so-called May market. I avoid such things myself, not really enjoying crowds of merry makers with their children, but I happened to be there during a week-day when things were quiet so took a couple of photos.

Otherwise the weather is not showing itself from the best side lately - Rainy and miserable.

I heard today that the complete lawn on the football pitch in our town of Basel is being replaced express. There was a cloudburst last week at one of the matches and the footballers played on with the result that the complete lawn was kaput afterwards. The lawn is being imported in a semi frozen state from Austria and will be layed in time for the next game. We had our lawn replaced in our garden something like that, but it was done by the local gardner in four hours and was nice and fresh.

And now to watch the Teutonic war against Austria this evening. As a Swiss I supposed I should support Germany, after all Gessler was an Austrian and he tried to kill William Tell. Let's see what happens.

EURO 2008 is getting nearer

Switzerland is gradually being contaminated with football fever. In approximately a week the EURO 2008 will start. At the moment you see many cars driving around as the one in the photo that I took on our parking lot at work. You can buy flags from all nations, and Switzerland being a very international country, the cars are being decorated with all sorts of flags in preparation for the football matches. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, - you name it, we have it sort of thing. I did ask my husband whether he thought it might be an idea for our car, but he sort of said "forget it". Now if England had qualified, then I think we may have had a slight disagreement, but being only sort of half Swiss (although my years in Switzerland outnumber those in England) I could get over the fact that our car will not have any flags.

The lady that lives next door, and is the owner of a super cat called Bobinette (I always seem to associate people with their cats) is originally from the French part of Switzerland, which is only about 45 minutes away by road. She works in Neuchatel and travels back and forth during the week. The Portuguese team have their headquarters in Neuchatel. They have already moved into their hotel which is near where she works. She told me the hotel has been cut off from the surroundings and you can only get near if you have business there. The team are training in the new stadium of Xamax Neuchatel which is one of the best in Switzerland at the moment. Of course everyone would like to steal a glimpse of Ronaldo I suppose.

Talking of football, yesterday evening there was the annual match in Switzerland of the legends against the prominents. That meant that the "retired" footballers were playing against some well-known people, mostly from the Swiss and some germans. The legends didn't have to train so much together as they were really the best, even if they are now a few years older. The prominents had a training camp. The trainer of the prominents, Gilbert Gress, invited Michael Schuhmacher and he said he would think about it. Well he did, and I shot this photo from the television yesterday.

Not exactly a super photo, but it is difficult from the tv to take a good photo. He arrived by helicopter, naturally, but was fully integrated in the match and played quite well. Although the prominents lost against the legends. For the Shuhmacher fans amongst us here is a better photo where he was being interviewed before the match. The legends won 2:1 against the prominents. It was quite a good match, although nothing in comparison with the professional games. And as promised here is Schumi again.

The Alternative EURO2008 Football Tournament

The EURO2008 is being played in the countries of Switzerland/Austria this year and Switzerland have decided to have their own small EURO2008 in the mountain village of Gspon in the Kanton of Valais somewhere in the mountains of Switzerland. This evening they brought a report on the tv of the preparations being made. As you can see from the photo the football pitch is surrounded by mountains and it actually lays at an altitude of 2,000 meters above sea level. The tv reporter was quite out of breath during his comments.

Eight teams will be competing: Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, France, Sweden and the Netherlands. Information given by the organisers says that the event will prove to be original and unforgettable for the teams, fans and media as the games will be played at the highest elevated soccer field in Europe. The European championship will also have the highest level of competitive sport played among the wonderful views of the Swiss Alps. What is not mentioned is that the balls used in matches on this football field often get lost – the local team lost 20 last year. If you kick the ball too far and too high it can be that you have to climb down the mountain to find it again – see photo.

Also mentioned is that each team will be hosted by a friendly, experienced, local tour guide who will escort the teams to games as well as to special events designed to share the local customs and traditions of the mountain villages (perhaps how to milk a cow or a cheese making afternoon).

