Euro 2012 - according to Travellin Bob
Well, that was pretty good wasn't it? The tournament, I mean, rather than England's results - which, to be fair, were probably better than expected.
A lot of goals - some of them absolutely fantastic -, only a couple of 0-0 draws and penalty shoot outs, hardly any crowd trouble and in the end Spain won (again) in record breaking fashion.
* * *
Poland and Ukraine both did excellent jobs as hosts, even if their teams were not up to scratch and were eliminated in the group stages. The hatchet job that Panorama did on them the week before the campaign started proved to be more of the usual amount of bollocks. Yes, there was some crowd trouble, in Warsaw - more of which in a second - but no obvious neo-Nazi anti-Semitic and racist abuse that the program predicted would happen everywhere: what racist abuse was reported turned out to be by fans of Spain and the Czech Republic and was dealt with quickly (even if a little light-handedly) by UEFA, and so hardly the fault of either Poles or Ukrainians. There was one minor incident when a group of idiots in Krakow threw a few questionable comments at certain Dutch players in an open training session, but they were pounced on by the police and the Dutch themselves laughed it off.
The biggest problem in fact was avoidable but somehow inevitable as soon as the tournament draw was made last year, placing Russia in the same group as Poland. But with the fixtures and their dates cast in stone by UEFA, there was probably not a thing the Polish organizers could have done to avoid what followed, unless they were prepared to interfere politically - and under UEFA and FIFA statutes that would have meant their expulsion. And so, the match between the two countries went ahead in Warsaw on Russia Day.......
You don't need to be a student of history to figure that problems would be inevitable but still - consider that for 50 years the USSR ruled Poland and placed its own people in positions of power in Warsaw, and that the situation only ended twenty or so years ago (and even up until recently there were unreconstructed Communists in positions of influence - indeed, there may still be). Consider too that during the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising in 1944 the advancing Russian army camped on the eastern bank of the Vistula river and thus had a ringside seat as the Nazi Panzer divisions reduced Warsaw to a smoking pile of rubble, refusing to provide any assistance including supply flights that Churchill in particular was desperate to arrange. Remember that at the end of the 18th centrury, Russia, together with the Austro-Hungarian and Prussian rulers, between them defeated Poland militarily and then divided its territory up between themselves, wiping the name Poland from any maps for over 100 years.
Talk about a recipe for trouble!
Despite the much trumpeted thaw in Polish - Russian relations after Smolensk (the air crash a few years ago that killed the Polish president and his retinue en route to a service commemorating the slaughter by Russian troops disguised as Nazis of several thousand captured Polish officers and soldiers at nearby Katyn) the thaw is only skin deep. The average Russian still has a very low opinion of Poles and the feeling is certainly reciprocated. A few years ago I worked on a project here where some of our on site team were Russian. They refused to speak to the Polish bank employees in any language but Russian, and the Poles refused to reply in anything other than Polish. This left us English, without a word of either language, trying to mediate the most petty and ridiculous disputes.....
The situation is much the same today. I had a conversation with a close Polish friend a month or so before the tournament, and he told me that there would be "problems" at the match, as he had been told on a business trip to Moscow (where his company does quite a lot of business) that Putin was financing and arranging for several thousand Russian hooligans to travel to Warsaw for the match. I laughed it off at the time, but now I'm not so sure.....
On match day, the Russian support - getting on for 20,000 people - met up in the centre of the city and marched to the stadium, carrying banners that were, shall we say, a little inflammatory. The police had been expecting trouble ever since the local authorities had approved the march - God know's why they had approved it! - so there was a heavy police presence supervising it. The inveitable happened - enraged Poles, not all of them football fans, confronted the marching Russians and traded abuse. It escalated and there were fights, widely televised I'm sure across Europe (certainly they were the lead item on the news channels here). But considering the many thousands of people involved in these scuffles, there were less than 200 arrests, and very few hospital cases - about half a dozen. One tournament organiser is quoted today as saying there were no more hospital admissions as a result of the "riot" than would be expected from the average Polish wedding reception.
At the match, Russian fans unfurled a huge banner reading "This is Russia" - how they managed to get the thing into the stadium is anyone's guess, it must have been 30metres across - and were roundly criticised by everyone. It was in fact their third disciplinary breach in two matches, and they already have a points deduction from the next qualification process hanging over them - personally I hope the arrogant shits are kicked out. In any case, for them it all went pear shaped when they were unable to win and left themselves facing an early elimination - the first of the favoured teams to do so.
