Crocs in more ways than one

By European Football
March 19 2006

I recently gave up the relative comfort of my seat watching Newcastle United fail to win anything yet again (unless please god strike Chelsea to the ground, smite them verily, or however it is you choose to smite people nowadays) to spend some time in Romania.

This I hasten to add was not a mere whim; I did have a valid reason for wandering around in a black cloak looking for virgins (surprisingly in short supply). Anyway back to the point, whenever I am in a strange and foreign country meeting interesting and decidedly none vampiric characters I like to talk about football, and this weird and wonderful story is what I learned about my briefly local team:

In 2003 Steaua Nicolae Balcescu were in the fourth division of the Romanian league, and starved of anything approaching entertainment value upon the pitch, the fans had took down that well trodden path of football hooliganism.

After a series of pitched battles with rival supporters and regular violent pitch invasions Romanian league chiefs threatened the club with expulsion (And also said ve vant to suck your blood, well they might have I wasn’t actually at the meeting).

Now club chairman Alexandra Cringus came up with what I can only describe as a novel answer to this threat, he proposed that he would build a moat around the pitch and place within the moat fully grown crocodiles.

"This is not a joke," stated Cringus. "We can get crocodiles easy enough and feed them on meat from the local abattoir. The ditch is planned to be wide enough that no one could manage to jump over it. Anyone who attempted to do so would have to deal with the crocs. I think that the problem of fans running onto the pitch will be solved once and for all."

Ok Mr Cringus, what about the player that can’t stop his run in time?

Easy solution according to the chairman, simply build it far enough away from the pitch.

How far is exactly enough? For me a small continent, but I will give the Romanians this, they are hardy souls.

And perhaps it could be introduced here, how about those constantly over paid players who are always injured, whingeing or not interested?

Warm the crocodile please My Dyer is arriving, bet he would bloody run then, and Shola’s vision may improve some what, he might not always see the ball, but I would like to bet 10 of your English pounds that he would be keeping a sharp look out for a bloody crocodile.

Another story that came my way (while researching this one) was a tale from the Democratic Republic of Congo, now you only have to mention the Congo to me, to make me pack my suitcase and head off, well pretty much anywhere else to be honest and when I hear stories like this I realise that, the world is a strange and wonderful place and I am bloody happy most of the strangest places are not on my travel schedule.

Have you ever sat on the terraces, looked at your beloved team and thought ‘you know if there was any sort of justice this bunch of over paid wankers would be struck by lightning while picking up their next pay packet?’

No…oh well must just be me then, but in the eastern province of Kasai local team Bena Tshadi were playing visitors Basanga and were heading towards a 1-1 draw.

Now I have been to several games that were called off for the elements, and one away game in Boro that was called off for lack of snow, but they are a hardy bunch in the Congo and they played the game during a storm and the end result was…a lightning strike killed the entire team:

"Lightning killed at a stroke 11 young people aged between 20 and 35 years during a football match," reported the daily newspaper L'Avenir in Kinshasa. The account added that while 30 other people received burns, "the athletes from Basanga curiously came out of this catastrophe unscathed."

A tragedy, I won’t even be flippant about it, 11 people lost their lives, but for me the weirdest part of it all is, the opposition were not injured at all, it was as if the lightning had decided to take sides prompting the local paper to come up with this font of…well nothing really:

"The exact nature of the lightning has divided the population in this region which is known for its use of fetishes in football."