At the moment the football pitch is covered by a ski piste, but as the games only begin next week, the pitch will be prepared by then. Another fact to bear in mind is that the football pitch is only to be reached by cable car or by walking – no problem for our fit footballers. They showed this evening on the television the arrival of the Dutch team. It is believed they will have most problems accustoming to the altitude, thus they are the first to arrive. They were shown proudly dressing in their orange football t-shirts.

Naturally the rules have had to be adapted. The field is smaller and penalties will only be taken at 7 meters, distance for a free kick and corner kick will be 5 meters. Playing time is only an hour with a 10 minute break and there will be a maximum of 8 players and minimum of 5. Probably there would not be room on the field for more players. And the delight of every footballer is that here will be no offside rule as well as no back-pass rule.

It also stands that all player passports with photo and a numerically ordered list showing family names, Christian names and the dates of birth of all participating players are to be handed over to the technical commission before the tournament. You never know, perhaps trained mountaineers might try to smuggle themselves into the team.

Personally I believe the Swiss want to be sure to win something as their chances are not so high in the EURO2008. If they are lucky and meet Holland in the matches, then their win chances will be high. Of course if the Italians send a team from the Dolomites or the Germans from the Hünsruck then the Swiss chances may dwindle. I am looking forward to the tv coverage of these matches. May the best team win.

First Aid Evening with the 5 Senses

This might look like we were having a seance with food, but actually we were having a serious lesson about the five senses. Most of you know that we have five of them (perhaps someone here has a 6th one?) - hearing, smelling, touch, taste, sight. Yours truly is the elderly lady on the right at the front, the others a couple of colleagues. There was another table with some of our members. On the photo the taste sense was being tried out and I must admit up to now I had only seen something like that on a tv show.

We were blindfolded and were given a spoon full of something and had to say what it was. It is really a test to see how good your taste buds are. The first was a hazelnut dipped in honey which I did guess. They we had something very sour, but the best was the last one - an Italian amaretto biscuit. they are made with bitter almonds and taste quite good.

I did have a small mishap with the first test. That was the a bit of a combination of touch and I thought taste - that was my mistake. I had to put my hand into a bag and guess what I felt. The first was easy - that was rice. The second one I was the first to try. There was a glass dish in the bag with something more liquid in it. When I took my hand out they were covered with a white creamy sort of thing, so I thought aha, yogurt and started licking my fingers. The shock was a bit crass when I found it to be face cream, and that does not taste very good at all. The idea was to touch and smell and not to eat.

Otherwise we spent a couple of hours going through the physical side of it all. Where are the taste buds in the mouth, where do you get the sour taste, where the sweet and where the bitter on the tongue. We had a hearing test with various noises and you had to guess what you were hearing. One was the wind blowing, but it sounded to me like modern classical music with a choir singing along.

All in all an interesting evening - the idea was for us to know how to treat people that might show signs of having problems with the function of their senses and being able to diagnose what was wrong.

We also sorted out who would attend which occasion during the year. I will be spending an afternoon at a local football tournament which can be fun when all those grown men have a cramp in their muscles, although depending who it is I just give them the ointment and they can apply it themselves. With the blisters I have to go into action myself, but no problem. I will also be at the town's market festival in the afternoon. I leave the evenings to the professionals.

Here one of the photos from last year's football tournament.

Football in Switzerland

Switzerland is not really a country as well known for football as for example England, but nevertheless the EURO 2008 will be held in Switzerland and Austria this year and excitement is gradually building up. One of the stadiums that will be used in the tournament is that in Basel. The owner of the Basel team is a lady who is not exactly poor as she married a millionaire who has his money from the chemical company Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. She is very devoted to this team and has invested a lot of money into the stadium and infrastructure and is always to be seen at the matches.

I was a bit spoilt for football last week as after seeing Manchester play Barcelona and Chelsea play Liverpool in two brilliant professional matches, I had the pleasure of watching Basel play Zürich on Friday evening on our tv. It was not a cup match but one of the deciding matches to who would win the Swiss league championship in Switzerland this year. At the same time Xamax in Neuchatel were playing Bern Young boys. Xamax won which in my eyes was to be expected as they are and have always been a good team. If my younger son went to a match when he lived at home he would rather travel an hour on the road to Neuchatel than see Solothurn our home team, which would be a half hours walk away.