So overall, the doom and gloom predicted by Panorama and the ridiculous Sol Campbell ("Don't go there, watch it on tv, it ain't worth the rsik, you could come home in a coffin") were shown to be complete sensationalist bullshit and a total insult to all Polish and Ukrainian people.
I'd like to think they would have the decency to issue a public apology - but I'm not holding my breath.
* * *
And what of the football itself?
Well, it was a bloody good tournament that threw up its fair of surprises.
The first was probably England's performance. We went there with few expectations and even a certain amount of hostility - the appointment of Roy Hodgson as manager in place of Don Fabio was not universally welcomed, nor was the inclusion of (allegedly racist thug) John Terry, (allegedly lumbering) Andy Carroll or (allegedly useless) James Milner and Jordan Henderson in the squad. Most fans predicted an embarrassing three defeats out of three matches and an early return home. In the event, Terry justified his selection by some solid, even heroic, defensive performances, and Carroll scored one of our few goals with a towering header. Milner was indeed useless, and Henderson not on the pitch long enough to register. So instead of finishing pointless, we in fact won the group, and reached a quarter final against Italy, which we predictably drew 0-0 and lost on penalties. But at least we got out of a potentially tricky group, and along the way beat Sweden for the first time ever in a competitive fixture.....so I suppose there is some hope for the future for us optimists.
Poland and Ukraine, while excellent host nations, weren't up to it as teams. Poland froze in their opening match against Greece and after leading 1-0 at half time managed to drop a point. They also drew with our friendly Russki neighbours and were left needing a win against the Czech Republic to go through. We lost convincingly and the coach promptly resigned. Ukraine, meanwhile, went into the final game against England also needing a win to progress and lost to a Wayne Rooney goal - his sole contribution to the tournament, having been suspended for the first two games and basically crap against both Ukraine and Italy. The match also featured another "goal that wasn't", but this time England were the beneficiaries of the lack of goalline technology - the ball was at least a foot over the line before Terry hacked it clear. The usual uproar followed, the match officials were pilloried and even Teflon Sepp Blatter admitted something had to be done. The fact that the Ukrainian guy who "scored" was offside when the ball was played through to him was conveniently ignored during all this ballyhoo.
Meanwhile, pre-tournament fancies (and perennial under-achievers) Holland contrived to lose all three of their matches amid the usual in-fighting. Robin van Persie and Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who between them scored something like 70 goals last season, clearly packed the wrong boots, misfired completely, and were thus a major factor in their exit. The coach resigned. Another fancied team, France, never really recovered from failing to beat England first game and although they qualified for the quarter finals as runners up, they there met Spain who were much too good for them and eliminated them, amid the usual French in-fighting. The coach resigned.
Portugal, another favoured team, reached the semi finals, largely on the back of increasingly gelled and perma-tanned Cristiano Ronaldo. He, as captain, was the centre of attention and absolutely loved it - every time he blazed another free kick into Row Z, second tier, which he did frequently, he seemed to check that he was in close up on the big screen at each ground (of course he always was) before reacting in a suitably histrionic fashion. He also traded simulation - sorry, fouls - sorry, CHEATING - on a match to match basis with Cesc Fabregas, seemingly Spain's new golden boy, and along the way managed to score goals too. After one finish, against Holland, came one of the moments of the tournament for me. Earlier, Rafa van der Vaart had been mobbed by his team mates after opening the scoring. CR7, meanwhile, scored and ran to the corner flag and turned to greet his adoring colleagues - who were nowhere to be seen. Cue a stricken expression and hand gestures summoning an obviously reluctant mobbing. I did chortle at that one. He was also central to my other favourite moment, in the semi-final against Spain. The match itself wasn't all that good, at least to this viewer, and after 120 minutes of swapping dives it all went down to penalties.....CR7's glory moment beckoned. Instead, two of his team mates missed, and Portugal were eliminated before he could take his nominted 5th penalty and grab the glory. He was left standing in the centre circle, away from the rest of his team mates, gazing up at the giant screens (of course....) with an expression that said "how can they DO that to me?!?!?!" Absolutely priceless.
