::Off the Ball::
from the wild and wonko world of euro2004...
[6.24.04]
Swede Relief for Frozen Fan
Sweden have been branded as life-savers after an 85-year-old Swedish farmer revealed that the thought of the national team's 5-0 win against Bulgaria had kept him warm through a terrifying night he spent lost in the remote far north. Soren Gellerstedt survived for four days without food after his car got stuck in a quiet road in woods outside the town of Jokkmokk on Friday. The alarm was raised in the area, which is famous for its reindeer, but Gellerstedt was not discovered until Tuesday morning, by which time he claimed, listening to radio coverage of Sweden's opening Group C game against Bulgaria on his car radio had given him reason to live. "The victory over Bulgaria saved my life," he said. "I had nothing to drink except rainwater and I was desperately thirsty. The team gave me the best lift I could have had." Bulgaria missed a number of chances to take the lead in the first half of the match, but as they prepare to fly home after being eliminated from the tournament, Plamen Markov's side can at least take comfort in the knowledge that their wayward finishing in Portugal may have saved a life.
The bells, the bells
Bells have been an issue of sorts in the early weeks of UEFA EURO 2004�, and the France team in particular have been benefiting from the generosity of their hosts at their training camp in Santo Tirso. The French players have been allowed to have regular quiet nights at their hotel after the local mayor agreed to stop the church bells ringing during the night. Meanwhile, back on the first day of the tournament, the talk was of wedding bells as a football-mad Portuguese woman chose the day of the opening game of the finals, between the hosts and Greece, to marry her Greek fianc� in Coimbra. Alexandra Fialho Amaral and Dimitris Psarris were wed in the morning, before setting up a big screen at their wedding reception to allow both sides of the family to enjoy the match. Despite a surprise 2-1 win for Greece, a family feud was avoided, with Portuguese newspaper Di�rio de Not�cias reporting that the result was taken "sportingly".
EURO 2004� ruined my marriage
Sadly, football and love have mixed less favourably elsewhere. Back in England, a 55-year-old woman has filed for divorce claiming that her husband, a 56-year-old pipe-fitter who spent much of their marriage obsessing over the fortunes of West Ham United FC, took two weeks off work to watch EURO 2004� in the pub. Meanwhile in Malaysia, a man complained to his local political party after his wife confiscated his television remote control to stop him watching any further EURO 2004� games. The man, identified only as 'Yap', had been ordered by his spouse to go to bed early so he could take his children to school on Monday morning, but had sneaked back downstairs to watch the England-France match, which began at around 03.00 local time (20.45CET), only for his wife to be alerted to his absence from the marital bed by his anguished cries as Zinedine Zidane scored the winner from the penalty spot. "She refused to allow me to watch the game although I promised not to oversleep or shun my responsibility of sending the children to school," complained Yap. He added that, on rumbling his ruse, his wife had attacked him with the remote control before forbidding him from watching further matches. "My wife just doesn't understand my passion for football," Yap complained.
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