So we were left with Basel and Zürich. Basel people do not like Zürich people - this is a fact. A couple of years ago when Basel met Zürich in Zürich the Basel spectators started throwing fireworks at the Zürich people, so what more could be expected this time.

The video shows what happened. People had to leave their seats panicking and running from the flaming fireworks that were raining down on them from the Zürich supporters sitting in the stands above. The match was stopped for a while until things were organised and part of the seating eventually had to be abandoned. At the price of about 100 francs per ticket, this was definitely not funny. I just wonder why people do this. A father might go to a match with his son, or a couple of colleagues go together looking forward to the evenings football entertainment and because of a few "hooligans" the match is stopped and they may even be injured.

I hear so much about the ICF (Inter City Firm), the supporter hooligan organisation that criminalised football in england but it seems that we Swiss are not much better.

And the match - well as I said I had just been spoilt last week. Basel won 4:1. Of course they were the better team, but not exactly impressive. The Zürich team seemed to have been ordered to be there but not picked up. They sort of stood around and watched the Basel team play with the ball. I just hope the national team play a bit better in th Euro 2008. Most of the players play abroad in other teams so they might be a bit more professional than the bunch I saw on Friday.

What a day

Funny how I always get an uncomfortable feeling around seven on Monday morning when I get to this place. It has been my weekly home for the last 27 years and will be for the next two and half (I suppose) until I go to the happy pensioners hunting grounds. Today was a particularly stress Monday. It was raining all day which does dampen the spirits, and it seemed that the wonderful customers had run out of tools over the week-end. On top of it one of the colleagues was off for the afternoon and the afternoon is always the worst. The computer also decided to take a pause now and again which didn't actually help with getting the work done. I eventually managed to crawl out of the place at 05.45 this evening. The work was done, but I gave up answering phones this afternoon and luckily one of my colleagues took them over for me. I told him to tell them I had had a heart attack, fell over a cable from the computer, or crashed the car at lunch time, just to put them off a bit. I do tend to have a black humour now and again.

At least it is a short week. Europe closes down this week on Thursday for Ascension day. Actually Europe without Great Britain is closing down. We have the holiday every year. As I have over one hundred extra hours, I will be taking Friday off as well, at last two days plus the week-end away from the stress of it all. My son informed today that he will also be taking a long week-end and hopping home from Brussels for the holidays. He will be going back next Monday, so it looks like a family gathering over the holidays. It is quite handy he is coming, being a legal person he can advise me how to kill my neighbours on the top floor and get away with it.

Otherwise my new lawn is coming along nicely. Funny nearly all the neighbours have stopped me or my husband and told us how lovely the garden now looks and how the gardeners did a wonderful job on it. I have planted some anemone bulbs and a couple of flowering objects. Strange that my neighbours living upstairs havn't told us how much they appreciate our new garden. I mean we really did it for them. My cats don't like the new lawn so much. Funny really but they avoid it when they go out into that part of the garden. I think it is very considerate of them as the gardener said we should avoid walking over it for the next two weeks.

And now to go and stick some photos of footballers in my Panini album. There are 545 pictures all together and I only need 120. I have not worked out how much it has cost up to now, but you get 5 photos for one franc. Obviously as time goes on you get doubles, but we have organised ourselves at work and more and more are joining. It started with me and two younger girls in the department. We now have an apprentice and a purchasing clerk in the team as well. We take our doubles to work and exchange them. If you don't have enough to exchange, then we just pay the 20 cents for the ones that we would like extra. One of the younger girls in my department said she had to take 18 pictures from my doubles, but I told her that is ok as I had just taken 17 of hers. Before you think we don't work, this was all done within 10 minutes during the coffee break. As most of the international players are to be found in the english teams it is as if the English team would also be there, although they are not. Here one of my photos from the Liverpool v Chelsea match. I particularly like this one. I think the player in question recovered, but he seemed to have had some sort of painful injury at the time of taking the photo. I was not at the match personally, but watching it on the tv.

