Saturday

18 November 2017

— like a black and white photograph out there this rainy morn.

Good Morning All,

Yesterday’s football natter reminded me of the 1992 European Cup held in Sweden in which Denmark competed. At first, we (Denmark) had not made the cut (only eight teams back then), but when Yugoslavia fell apart into warring factions, Denmark snuck in by the back door. 

For a country who’s population then was not quite 5 million, we had a pretty good team, which had also qualified in 1964, 1984, and 1988. Not that I was holding my breath too much. We were up against CIS (Soviet Union), which had qualified 5 times and won once; France, two qualifiers, one title; England, three qualifiers; Netherlands, 3 qualifiers, one title, and the almighty (and reunified) Germany, 5 qualifiers and two titles. Sweden and Scotland were making their debuts, but were still dangerous.

Mind you, Johs, who was nearly twelve and an avid fan, was far more optimistic than I. He figured we could not lose because out family personally had all the football paraphernalia, including the jerseys, scarves, flags, and clapping hats. (These latter items were essentially baseball caps with a pair of cloth hands affixed where the logo would normally be. Strings were attached to these hands, so that when your team scored, you could activate the hands.) 

In the first round, Denmark in Group One had to get past Sweden, France, and England. The top 2 teams would proceed to the semi-finals. The surprising Swedes won 2, drew 1, and lost 0 to advance. We Danes managed to win only 1game (against the French, no less!), drew 1 (England), and lost 1 (Sweden.) But—our luck holding--neither France nor England managed to win a game, so we went through.

On 22 June, in the semi finals, we somehow managed to tie the mighty Netherlands, but—more luck—we’d scored more goals in the tournament than they  (5 to 4), so we miraculously advanced to the finals, where—unfortunately—we had to play the Germans.

And that’s when we had to break the news to Johs we flying to America the next day. He was not pleased. He was, as I recall, barely talking to either Britta or me. I said, “Do not worry! Bring all our stuff, we shall find a place in America where the final is being televised on the 26th." Johs’s expression said, “Fat chance.”

Just before 2:00 p.m. on 26 July (8:15 game time in Sweden) , we four in all our stuff walked into a sports bar in Littleton, Massachusetts. There were only a couple of customers so early in the afternoon, but there were 26 tv screens of varying sizes. Johs’s morose expression lifted slightly at the sight of the screens.

I said to the bartender, “You’re gonna be showing the football game, right?”

“Football game?” he said, viewing me like an oddball. “It’s June.”

“Soccer,” I said, “I meant soccer.”

“What soccer? Is there a soccer game?”

I did not grab him by the throat. “European Cup finals. It’s huge in Europe.”

“Uh-huh, maybe not so big in Littleton.”

I flicked my eyes towards Johs and said, “Can you have a look and see if you can find it? It’s starting in about fifteen minutes.”

He gave a glance at Johs and Holly in their clappy hats and scarves and said, “Yeah, what the hell. I’ll go down the cellar and give it a look.”

We went to a table in front of the biggest screen. At approximately one minute before the game started, 26 screens suddenly showed an arial view of the stadium with the Danish and German flags superimposed on either side. Johs went pretty much straight up in the air. Had he gone any higher, I’d have had to grab him by the ankle to haul him back down.

Unfortunately, our little team that had barely qualified for the tournament still had to beat the Germans. As the game progressed, the locals began drifting in and looking at this weird band in their red-and-whites, waving their flags. There was no Red Sox game on that afternoon, so the bartender left all the screens on our game, and by the last ten minutes in the game there must have been fifty locals and truck drivers and God knew who else behind us cheering as much as were we for Denmark, which somehow scored two goals and shut the Germans down completely.

Sporting events do not get better than that.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps: