Eleven years on, and they’re still wonderful.
Why someone – maybe the National Eisteddfod – can’t get them to the UK to perform is a mystery.
In the meantime, you have to come here or go to France where their brand of cabaret has a market.
My, times have changed.
Here in the cetacean centre of the world, for one wonderful first half Craig Bellamy gave Wales a strong sense of porpoise, only to get harpooned in a crazy second half.
Swear I heard the roar of relief from Vovchansk sweep across the stadium.
This one was for the boys and girls in the trenches, for sure!
And unlike in Munich many more Ukrainians were present. Roughly 6,000 againt Romania, perhaps 15,000 in smaller Dusseldorf.
Continue reading Ukraine Shap up nicely – Ukraine 2 Slovakia 1
Perhaps the most anticipated game in the country’s history, what a shame many Ukraine fans weren’t able to attend. Some, of course, are no longer with us.
Half an hour before kick off a friend in Poltava messaged: “We’ve just got a bomb near my mum. They’re OK but very scared. Have a nice time.”
Which pretty much put everything in perspective. In the two hours or so of this match, it’s likely a few Ukrainians died on the front line fighting Putin.
This game was for them.
Continue reading Ukraine mullered in Munich – Romania 3 Ukraine 0
MAX, the one-armed Armenian outdoor snooker supremo, was busy honing his skills as we strolled through Yerevan’s Victory Park.
Aged about 45, dressed in a blue shell suit and sporting three days’ bristle on his chin, he was the custodian of a tatty building with rotting timbers. Two pool tables stood on the grimy verandah.
This was Yerevan’s fabled outdoor snooker centre – a shanty town shack that looked ready to fall down.
A hundred yards away on top of a hill overlooking the city, a 100-foot high steel statue of Mother Armenia, surrounded by a tank, missile launcher and other armoured vehicles, stood sentinel over the capital.
Continue reading Outdoor snooker in Yerevan – Armenia 2 Wales 2 (2001)
Crumbling tenements, potholes in all the roads, a delapidated stadium and some of the most lacerating poverty I’ve ever seen. It could only mean one thing. We were in the back of beyond watching the Welsh under-21s again.
The Greatest Fans in the World hired a fleet of taxis for the 20-minute trip to Abovian – that’s Abovian, not Aberfan – to see if our boys could record their first win in howevermany matches it is (someone reckons it’s 16, but, like the u-21 players, none of us particularly care).
Continue reading The Road to Abovian – Armenia 1 Wales 0 (2001)
Well this one had war written all over it. Only thing missing was a Red Arrows flypast.
For starters, Metalist playing in their home city of Kharkiv risks bombs falling during the game without warning. So not much point playing there.
Here in Kyiv, sirens go off well before any cruise missile/Russian rocket hits the city. Most are shot down.
In Kharkiv, close to the border, you take your chances. One guy told me: ‘My friend there says that when they bomb he just goes to sit on the toilet and pray.’
Continue reading War games – Metalist 1925 Kharkiv 0 Vorskla Poltava 3
The famous meme of a Ukrainian farmer towing a Russian tank away is immortalised in this central reservation tribute.
It’s at KPI, about a mile from the central station on the main route west out of town.
The art hotel in Uzhhorod is, almost literally, bananas.
I told my Kyiv friend Anya and she said write about it, so this is for her.
For £32 a night you get breakfast and a splash of glitz.
From the top of the city’s Rotunda of People’s Friendship, this tribute to soldier can be see from a distance.
Up close, the mural is on the side of an eight-storey block of flats.
It features local lad Serhii Volynskyi, 31, who was one of the defenders of Mariupol, as commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade.
Does president Zelenskiy’s magical mojo extend to the team from his home town? They played like it has.
The crew from Kryvi Rih came back from one down to thrash the hosts with a slick, confident display that took them to top of the table for 24 hours until Shakhtar’s 1-1 draw returned them to first.
Last time I visited Vorskla, you could throw snowballs at the substitutes when it got boring. This time it was 28 degrees Centigrade.
Never too late to do something for the first time so it’s embarrassing to sample operetta this late in life.
Lviv National Opera being the perfect place to start.
Not a sell-out – ticket was 400 hrivna, about £9.
Miles from Nowhere 