Tuna Fish Wednesday

Yes, it's Wednesday when me and my husband make a tuna fish salad for tea and the cats get their portion of tuna fish as well. I unpacked the tins and Fluffy was already having a sniff. He looked around for the tin opener but as he couldn't find one he jumped off the table and with Nera waited eagerly for the fish to be served.

They were not disappointed and soon all three were munching away at their feline portions. Tabby said she was so photogenic today and wouldn't let herself be photographed.

Otherwise one of those days at work where a new, fantastic, most modern and wonderful computer programme was introduced. It was so good, that after an hour or so we started realising that it didn't work as it should. Why do these things always have teething troubles. I won't go into details, but we were all in the office 30 minutes longer today until we more or less got everything done. I am sure tomorrow will be better (I hope). And this is a short blog this evening, there is another match on the tv. This time Barcelona v Manchester United. I am getting quite spoilt this week, 2 matches in one week, and thanks to a Liverpool player that is probably feeling very sad at the moment, Liverpool and Chelsea will have a reply of yesterday's match in about a week's time. Somehow I have to fit yesterday's episode of East Enders into this evenings viewing.

If anyone is interested I did take a few pictures of yesterday's match, not such perfect quality as they came from the tv, but a little souvenir of the match. Almost as interesting as the match was watching the two trainers watching their teams. But have a look for yourselves.

Liverpool v. Chelsea 22.04.2008

Leyton Orient Football Club

There is a football club in the East End of London known as Leyton Orient. If you go into their history you find the Orient part comes from the Peninsular & Orient Line that had many ships travelling on the world seas some 40 years ago. I should know I worked for them for a year as a clerk when I left school. Anyhow, drifting away from all of this I used to watch this team when West Ham United were playing away. Some time ago I wrote a blog about West Ham United which were and are still my team, reasons being in this blog. However, my best school friend (it was an all girls school), was a faithful follower of Leyton Orient for the same reasons that I loved West Ham United - her father was a fan. We were both totally in the ban of football at the time. Cutting out newspaper cuttings about our teams, sticking them in scrap books and collecting all we could for our teams.

We both had the same problem which we solved together. Two young teenagers not working had no income, just the ten shillings weekly pocket money from our parents. Although in those days football was a game to be shared by everybody and the entrance fees were reasonable enough, there were other expenses. We could certainly not afford to see the so called "away" matches - today it seems the world is smaller and all faithful fans travel to see their teams. So what did we do. West Ham United and Leyton Orient were in the same part of London, East London. West Ham's tube station was on the District Line, Upton Park, and Leyton Orients was on the central line, Leyton. As Mile End was on both lines, I would usually bus it to where my friend lived and we would alternate with the football matches. Leyton and West Ham always played at home on alternative Saturdays so this was the solution.

I knew as much about the Leyton Orient team as I did the West Ham team. Of course the Orient were a 2nd Division team and did not have the stars at their matches. They did get promoted to the 1st Division once, only to be relegated again the next season. It was also a team that had big financial problems, and almost went bankrupt once, but were saved by a business man although this was after my time.

Ok so we also found that we could even save more money. Although West Ham was too far to walk, Leyton Orient was not, although we needed a good hour to do it, but we did. Every second Saturday we would save our train fare money and walk to the ground. I can't remember the exact route but somewhere along the way it was open country along the River Lea. At that time the River Lea was a meandering river through London and was nice open countryside. It seems over the years it got neglected and was full of all sorts of rubbish. Then someone got the bright idea of turning it into an area to hold the London Olympics, so at the moment it is being developed, built on and transformed. The East Enders are not happy, but that again is something else. Their captain was Ken Facey, I think the right half, and there was a player called Syd Bishop. I remember this player particularly well as I saw him score a goal twice from the half way line through the goal posts, an amazing feat, very impressive. There is also a player called Cyril Lea - he was Welsh and had a red sports car (the things that come to mind).

So back to the Orient, the photo above is the team we would watch. Although the goalie is shown as Frank George, they had another goalkeeper called David Groombridge who was one of our favourites. As you can see we would stand behind the goal, it was cheapest. Eventually we had a bit more pocket money and could afford entrance to the place where the players entered the field. This was very interesting if your were an Orient fan. One of their directors at the time was a certain Les or Lew Grade. I am not sure which one, but they were both show business impresarios and through this connection there were often well known people at the matches.