I missed most of the final, between Spain and Italy (themselves a bit of a surprise package). We went away for a weekend in the country and although we left in plenty of time for the 130km drive home we were stuck in the most appalling traffic (it took us nearly an hour to drive the 4km through one town) so missed the first 20 minutes or so (including David Silva's lovely header). Then after 10 minutes or so of the second half, there was a massive thunderstorm and the satellite connection went so we missed the rest of the match. Fortunately, so impressed was broadcaster TVP with the manner of Spain's 4-0 trouncing that they re-ran it in its entirety this morning so I watched and marvelled then.
* * *
And so to the end. No column like this is complete without an Awards list, so here are the 2012 Bobs:
Goal of the Tournament.
Plenty of candidates here. Andy Carroll's header was a classic example of the centre forward's art that I thought had been lost forever. Jordi Alba's goal in the Final was magnificent - his prefectly timed run onto Xavi's slide rule pass an example of how football should be played. Andrei Shevchenko's header against Sweden was exquisite too - the movement he made to lose his marker by a yard was perfection. But my favourite, for what it meant to this country on what could have been a dark day, was Poland captain Kuba Blaszczikowski's 30 metre howitzer (with his weaker left foot too!) against Russia on that riot-torn day. Simply brilliant - it gave a nation (ultimately unfulfilled) hope and elegantly stuck two figures up at the Old Enemy.
Best goalkeeper.
In the end it came down to a choice between two. Joe Hart did well enough, but had a few flappy moments. Petr Cech did ok but made one scoolboy error that cost his team a crucial goal against Greece (who went through at the Czech Republic's expense). Hugo Lloris of France and Maartin Stekkelenburg of Holland never lived up to their advance billing. So for me the choice was between Iker Casillas, Spain's record breaking captain, and Gigi Buffon, Italy's Elder Statesman. For all Saint Iker's brilliance, and lifting a trophy for a record breaking third tournament in row (2 Euros and 1 World Cup, to paraphrase the old English chant), Buffon shades it for me. Written off as past it a couple of years ago, with a dodgy back and dodgier haicut, he still made the saves that matter - the brilliant one handed claw back from Glen Johnson that arguably won Italy the match against England, the tip over against Germany from Ozil's free kick that gained an unexpected place in the Final, were both top drawer goalkeeping. Plus he always has a smile on his face, even after their trouncing yesterday.
Best Team.
Spain - who else is there? Like 'em or loathe 'em, there is not a better team around. Tiki-taka drives me mad - 800-odd passes to grind out a 1-0 win against someone like Denmark is not my favoured game. and the antics of certain players, throwing themselves to ground at the merest hint of a challenge is anti-football. But they get results and when they put their mind to it nobody can live with them....just ask Italy.
Biggest Muppet.
Again, a few contenders here. Wayne Rooney, for instance - hailed as the Returning Hero before the Ukraine group match, he managed a goal from about six inches my four year old daughter could have put away. It was his only contribution in that match or the Quarter Final against Italy. Cristiano Ronaldo because of who he is and his antics - diving is cheating, CR. And just because you're captain it doesn't mean you have to take every free kick and corner - passing as allowed, you know. Cesc Fabregas - largely for the same reasons as CR7, except for the captaincy bit. I got fed up with his throwing himself around and whining - he was the only player to complain about a pitch - the one in Gdansk was "a disgrace" apparently, "we shouldn't have to play on this". Funny he didn't make the same complaint a week later after stonking Ireland on the same surface. But the winner is Arsenal and Poland's finest, Wojciech Szczesny. Expected to be one of the stars of the tournament, he lasted less than an hour before charging, panic stricken, from his goal-line to challenge an approaching Greek - feet first and in the penalty area is NOT the way to do it. Penalty to Greece and a red card that cost his country a crucial win and ended his participation in the tournament.
Best fans.
Only one contender here - the Irish, as usual. Win, lose or draw (mostly lose) they are the same - good time boys out for some craic, a sing-song and a party This year they excelled themselves at all three. Most of them based themselves in the lovely old city of Torun, roughly half way between the group's venues of Poznan and Gdansk, and birth place of one of modern astronomy's founding fathers, Nicholas Copernicus. Here, they endeared themselves to the locals by loudly cheering on Poland in their group matches, even trying to master some of the almost incomprehensible chants. Groups of them also made hospital visits to children's wards dispensing gifts and bonhomie in equal measure. Others went to schools and spoke to English students about their country, football, anything to help teach them our language. Another group visited the local prison where they organised and competed against the inmates in a table football competition. Ireland we salute you!
* * *
So that's it. Roll on Euro 2016. In France apparently.
A lot of goals - some of them absolutely fantastic -, only a couple of 0-0 draws and penalty shoot outs, hardly any crowd trouble and in the end Spain won (again) in record breaking fashion.
* * *
Poland and Ukraine both did excellent jobs as hosts, even if their teams were not up to scratch and were eliminated in the group stages. The hatchet job that Panorama did on them the week before the campaign started proved to be more of the usual amount of bollocks. Yes, there was some crowd trouble, in Warsaw - more of which in a second - but no obvious neo-Nazi anti-Semitic and racist abuse that the program predicted would happen everywhere: what racist abuse was reported turned out to be by fans of Spain and the Czech Republic and was dealt with quickly (even if a little light-handedly) by UEFA, and so hardly the fault of either Poles or Ukrainians. There was one minor incident when a group of idiots in Krakow threw a few questionable comments at certain Dutch players in an open training session, but they were pounced on by the police and the Dutch themselves laughed it off.
The biggest problem in fact was avoidable but somehow inevitable as soon as the tournament draw was made last year, placing Russia in the same group as Poland. But with the fixtures and their dates cast in stone by UEFA, there was probably not a thing the Polish organizers could have done to avoid what followed, unless they were prepared to interfere politically - and under UEFA and FIFA statutes that would have meant their expulsion. And so, the match between the two countries went ahead in Warsaw on Russia Day.......
You don't need to be a student of history to figure that problems would be inevitable but still - consider that for 50 years the USSR ruled Poland and placed its own people in positions of power in Warsaw, and that the situation only ended twenty or so years ago (and even up until recently there were unreconstructed Communists in positions of influence - indeed, there may still be). Consider too that during the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising in 1944 the advancing Russian army camped on the eastern bank of the Vistula river and thus had a ringside seat as the Nazi Panzer divisions reduced Warsaw to a smoking pile of rubble, refusing to provide any assistance including supply flights that Churchill in particular was desperate to arrange. Remember that at the end of the 18th centrury, Russia, together with the Austro-Hungarian and Prussian rulers, between them defeated Poland militarily and then divided its territory up between themselves, wiping the name Poland from any maps for over 100 years.
Talk about a recipe for trouble!
Despite the much trumpeted thaw in Polish - Russian relations after Smolensk (the air crash a few years ago that killed the Polish president and his retinue en route to a service commemorating the slaughter by Russian troops disguised as Nazis of several thousand captured Polish officers and soldiers at nearby Katyn) the thaw is only skin deep. The average Russian still has a very low opinion of Poles and the feeling is certainly reciprocated. A few years ago I worked on a project here where some of our on site team were Russian. They refused to speak to the Polish bank employees in any language but Russian, and the Poles refused to reply in anything other than Polish. This left us English, without a word of either language, trying to mediate the most petty and ridiculous disputes.....
The situation is much the same today. I had a conversation with a close Polish friend a month or so before the tournament, and he told me that there would be "problems" at the match, as he had been told on a business trip to Moscow (where his company does quite a lot of business) that Putin was financing and arranging for several thousand Russian hooligans to travel to Warsaw for the match. I laughed it off at the time, but now I'm not so sure.....
On match day, the Russian support - getting on for 20,000 people - met up in the centre of the city and marched to the stadium, carrying banners that were, shall we say, a little inflammatory. The police had been expecting trouble ever since the local authorities had approved the march - God know's why they had approved it! - so there was a heavy police presence supervising it. The inveitable happened - enraged Poles, not all of them football fans, confronted the marching Russians and traded abuse. It escalated and there were fights, widely televised I'm sure across Europe (certainly they were the lead item on the news channels here). But considering the many thousands of people involved in these scuffles, there were less than 200 arrests, and very few hospital cases - about half a dozen. One tournament organiser is quoted today as saying there were no more hospital admissions as a result of the "riot" than would be expected from the average Polish wedding reception.
At the match, Russian fans unfurled a huge banner reading "This is Russia" - how they managed to get the thing into the stadium is anyone's guess, it must have been 30metres across - and were roundly criticised by everyone. It was in fact their third disciplinary breach in two matches, and they already have a points deduction from the next qualification process hanging over them - personally I hope the arrogant shits are kicked out. In any case, for them it all went pear shaped when they were unable to win and left themselves facing an early elimination - the first of the favoured teams to do so.
