Sunday 19 May 2013

SANDINO SOCCER UPSET AS BRIDGWATER INTERNATIONAL SINK WITHOUT TRACE

Bridgwater International Cup losing Senior team
Every year Bridgwater International enters a team or two for the Bristol-Nicaragua twinning festival the 'Sandino cup', which pits international(ish) football teams against one another in a sunny playing field in the grounds of Ashton Court. This year we entered two teams Bridgwater international and Bridgwater International Juniors (who were marginally younger).

The bad news started when it became apparent that self-declared 'star player' Councillor Smedley pronounced himself temporarily unfit and within several minutes was asleep on the touchlines.

Dicky


Enter the Dicky
More bad news followed as traffic chaos on the M5 delayed the arrival of the junior team and master of all trades jack of none 'Dicky Weaving' , who was meant to be playing for the seniors.

Never mind. Time and Sandino waits for no one in particular and so off they went. 3 Slovaks and 2 Brits kicked off and within 14 minutes had lost 5.1 to Dynamo Henleaze. Meanwhile on the adjoining pitch, the Juniors still hadn't turned up so their first game against St.Werburghs Hotspurs was lost by default. 

is

And so it went on, until finally Dicky and the 7th cavalry arrived. Bridgwater Juniors clinched a sensational 1.0 victory over Real Madras and Bridgwater Seniors held the mighty Arno's Vale Academicals to a 1.1 draw.

But then it all turned to shit and they all lost the rest of their games finishing bottom of their respective groups, now with the prospect of playing each other in the supplementary competition for losers the Shit TrayTrophy. 

Sadly it wasn't to be. The Juniors went down several nil to the Easton Cowboys and the Seniors went down at least 3.0 to Red Star Bedminster.
Man of the match, Steve 'no goals' Miles


rubbish

On the positive side, much money was raised for Nicaragua, chimichangas were eaten and enchiladas donned as inappropriate headgear, whilst on the negative side one Bridgwater player was banned - although we're not sure whether this was for hitting someone or for not hitting one particularly rubbish referee.

STOP PRESS;- SENSATIONAL 'MATCH FIXING SCANDAL' INVESTIGATED.

Shortly after the tournament finished with  the surprise and frankly pathetic defeat of both Bridgwater teams, for who the organisers had to invent a new category of 'more than last' , revelations as to the role played by two apparently innocent and apparently female 'supporters' of the Bridgwater side present on the day. After extensive investigations by our team of experts and his mate Dave, it was shockingly revealed late last night in a kebab shop that the two nominally innocent 'groupies' were in fact multi billionaire Russian oligarchs working for the neo Stalinist Red Star Bedminster team who are currently in the pockets of top Putinista bathroom fittings magnate and UKIP donor, Frodo Tokalotashajt. 

former KGB 'match fixing' operatives at work
Laszlo and Dennis Grunszch, pictured left , told our reporter "Ok, so we paid Mr Dicky to throw the game, it's no secret now, but he knows we are holding his favourite toupee, the keys to his treasured Sinclair C5 and his poodle Trevor in a remote location in Vladivostok-so what would you do in his position? Ey? Big boy?" 

Answers on a postcard.



Saturday 18 May 2013

HUNGARIANS DROP IN ON A SUN-DRENCHED LA CIOTAT

Hungarian, Hungarian, French, Hungarian, French, Hungarian, British
Most Somerset towns are twinned with French  partner towns in nearby Normandy. Just pop across the channel and you're there. Not Bridgwater though. Oh no, we're twinned with a town in the South of France. Having said that, La Ciotat is just as easy, if not easier , to get to as any Norman twinning and , in fact, far more rewarding. While you're packing your car , driving to a Channel port, booking a ferry and driving off the other side, you can be popping up to Bristol airport, flying over to Marseilles or Nice and within 4-5 hours you'll be as much in La Ciotat as you would have been in Caen, Rouen or Bayeux. And it's sunnier.

La Ciotat was Bridgwater's first twinning. 1957 in fact. In recent years we've taken footballers and choir singers over there with the help of their Council and it's long established 'jumelage' committee. Lately, we've been trying to push the idea of 'triangulation', whereby Bridgwater has several twin towns, and our twin towns also have several twin towns, so why not introduce them all to each other. It can only be good for tourism, international friendship and economic development.