Arthur Askey, a well know British comedian of the time was often at the matches. The stadium was small and if the "O's" as they were called, managed to have an interesting cup match then it would be packed to the edges. Arthur Askey would take the microphone, stand on the pitch and tell the people to "Move along please" is his amusing way. He was so popular. Through this show business connection I also saw Cliff Richard in the stand once (our standing place was in front of the director's stand) and upon the visit of Pat Boone to England, he was also there.

Just to prove it here is a photo taken at the time. I received most of the photos by e-mail, but I don't know where they were available. Even the 2nd goalie David Groombridge can be seen in this photo. Les Gore was the manager at this time.

Here is an action photo of the team. The goalie shown, Harry Gregg, may well be a memory for the Mancunians amongst us. I remember in the school holidays, with lack of something intelligent to do, my friend and I might take a walk to Brisbane Road with our autograph books and if we were lucky the team would be having a training and coming out of the ground. No problem, they signed. Although the Orient never really made it big, they are still in the English football league and I still have fond memories.
I am probably one of the rare claret and blue West Ham supporters that got to know this team so well. Now and again they even transferred players. One name that comes to my mind was Phil Woosnam. Woosnam was actually a physics teacher at one of the local schools and was born in Wales. West Ham bought him in 1958 for thirty thousand pounds from Orient, seems cheap when you compare it to the prices paid today.

One of the players at the time was Terry Macdonald. When I was in England last year visiting my school friend (she is also godmother to my youngest son) she showed me a book that had been given to her written by a certain Tony McDonald, full of reports and photos from "our" time. It seems that Tony McDonald is Terry McDonalds son and has also written a book featuring West Ham United. I remember Terry Macdonald very well. A left winger I believe and had a wonderful head of blond hair. Memories, Memories - after all this was more than forty years ago. My friend and I celebrated our 60th birthday together, and I think we will be celebrating the seventieth as well. I found another group photo of the club, funnily I found none on Internet.

I am into football again, but it has changed so much. Money speaks the football language today. I just can't get used to the fact that players are loaned out to other clubs for a certain amount of time, and that forwarders are now known as strikers. Where are the days of the No. 5 centre half and the no. 10 inside left? I must be getting old.

They arrived today

What actually did arrive at the local kiosk were the Panini stickers for the EURO 2008 football tournament. You don't know what the Panini stickers are? Well, they are fairly reasonable to buy, but if you want to collect them all, then it can become an expensive hobby.

Actually I did resolve not to allow them in the house since my No. 2 son moved out, but his mum has discovered one of her first loves again, the football. The Panini syndrome has to be explained. Once upon a time there was a man in Italy that had an idea. He took various themes, made an album and issued stickers to go with the albums, each sticker carefully numbered and fitting into the album. The idea is to get the album full. I don't know what the original albums were about, I only know that every 2 years you either collect the world cup stickers or the Euro stickers. There are many other occasions for the stickers, but these are the ones I know. My son had a complete album featuring the world cup in Spain in 1982.

The thing with these albums is they can get a bit expensive. The album itself costs two Swiss Francs, the packets of stickers contain five stickers and cost a franc. The basic collection starts reasonably, but when you start getting double stickers then the fun and expense begins. As you progress with the collecting you might buy a packet full of stickers you already have. So you have to be sly. I bought my album today with stickers knowing that 4 other girls in the office are doing the same (3 being Italians) and our stock room has at least 10 people that are collecting. This is a good backup for when you get double pictures.

I brought my album home today and hubby found it quite amusing. Fluffy got very inquisitive and decided to take a closer look at the stickers, album and packets strewn across the table which did interrupt my concentration. Unfortunately England did not qualify for this years European cup, but the Swiss are there, although my Mr. Swiss told me probably not for very long. At the moment I am sticking photos of East Europeans, Turkish, Russians, Greeks and Romanians into my album as well as some French, which seem to be playing for English teams and do not look very French. I am so glad that the Swedish captain (if not still injured) plays for West Ham. There is also an extra page which highlights the Swiss team in the form of a poster. This will be handy if they do win. Yes, football fever exists again in our home. Up to now I have been lucky, I have stuck half of the stickers into the album and have no doubles. Life at work will be quite interesting for the next couple of months.