So overall, the doom and gloom predicted by Panorama and the ridiculous Sol Campbell ("Don't go there, watch it on tv, it ain't worth the rsik, you could come home in a coffin") were shown to be complete sensationalist bullshit and a total insult to all Polish and Ukrainian people.
I'd like to think they would have the decency to issue a public apology - but I'm not holding my breath.
* * *
And what of the football itself?
Well, it was a bloody good tournament that threw up its fair of surprises.
The first was probably England's performance. We went there with few expectations and even a certain amount of hostility - the appointment of Roy Hodgson as manager in place of Don Fabio was not universally welcomed, nor was the inclusion of (allegedly racist thug) John Terry, (allegedly lumbering) Andy Carroll or (allegedly useless) James Milner and Jordan Henderson in the squad. Most fans predicted an embarrassing three defeats out of three matches and an early return home. In the event, Terry justified his selection by some solid, even heroic, defensive performances, and Carroll scored one of our few goals with a towering header. Milner was indeed useless, and Henderson not on the pitch long enough to register. So instead of finishing pointless, we in fact won the group, and reached a quarter final against Italy, which we predictably drew 0-0 and lost on penalties. But at least we got out of a potentially tricky group, and along the way beat Sweden for the first time ever in a competitive fixture.....so I suppose there is some hope for the future for us optimists.
Poland and Ukraine, while excellent host nations, weren't up to it as teams. Poland froze in their opening match against Greece and after leading 1-0 at half time managed to drop a point. They also drew with our friendly Russki neighbours and were left needing a win against the Czech Republic to go through. We lost convincingly and the coach promptly resigned. Ukraine, meanwhile, went into the final game against England also needing a win to progress and lost to a Wayne Rooney goal - his sole contribution to the tournament, having been suspended for the first two games and basically crap against both Ukraine and Italy. The match also featured another "goal that wasn't", but this time England were the beneficiaries of the lack of goalline technology - the ball was at least a foot over the line before Terry hacked it clear. The usual uproar followed, the match officials were pilloried and even Teflon Sepp Blatter admitted something had to be done. The fact that the Ukrainian guy who "scored" was offside when the ball was played through to him was conveniently ignored during all this ballyhoo.
Meanwhile, pre-tournament fancies (and perennial under-achievers) Holland contrived to lose all three of their matches amid the usual in-fighting. Robin van Persie and Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who between them scored something like 70 goals last season, clearly packed the wrong boots, misfired completely, and were thus a major factor in their exit. The coach resigned. Another fancied team, France, never really recovered from failing to beat England first game and although they qualified for the quarter finals as runners up, they there met Spain who were much too good for them and eliminated them, amid the usual French in-fighting. The coach resigned.
Portugal, another favoured team, reached the semi finals, largely on the back of increasingly gelled and perma-tanned Cristiano Ronaldo. He, as captain, was the centre of attention and absolutely loved it - every time he blazed another free kick into Row Z, second tier, which he did frequently, he seemed to check that he was in close up on the big screen at each ground (of course he always was) before reacting in a suitably histrionic fashion. He also traded simulation - sorry, fouls - sorry, CHEATING - on a match to match basis with Cesc Fabregas, seemingly Spain's new golden boy, and along the way managed to score goals too. After one finish, against Holland, came one of the moments of the tournament for me. Earlier, Rafa van der Vaart had been mobbed by his team mates after opening the scoring. CR7, meanwhile, scored and ran to the corner flag and turned to greet his adoring colleagues - who were nowhere to be seen. Cue a stricken expression and hand gestures summoning an obviously reluctant mobbing. I did chortle at that one. He was also central to my other favourite moment, in the semi-final against Spain. The match itself wasn't all that good, at least to this viewer, and after 120 minutes of swapping dives it all went down to penalties.....CR7's glory moment beckoned. Instead, two of his team mates missed, and Portugal were eliminated before he could take his nominted 5th penalty and grab the glory. He was left standing in the centre circle, away from the rest of his team mates, gazing up at the giant screens (of course....) with an expression that said "how can they DO that to me?!?!?!" Absolutely priceless.
I missed most of the final, between Spain and Italy (themselves a bit of a surprise package). We went away for a weekend in the country and although we left in plenty of time for the 130km drive home we were stuck in the most appalling traffic (it took us nearly an hour to drive the 4km through one town) so missed the first 20 minutes or so (including David Silva's lovely header). Then after 10 minutes or so of the second half, there was a massive thunderstorm and the satellite connection went so we missed the rest of the match. Fortunately, so impressed was broadcaster TVP with the manner of Spain's 4-0 trouncing that they re-ran it in its entirety this morning so I watched and marvelled then.
