Tintin and the Red Devils: Belgian football teams present new comic-themed shirt

Tintin and the Red Devils: Belgian football teams present new comic-themed shirt

You'll forgive me I trust for skipping forward chronologically with this next post (there are still some news stories from earlier in the year waiting in my Drafts folder), but this was too good an item to pass up and I wanted to publicise it while it was still a forthcoming event rather than a past one.  That event is a football match between England and Belgium, a "friendly" pre-season encounter prior to the Euro 2024 tournament (so I am told) due to take place next Tuesday the 26th March.

Blue jersey, brown shorts, white socks: Belgium’s new kit a tribute to comic book legend Tintin

I don't normally follow the football so what am I doing writing a post about it and the Belgian national team in particular, I hear you ask?  Well the answer is pretty self-explanatory (I hope!) from the accompanying articles.  Yes, the team has had the wonderful brainwave of paying homage to one of Belgium's greatest [fictional] sons - Tintin - by designing their 2024 away kit to emulate the famous boy reporter's best-known outfit!  That means a sky blue shirt with a white collar, brown shorts and white socks to create more than a passing (ahem) resemblance to the most recognised image of Hergé's great creation.  So if you are sitting down to watch the match on the 26th, don't be alarmed to see eleven Tintins running around the pitch - it isn't a group of Tintinoholic cosplayers invading Wembley stadium, just the Belgian national team. 

Tintin inspired away kit homage to cartoonist Hergé

This brilliant decision has made my week, I can tell you.  Imagine if Belgium made it all the way to the finals of Euro 2024?!  Eleven footballers dressed as Tintin, holding the cup aloft amid cheers and celebrations could catapult the character even higher in to the world's consciousness (and maybe even inspire Messrs Jackson & Spielberg to get on with the next instalment in their promised trilogy of films - whoops, nearly got on my soapbox then!).  Wouldn't it be something if all countries' football teams also fashioned their kits in the style of celebrated cultural icons?  (I struggle to think what England's would be - black and red stripes in honour of Dennis the Menace, perhaps?😕)  It could even encourage more people like me to take an interest in the sport if as much thought as this was put into the kits - in fact at the risk of appearing unpatriotic I may even tune in to watch the match next week and cheer the Belgian team on.

England vs. Tintin Belgium Euro 2024 Qualifier will be broadcast in the UK on Channel 4,
Tuesday 26th March 2024, kick-off at 7:45pm GMT

Scotland beat England in unique Penny Farthing bicycle polo match

Scotland beat England in unique Penny Farthing bicycle polo match

Back in 2010 I posted about The Great Race, a Penny Farthing bicycle race that takes place once every ten years in the Manchester suburb of Knutsford - and which therefore as it happens was due for a re-staging this year (this very month, in fact), but which has instead had to be put back to 2021 as a result of the ongoing Covid situation.  Something to look forward to next year, then, but in the meantime an equally quaint Victorian velocipedist sport recently took place in Richmond, London - Penny Farthing polo!

source - The Penny Farthing Club

An annual event, this, played this year at the Ham Polo Club's grounds in Richmond and known as the Penny Farthing Calcutta Cup it sees the traditional rivalry of Scotland versus England taken on to the polo field with a wonderfully eccentric twist.

Following much the same rules as equine-based polo, the two four-a-side teams play five chukkas of seven minutes' duration and the result of this particular match was an 8-7 victory for the Scots.  England are still in a strong position, though, leading the series 3-2, previous matches having been played this year in front of reduced crowds (usually in the thousands but currently restricted to 100 - suitably socially-distanced, of course) at Cowdray Park in West Sussex, Herne Hill in London and at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor.

It certainly looks like a lot of fun (the footage below is one chukka from last year's event), although I fancy one would have to be a particularly skilful Penny Farthing rider and polo player as indeed both teams' captains (and their teammates) are by the sound of things.  Even so it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a few tumbles and unseatings in the course of the matches!

source - Wikimedia Commons

It's splendid to see these charming Victorian machines continuing to be used and enjoyed today, especially in unusual circumstances such as these, thanks to the sterling efforts of enthusiasts like Neil Laughton (polo) and Glynn Stockdale (Great Race).  An instantly recognisable machine, the design of which is so closely associated with the 19th century, it is brilliant that they are still being produced today in various forms from traditional replicas to more modern interpretations for use by people from all ends of the cycling spectrum - be that vintagistas keen to master a more traditional cycle in keeping with their period of interest, up to competitive sportspeople such as the road racers and polo players mentioned here.  Long may that continue, and needless to say I will be rooting for England to wrap up the series and win the Penny Farthing Calcutta Cup for 2020 (with apologies to my Scottish readers!).

Podcasts reflect Amy Johnson's solo flight to Australia

Podcasts reflect Amy Johnson's solo flight to Australia

Another podcast to add to the list of those I posted about a month ago and again one of particular historical interest, celebrating as it does the 90th anniversary of aviatrix Amy Johnson's amazing solo flight from England to Australia over the course of nineteen days from the 5th to the 24th May 1930.

Amazing is just the word to describe her achievement considering she had only learned to fly less than a year previously, in July 1929, and by all accounts had barely 75 hours' solo flying experience when she took off from Croydon Aerodrome on the 5th May 1930 with the aim of beating the 15 days' record flight time to Australia that at the time was held by the pioneer Australian aviator Bert Hinkler.

Amy Johnson and her aeroplane Jason in India, May 1930 

As it turned out events conspired against Amy and she missed out on the record by only 4 days, however she was still rewarded with a CBE in the 1930 Birthday Honours and is rightly remembered as the first Englishwoman to fly solo to Australia (and later, in 1932, breaking the record for a solo flight from England to South Africa).

The enormity of her accomplishment(s) and the manner in which they captured the public's imagination at the time can best be appreciated through the sheer number of people both in England and Australia who turned out to greet her on her arrival/ return, as well as her having a popular song written and recorded in June 1930:







Her diary and notes from the Australian flight forms the basis of this series of podcasts created by the Amy Johnson Arts Trust, a charity based in Amy's home town of Hull, and which recreates day-by-day her remarkable journey in what is a very immediate and vivid performance.  They are, as the Trust's director suggests, an excellent and very timely way to mark Amy Johnson's remarkable feat and her important role as a pioneer of women's aviation.  I look forward to listening to them over the coming weeks and hope they will prove popular.



While researching for this post I also came across a recently uploaded amateur production from 2010 by Cambridge theatre company BAWDS, which looks worth watching, and of course the 1942 film They Flew Alone starring Anna Neagle as Amy is also highly recommended by this blogger.

Happy St George's Day

source

To all my followers, readers and visitors I wish you a

Happy Saint George's Day

Happy St. George's day 2012

Happy St. George's Day, one and all!  I hope the April showers haven't dampened any celebrations of the event!

Here's a bit of Vaughan Williams-esque Jeeves & Wooster - two of the most characteristically English performances of the 20th Century - to really set the mood for England's saint's day.



And hopefully put you in mind of (sunny!) hills and dales, rural villages and English traditions.  Enjoy the rest of the day!