There was some sad news in Switzerland. One of our last own brews of beer, Eichhof from Lucern, has been bought from Heineken, meaning that it will now become dutch. The motto of the company was "A piece of home" but this is now finished. It seems that Heineken have assured that the beer will continue to be brewed and sold in Switzerland, but there is many a tear in a beer drinkers eye. As one lady in radio said, her husband always had his glass of Eichhof in the evening. The basic problem is that one by one the Swiss breweries have been sold to foreign companies and the Swiss beer is now practically non existent. Just a little bit of news from Switzerland.

So now Fluffy, move over, I want to stick the rest of my photos in my Panini album.

A Few Random Thoughts on Yesterday's Football Matches

This man is not smiling today. He was not smiling yesterday evening - so who is he. His name is Kobi Kuhn and he is the trainer of the Swiss National Football team. For those not knowing what football is, it is also known as soccer and is a sport that can make people happy, sad, aggressive and revengeful. At the moment Switzerland (and Austria) are preparing their football scenery for the invasion of European football fans that will arrive when the EU 2008 starts. The preparations have already begun for the footballers, they are having practice matches with other countries to see how good they are.

Switzerland did not have to prove how good they might be this time as they are a host land and are qualified in any case. If the match we saw yesterday evening is an example of how good they are, then I do not think they will survive the first round. Switzerland were playing Germany. It is a fact that Germany are a good team (even if Gomez, one of their best is of Spanish origin) but I did not expect a 4:0 win for Germany. I mean the Swiss could have perhaps managed somehow to score one little goal. Actually they did. The face of Alex Frei lit up like a candle when he scored, but the light was very quickly extinguished when the goal was disallowed as being offside. There is not much more to say about the match. I watched once again the goals this evening on the tv news (it made big headlines in Switzerland) and it seemed to me that the Germans just had to walk towards the posts, kick the ball and it landed over the line. The Swiss were just watching to see what might happen. The trainer was interviewed afterwards, but I think he was a bit depressed. He said he could make no excuses for the way the Swiss played or the mistakes they made. So football fans all over Europe, don't worry about the Swiss threat - it does not exist. I must admit after living 2/3rds of my life in Switzerland, I do feel Swiss and would like to see them achieve something in the way of football.

Of course it was a funny football evening. My Italian friends in the office were very sad being beaten by Spain, especially as the girls in the office are a majority Italian and cannot wait until their Panini albums can be bought. I remember the last WM. There were cards being exchanged all over the office. Some of the fans still have photos of the Italian team hanging on their partitions at work. I am the only one in the office with the West Ham United screen saver. That can also be a dangerous habit - one of the men said today "What West Ham? - they are all hooligans". I didn't bother to explain the definition of hooligan. I think for most of the Swiss the English are qualified as hooligans as soon as they arrive at the ground. No fear this year - unfortunately England did not qualify. They also got beaten yesterday by France - I hear that David Beckham was not very happy. I hope his spice girl got over the disappointment. Actually I do have a soft spot for Beckham, after all he was born in Leytonstone, just round the corner to Bethnal Green where I grew up. Never did understand why he signed for Manchester United.