* * *
And so to the end. No column like this is complete without an Awards list, so here are the 2012 Bobs:
Goal of the Tournament.
Plenty of candidates here. Andy Carroll's header was a classic example of the centre forward's art that I thought had been lost forever. Jordi Alba's goal in the Final was magnificent - his prefectly timed run onto Xavi's slide rule pass an example of how football should be played. Andrei Shevchenko's header against Sweden was exquisite too - the movement he made to lose his marker by a yard was perfection. But my favourite, for what it meant to this country on what could have been a dark day, was Poland captain Kuba Blaszczikowski's 30 metre howitzer (with his weaker left foot too!) against Russia on that riot-torn day. Simply brilliant - it gave a nation (ultimately unfulfilled) hope and elegantly stuck two figures up at the Old Enemy.
Best goalkeeper.
In the end it came down to a choice between two. Joe Hart did well enough, but had a few flappy moments. Petr Cech did ok but made one scoolboy error that cost his team a crucial goal against Greece (who went through at the Czech Republic's expense). Hugo Lloris of France and Maartin Stekkelenburg of Holland never lived up to their advance billing. So for me the choice was between Iker Casillas, Spain's record breaking captain, and Gigi Buffon, Italy's Elder Statesman. For all Saint Iker's brilliance, and lifting a trophy for a record breaking third tournament in row (2 Euros and 1 World Cup, to paraphrase the old English chant), Buffon shades it for me. Written off as past it a couple of years ago, with a dodgy back and dodgier haicut, he still made the saves that matter - the brilliant one handed claw back from Glen Johnson that arguably won Italy the match against England, the tip over against Germany from Ozil's free kick that gained an unexpected place in the Final, were both top drawer goalkeeping. Plus he always has a smile on his face, even after their trouncing yesterday.
Best Team.
Spain - who else is there? Like 'em or loathe 'em, there is not a better team around. Tiki-taka drives me mad - 800-odd passes to grind out a 1-0 win against someone like Denmark is not my favoured game. and the antics of certain players, throwing themselves to ground at the merest hint of a challenge is anti-football. But they get results and when they put their mind to it nobody can live with them....just ask Italy.
Biggest Muppet.
Again, a few contenders here. Wayne Rooney, for instance - hailed as the Returning Hero before the Ukraine group match, he managed a goal from about six inches my four year old daughter could have put away. It was his only contribution in that match or the Quarter Final against Italy. Cristiano Ronaldo because of who he is and his antics - diving is cheating, CR. And just because you're captain it doesn't mean you have to take every free kick and corner - passing as allowed, you know. Cesc Fabregas - largely for the same reasons as CR7, except for the captaincy bit. I got fed up with his throwing himself around and whining - he was the only player to complain about a pitch - the one in Gdansk was "a disgrace" apparently, "we shouldn't have to play on this". Funny he didn't make the same complaint a week later after stonking Ireland on the same surface. But the winner is Arsenal and Poland's finest, Wojciech Szczesny. Expected to be one of the stars of the tournament, he lasted less than an hour before charging, panic stricken, from his goal-line to challenge an approaching Greek - feet first and in the penalty area is NOT the way to do it. Penalty to Greece and a red card that cost his country a crucial win and ended his participation in the tournament.
Best fans.
Only one contender here - the Irish, as usual. Win, lose or draw (mostly lose) they are the same - good time boys out for some craic, a sing-song and a party This year they excelled themselves at all three. Most of them based themselves in the lovely old city of Torun, roughly half way between the group's venues of Poznan and Gdansk, and birth place of one of modern astronomy's founding fathers, Nicholas Copernicus. Here, they endeared themselves to the locals by loudly cheering on Poland in their group matches, even trying to master some of the almost incomprehensible chants. Groups of them also made hospital visits to children's wards dispensing gifts and bonhomie in equal measure. Others went to schools and spoke to English students about their country, football, anything to help teach them our language. Another group visited the local prison where they organised and competed against the inmates in a table football competition. Ireland we salute you!
* * *
So that's it. Roll on Euro 2016. In France apparently.
posted by Travellin' Bob @ July 02, 2012
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