We are Red, We are White, We are Danish Dynamite (FootballPink)

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http://footballpink.net/2015/11/12/we-are-red-we-are-white-we-are-danish-dynamite/

Whatever Happened to Running Fast?

When was the last time? I bet you can't remember. You get to a certain age and you don't want to do it anymore, it's never as good as when you were younger. In fact at your age does anyone do it anyway. Didn't you love to run fast? I fucking loved it. I pelted it everywhere. From the age of six to sixteen...yes sixteen, I legged it all over the place. The early 80s in Essex were certainly different to nowadays. An eight year old could easily go to the local shop and buy groceries, without the fear of being nabbed by the local weirdo. Saying that in my area there was one strange guy. He was an old guy called Pinkie, well that wasn't his real name. He lived in a pink bungalow, which backed onto our local school playing fields.  The myth around the school was that he used to shag his dog in the back garden, however I spent hours on those playing fields waiting and not once did he.

When I was sent on these errands by my mum, I used to love the challenge, you see I had a digital watch with a stopwatch function. This I felt was cutting edge in 1983, I was part of a technological break through. I timed everything. From how long it took me to get dressed in the morning, which does take longer if you're looking at a watch all the time, and these trips to the shops. I'd put on my trainers, do my cagoule up tight, put the list in my back pocket, start the stopwatch and I was off. Pelting it through the streets with one goal in my mind, I must beat last week's time. The watch would not stop until I was in the shop, invariably I'd run directly into old Mrs Knight from number 76 or be told to stop running by the security guard who in my mind was at least 87. With my bags loaded, I'd start my stopwatch again and off I'd go. The return journey was always slower, and 99% of the time curtailed by a stitch. Now when you're 8years old...a stitch freaks the shit out of you. In fact do stitches still exist in adulthood? You watch football nowadays and the players run round for ninety minutes, and the commentators never say "Aguero looks to be suffering from a stitch" but then again I suppose they're not running around with a crusty loaf and a jar of Nutella in a Co-Op carrier bag.

As I moved into secondary school I was still legging it into school. Imagine that legging it to a school. I must have looked a right fanny. The stopwatch was no longer, not the last time that over-use of the wrist area would affect my life. However I wasn't as stringent with my timings as I moved into my teens, I was quite happy to record timings by minutes. It would take on average eight minutes to run to school, did any friends join me in this...don't be ridiculous. They thought I was to coin an 80s phrase a Joey Deacon. But I loved running fast. The buzz I got was electrifying.

Now my Dad was a man of very few words when I was growing up, but I remember him saying to me "Don't show any encouragement in athletics at school". I thought that's odd, my Dad was a good sportsman growing up. He'll tell you a tired anecdote about Peter Taylor (ex Spurs, Palace and England) if you're lucky to spend time with him. So it's summer term and it's the 100 metre trials at school, with my Dad's advice in my head conflicting my thoughts...the PE teacher Mr Lee said "on your marks...GO". On a side note, as soon as I left school, I played in the same local cricket team as Mr Lee and he went to me "you can call me Howard". I felt like a boss. So back to the race...everything my Dad said to me I took to heart and abided too. So I didn't run as fast as I could. You know what?  I still bloody won...all those years of running fast everywhere had paid off, but as I was to find out at a cost.

After school had finished the athletics team had training, now our athletics training was called "sick squad". There is no-way it goes on now, it would be fucking out-lawed. We did everything 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, relays.  You were not allowed to stop until you felt, or was sick.  It was barbaric. I was doing a lot of sport at that time, and I ended up getting Osgood-Schlatter disease (google it!), all down to what I believe was mental athletics training.  So if you're reading this...fuck you Howard!

Into the early 90s now, and myself and my good friend Richard played a game called Kick Off 2 on the Atari ST.  What a game that was.  Anyways, we'd play it round each others houses until get this 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays. We really were the wild ones. Now it's 11pm at night you've left your mates house, what can I do? You got it I ran home.  Not just jogged, but bloody pelted it. Every other weekend, busting my guts out. But as I found out the rules had changed.  No-one had told me. You couldn't sprint on the streets as a 15 year old at 11pm night. Well that's what the police officer told me, when he pulled over and asked me what I was up to. "I'm just going home, I can normally do it in 4 minutes." The policeman didn't seem overly interested in the timings "Where have you been though son?" By this time, I was breathing pretty heavy, I suppose that's what you get when you try hanging around the cool girls, and they blow smoke on you. "I...I...I was playing Kick Off 2 round my mates house".  The police officer looked perplexed "But that doesn't explain why you were running fast."  Well I said "that's what I like doing". He said "Don't." Well you know what, I have not run fast in public since....so Mr Policeman if you're reading this...fuck you too!