So that was a few random thoughts from an exiled football fan in Switzerland. One thing is sure, the Swiss can only get better - I hope. And just to give them credit here is a photo of one of the Swiss National team

West Ham won the cup on 02.05.1964

I have done many things in my lifetime up to now, but between the years of about 1959 - 65 I was a very enthusiastic football fan. My dad grew up with West Ham United so the choice was obvious. Although my best friend at school (an all girls grammar school) was in the position that her father was a fan of Leyton Orient. She is still my best friend today and also godmother to my youngest - so we see each other at least once a year. Either she visits me in Switzerland or I see her when I visit my dad in London. To save money we would walk from Mile End, where my friend lived, to Brisbane Road along the River Lea. West Ham was a bit further so we took the underground to Upton Park. This naturally lead to the reason why, when I was younger, I was often to be found at Brisbane Road watching Leyton Orient - and another week my friend would accompany me to the Boleyn to watch West Ham United. We collected newspaper articles, we both had subscriptions of the Charlie Buchan football monthly, and every Christmas the Charlie Buchan football annual was on the list as a present. Unfortunately my scrap books and monthlys disappeared when my parents moved from Bethnal Green to Dagenham, but a few books remained which I found with some pictures.

The text speaks for itself under the photo. Actually I took the picture from an article about Dennis Law who was then the start of Huddersfield. I believe he went on to Manchester City afterwards and is still around today pulling his senior citizenship pension. This photo also shows Andy Malcolm and John Bond of West Ham United.

My favourite of that time (I mean we women did not only look at the ball, but also other things) was definitely Noel Dwyer the Irish international goalie that played for West Ham. I think we didn't only stand behind the goal because it was cheaper but for other reasons as well. The manager of the team was Ted Fenton and I think he was at least 10 years with them. I remember he wrote a book "At Home with the Hammers" which I naturally bought, but I believe a year after he was no longer at home with the Hammers. I remember my dad telling me that Benny Fenton, his brother, went to his school at Bridge Road in Stratford, although I am not sure of the actual facts.

Talking of my dad's younger days, he did actually grow up in Stratford and on 03.05.1964, the day after West Ham had won the cup, he decided to go down to Stratford in the morning to see the team "bring the cup home" and naturally his daughter went with him. I was then 18 years old, but can remember it as if it was yesterday. There were crowds of people lining the road and an open coach came with the team proudly holding the cup. Afterwards they were to be seen on a balcony somewhere along the road. When the procession was over, my dad decided to use the opportunity to go to his former local pub and see if any of his friends were still around. So we went in the pub and my dad asked the barman whether this or the other was still here. The barman said if my dad would like to wait a few minutes they would turn up, and surely enough after the five minute wait I found myself in a circle of about 10 men with their wives all greeting my dad after so long, and all talking about the match - of course. They are sort of memories that stay with you.

And yet another picture of Dwyer, this time watching as the ball goes in. Noel Cantwell tried to stop the ball going into the net, but with no success. Noel Cantwell was the other Irishman in the team at the time, also captain of the Irish National team, and a full back, together with Bond who is also watching helplessly.

Actually at that time football seem to be so logical. You had 11 men each one with a no. The goalie nearly always wore a green knitted pullover and had no no. on his back. He did not need one. You had two full backs, No. 2 on the right and No. 3 on the left. Then the half field, No. 4 on the right, No. 5 the center half (which I believe is now known as a libero) and No. 6 on the left. Nos. 7-11 were all in the front from right to left and No. 9 was the center forward. They were good days where you knew where they belonged. The Italians (or was it the South Americans) came along with a 4-2-4 and later even that got out of date, and to be quite honest I still like to watch a good match on the tv but now they run around with numbers on their back which seem to approach the 20's or the 30's. I supposed it is all for a good cause, but it is not like it used to be.

"

And who do we have here again. Dwyer laying in the mud watching the ball go in. I am not sure but that could be a young Bobby Moore (although I think it might be a player called Grice) also laying on the ground and definitely Ken Brown doing a delicate dance with the ball going past his behind part.

The SHP on the shirts were written on by me, my friend and I always did that on the photos because it meant "seen him play". These are 4 new players in the national team, probably around 1960. Ron Springett played a few games as goalie for England. He was with Sheffield Wednesday. I didn't know Ray Parry so well, but next to him is Ken Brown the West Ham centre half. On the right is Joe Baker who played for Hibernian, a Scottish team. If I remember rightly he was born just over the borders of Scotland in England, was a very good player and did not qualify for the Scottish team, being born in England. I think he was the only international that England had that spoke with a Scottish accent. Probably if he had been asked, he would rather have played for Scotland.