'a pretty balanced delegation'


Eszther on the Quayside in La Ciotat
So that's why in May 2013 we took across a group of people from Hungary. Zsolt Nemeth, a local councillor from Sarvar, his daughter Eszther, 'teacher of the year' Beata Kovacs,  from the Sebestien Tinodi High school and her daughter the lawyer Orsolya, seemed like a pretty balanced delegation.

Flying in to Nice from Vienna, it was less than 2 hours down the sunny coastal autoroute past Cannes and St Tropez to La Ciotat where gorgeous weather reigned supreme. The best hotel for us these days is the Croix De Malte, a delightful family run place that holds up to 70 people and a stones throw from the seafront in the centre of the town.  

'internationalisme'

Croix de Malte does great meals and we invited some friends from the local Partie Socialiste
Jean Louis and Zsolt share a toast
to join us to discuss current affairs and internationalism. And of course to make new friendships. Jean Louis LeSavre has been to Bridgwater many times and first came here in the early days of the twinning. "I don't speak English" he insisted. And then continued to speak near perfect English for the next 3 days.  Said Zenafi , known as 'the Capitaine' apparently because he owned a boat slightly bigger than himself, is the Chairman of the PS in La Ciotat and Laurent Karouby, a special needs teacher, the director of Communications, made up the host delegation who looked after us so well for our stay.


On Monday morning  we had a tour of the 'Route des Cretes', a spectacular cliff top road between La Ciotat and Cassis - temporarily closed due to the potentially incendiary nature of the flammable sagebrush  and high winds (le mistral was just dying down). But our buddies knew a different route and so we came at it from the Cassis direction first. From atop the cliffs - some of the highest in Europe, you can see azure seas as far as the eye can squint and tranquil bays either side of the massif.

Making Education links


Seeking out further helpful links we visited the newly established FRENGS language school, run by  Anglophiles Sebastien Lombardo and Gregory , who had met in Bournemouth and although not natives of La Ciotat, had moved there to set up their school. They helped us out for the afternoon with a guided tour of the city. They were particularly interested in our plans to take Media students to la Ciotat. After all, the first ever moving images were filmed in the town - the Lumiere brothers 'train entering a station' was filmed at la Ciotat station. Sebastian informed us of his own connection to the momentous event - "The railway lines came from St Etienne - and so do I!".

Their student Joelly was keen to practice her English on us and whisked away the Nemeths for a drive around the bay to Bandol and St Cyr Sur Mer, giving them a personalised tour.

'Keeping up Civic appearances'

Afterwards, it was time to meet some 'civics'. So it was off to the Town Hall where head of
Patzlaff and LeSavre-strong supporters of 'le Jumelage'
International Links Guy Patzlaff was waiting for us . He was very happy to welcome groups from any nation, and pointed Mr Nemeth in the direction of the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce in order to develop some of his ideas for business co-operation  between France and Hungary. With the involvement of our friends from Frengs, plus Mr LeSavre and Mr Patzlaff we had a general discussion about future link projects between our communities.


And so it was time for some Moules.  You can't visit France without trying some moules-frites. Mussels and chips. Yum yum i say.  Though maybe twice in a day is a bad plan. 

Vive les Moules-Frites


Zsolt & Said , while Francois Hollande looks on
On our last day we were invited by our PS friends for a little drink in their office to celebrate Europe , multi-culturalisme , le jumelage and to discuss the challenges ahead for us all. In Hungary they have neo-Nazis in uniform holding anti Jewish demonstrations openly on the streets of Budapest and in Britain we have the Europhobic neanderthals of UKIP  seeking to bring back smoke-filled pubs, put gay people back in closets and make sure migrant workers feel unwelcome, wreaking havoc in the polling booths and web forums. So any message that suggests that might be a slight step backward has to be a good thing. So we all drank to that.

Our informal visit had been a success, we had made some new contacts, spread a little international co-operation, contributed to the local economy and hadn't got drenched by the unseasonal rain. Until the last day in Nice...