What is stopping someone running really fast in the street?  Why should there be a cut off?  As I walked to the shops today, it crossed my mind, should I sprint into town today. A 40yr old man running in the streets, should not be seen as anything peculiar, maybe he is just trying to break a personal record.

The Death of the Yugoslavian National Football Team

Yugoslavia were edged out of the 1990 World Cup at the quarter final stage on penalties by an Argentinean side inspired by their goalkeeper Sergio Goychochea. Despite this loss the tournament as a whole was a source of great optimism for Yugoslavian football.

Just three years before Italia 90, the Yugoslav's with a team bereft of it's best players swept to glory in the U20 World Championships in Chile.  The Yugoslav Football Federation took the tournament lightly, and in fact informed future stars, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Vladimir Jugovic and Alen Boksic to stay at home as they would gain more experience playing in the National league.

As Yugoslavia cruised through the group stages, Red Star Belgrade decided that they could do with Robert Prosinecki for a UEFA Cup tie against Bruges.  The players protested to FIFA, and Joao Havelange, then the organisation's chairman intervened to keep Prosinecki in Chile.  He responded by curling in a last minute free kick winner against Brazil in the quarter final.  It was later voted the goal of the tournament.

Yugoslavia went on to beat East Germany in the semi final, and then West Germany in the final.  A side containing Robert Jarni, Igor Stimac, Robert Prosinecki, Zvonimir Boban, Davor Suker and Predrag Mijatovic had gained valuable tournament experience.  These young players were now thrust into qualification for the 1992 European Championships, and joined a squad of experienced established players such as Dragan Stojkovic, Dejan Savicevic, Srecko Katanec and Darko Pancev.

In the qualifying rounds Yugoslavia were impressive, winning seven of eight games, scoring 24 goals and finishing above eventual tournament winners Denmark in the process.
Darko Pancev scored 10 goals in qualifying, to cap a great year for him as he won the European Golden Boot and his club side Red Star won the 1991 European Cup. Yugoslavia looked well set to challenge the best nations in Europe for the 1992 European Championships.

The issue was despite the success on the pitch, Yugoslavia was a nation divided. Tensions had been rising ever since the death of Tito in 1980. Without the strength and ironwill of a dictator whom had successfully challenged Stalin in the past, there began an animosity between the varying ethnic groups within Yugoslavia.  Protests broke out in the Croatian region, and there were growing tensions between Serbs and Albanians which eventually led to a miners strike in Kosovo in 1989.
The consequences of these tensions did not go unfelt on the football pitch.  In what was meant to be a pre-tournament friendly ahead of Italia 90, a 2-0 home defeat to the Dutch was overshadowed by the disruptive acts of a largely Croat crowd, who booed throughout the singing of the Yugoslavian national anthem, taunted those Yugoslav players not of Croatian descent, and cheered on the Netherlands; many waved the Dutch flag due to it's similarity to the Croatian tricolour.

This was far from the only football related incident instigated by growing tensions within Yugoslavia, and indeed, then current international Zvonimir Boban missed the friendly with the Netherlands due a suspension earned for kicking a policeman during a Dinamo Zagreb - Red Star Belgrade match which had descended into a full blown riot.  Ultras from both sides antagonised each other to such an extent that security became unable to keep them apart and fighting boiled over onto the pitch.

By 1991 Yugoslavia was fragmenting.  Macedonia was able to peacefully declare independence from Yugoslavia, as too was Slovenia, however in Croatia what erupted was a bloody war that lasted until 1995.  Yugoslavia was falling apart both on and off the football pitch, as the nations of Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia left the Yugoslav Football Federation, and so did the players. The riot at the Maksimir stadium had rang the death knolls for the Yugoslavian football league also, which was eventually dissolved in 1991-1992 season with the withdrawal of all Slovenian and Croatian teams; the Dinamo-Red Star match had made it obvious that already fierce competitive rivalries, aggravated by racial tensions, made for an untenable situation in the league.

A month before the 1992 Euro's in Sweden were set to commence, war erupted in Bosnia, between Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croatian community in Bosnia and the Republika Srpska which was made up of Bosnian Serbs.  The war was to rage onto 1995.
Just ten days before the European Championships, the Yugoslavian national side was in tatters, the golden generation of players had been dismantled along with the confederation, and following United Nations sanctions, what was left of the side was banned from competing.

What if the war hadn't happened?  What if Yugoslavia could have put out a midfield as talented as Stojkovic, Prosinecki, Katanec and Boban?  Well Srecko Katanec was in no doubt.."we would have crushed the world." Perhaps, but instead they had to watch on as Denmark took their place and won the 1992 tournament.