I think this is one blog that I could go on for ages about. A lot of memories have come flooding back. It was a good time for football, the players worked for their money, didn't get married to famous singers or film stars (except for Billy Wright who married one of the Beverly Sisters). They had a set wage of twenty pounds per week, probably with a few bonuses, but not the ridiculous sums that are paid today. Of course it was cheap labour, and a little bit more was ok, but you can go too far.

By the way did I mention that I saw Bobby Moore play his first game in the first team for West Ham. And when I would come home from games at school with my friend we used to walk pass the"The Spotted Dog", a pub around Essex way. They had a sports ground and Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, who were just coming out of the junior team, were often seen having a football practice there. So I will now close my blog down football memory lane with a photo of West Ham team 1960.

West Ham United v Fulham - English Football (Roy Hodgson and the Swiss National Team)

I used to follow football quite a bit in the late 50's, early 60's and now and again I have a butchers to see what West Ham United are doing. One day I will do a blog about them, but for now let it be sufficient to say that my dad grew up with them and I carried on the tradition - although now and again made an excursion to Brisbane road where the O's (Leyton Orient) were playing.

I noticed they were today playing Fulham. I thought big deal as Fulham is not exactly world class and I think I vaguely remember a trip to their stadium many moons ago, and thought thank goodness I can have a look at the boats on the River Thames when the going got boring.
Now reading through the Internet I discovered something. I was only talking to Mr. Swiss a few days back after the Swiss National team's surprising defeat in England in a friendly game, about one of the best trainers the Swiss ever had, Roy Hodgson, and what ever happened to him. He came to Neuenburg Xamax in 1992 as their trainer, one of our good Swiss football teams, from Sweden. He could speak more or less good Swedish. He then took over the Swiss national team and quickly learnt German and French to be able to communicate with the team. He was the man that managed to put the national Swiss team in the World cup in America. Surprisingly they did not win it (well there were many Swiss that thought they would) but they did put up a good performance.

He left Switzerland after a few years for an Italian club (think it was Inter Milano) but as the Italians don't like their teams to loose at any time, he soon lost the job. Today I found his name as trainer for Fulham where he seemed to have arrived via Finnland (did he learn Finnish as well?). Surprising how things turn out sometimes. Someone wrote somewhere that Fulham could be the banana skin that West Ham might slide on. Unfortunately I cannot go to the match or watch it on tv. My dad told me on my last visit to England the prices charged these days for a visit to a league match are exorbitant, so if I was in England it might be a bit on the expensive side for me. I was wondering how a father with his son(s) could afford it these days. My dad also said in this day and age he would be too frightened to attend a football match in case he got mugged.

Anyhow may the best team win - West Ham of course.

The Day started with a Rainbow

There I was sitting at my desk in the early morning wondering whether to get a coffee or do some work and my colleague says "don't you want to take a photo of the rainbow outside". Naturally I was wide awake and ready to go. It was miserable weather and I was surprised. I always thought that rainbows were caused by the sun shining through water drops. Well there was plenty of water around but I didn't see the sun. Anyhow I managed to get a couple of photos, although I have seen better rainbows.

Afterwards back to work, a nice quiet day - half of the office taken the day off to sleep out the carnival from last night and in Germany things were also very quiet. I think if there was an international European crisis during the carnival week, nobody here would be bothered. They would either be celebrating in the streets or in bed sleeping the whole thing off.

I have an appointment with a football match this evening. Switzerland are playing England in Wembley stadium in London. Our Swiss trainer, Kobi Kuhn, had a bit of a problem trying to sort out which goalkeeper he should choose (i.e. according to the newspapers and media). Pascal Zuberbühler is the "regular" up to now, but is 37 years old and so our trainer is putting a younger man in the goal - Diego Benaglio - 24 years old and not very much experience, so let's see what happens. I have lived 20 years in England and 40 in Switzerland, so who will I be supporting? Let's hope the best team wins (Switzerland??). For Switzerland it is a practice for the Europa cup for which unfortunately England did not qualify. Most of the Swiss players don't play in Switzerland in any case.

So let's hope the rainbow over our local village was a sign that Switzerland will win.