November 21, 1945: Dynamo Moscow Kicks Off Sports' Cold War

Yes, the fog was that thick.

November 21, 1945, 80 years ago: The most-hyped game of the 1st visit of a Soviet soccer team to England, the sport's traditional birthplace, takes place. In hindsight, it can be called the event that kicked of the sports division of the Cold War.

In Communist countries, sports clubs, and the teams they fielded, were sponsored by state-owned industries. The countries' armies sponsored teams named "Central Club of the Army," or "CSKA" in Slavic languages. The national railroads sponsored teams named "Lokomotiv." The auto industry sponsored teams named "Torpedo." The teams most hated by the citizens, but with the most funding from the government and the most favorable decisions from government-appointed officials, were named "Dynamo."

Football Club Dynamo Moscow won the Soviet Top League in 1936, 1937, 1940 and 1945; and were regarded, along with Spartak Moscow, as the best team in the Soviet Union. So when World War II came to an end, Dynamo wanted to test themselves against what was seen as the best competition in the world: The British.

This was the age of radio. Television existed, but it hadn't yet done much to cover sports. Most of what people knew about sports was what they read in newspapers. So there was very little information on Dynamo for the British teams they would be facing, and their fans -- and vice versa: Dynamo knew very little about their opponents.

Interviewed for a 2001 documentary, Dynamo forward Konstantin Beskov said, "Until those games, we only knew that England was the motherland of football, that English football was the best in the world." One of Britain's national newspapers, The Evening Standard, wrote, "Don't expect much from Dynamo. They are only beginners, blue-collars, amateurs." They would regret that dismissive derision.

On Tuesday, November 13, Dynamo visited Chelsea Football Club, at Chelsea's West London stadium, Stamford Bridge. Officially, the crowd was 75,000 people. It was probably much more than that, given English "footie" fans' propensity to jam themselves into those vast "standing terraces." It's a wonder there weren't more disasters like Ibrox in 1971 and Hillsborough in 1989.

Chelsea, prior to the 1960s rarely even a good team, much less a challenge for Dynamo, took a 2-0 lead. Just before the half, Dynamo were awarded a penalty. Leonid Solovyov hit the post with his shot, and the Soviet side went into the locker room embarrassed. Whatever was said to them in the locker room, it worked: They came back to tie the game, 2-2, fell behind 3-2, and then tied it again near the end of the game, to end it 3-3.

Tommy Lawton, the former star of Liverpool team Everton FC who had recently been signed by Chelsea, said, "Dynamo were one of the fastest teams I have ever seen in my life. They flash the ball from man to man in bewildering fashion, often while standing still." Chelsea Captain John Harris said, "At least two of Lawton's kicks were of such a type that no goalkeeper would catch, but Khomich jumped like a tiger and caught them." The Soviet goalie was known as Tiger Khomich from then on.

On Saturday, November 17, Dynamo visited Cardiff City Football Club. England's Football Association, of which City were then 1 of 3 Welsh members, refused to rearrange their schedule to accommodate Dynamo, so City were the only team available, and they were in Division Three, equivalent to Class AA in modern baseball.

Wales, full of coal mines, steel mills and dockworkers, was openly sympathetic to socialism, and welcomed the Soviet team with open arms. But City were completely overwhelmed, as Dynamo beat them, 10-1.

The team with which Dynamo were most familiar, and the team they truly wanted to test themselves against, was Arsenal Football Club, winners of the Football League in 1931, '33, '34, '35 and '38. Dynamo badly wanted to play Arsenal at their North London home, the Arsenal Stadium, nicknamed Highbury for its neighborhood.

Having made trips to the Continent, including an annual home-and-home series on Armistice Day, November 11, with Racing Club de France in London and Paris, Arsenal were happy to make themselves available for this soccer "summit." But they could not do the same for Highbury: It had been commandeered by the British government at the outset of World War II, as an Air Raid Precaution Centre, and had not yet been returned to the club's control. Since 1939, Arsenal had been playing home games at White Hart Lane, the home of their arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, a.k.a. Spurs, 4.7 miles to the north.

A dirty little secret had gotten out: Dynamo had "drafted" 4 star players from other Soviet teams, including Spartak Moscow and CSKA Moscow. So the FA made arrangements for teams to "loan" some players to Arsenal, including Stanley Matthews of Staffordshire team Stoke City, a winger known as "The Wizard of Dribble," and possibly England's best player at the time. Another loanee was Stan Mortensen of Lancashire team Blackpool. With massive hypocrisy, the Soviets complained.

(In 1953, Blackpool, having acquired Matthews, won the FA Cup Final, with Mortensen scoring the only hat trick in the history of the Final, but Matthews had put on such a show that it's still remembered as "The Matthews Final.")

The game was set for Wednesday, November 21, but, as so often happened in those days before environmental regulations were passed, leading to outsiders nicknaming London "The Smoke," a thick fog settled over White Hart Lane. Still, the place was sold out, 54,000 strong, and the FA didn't want to issue refunds, so the game went on. The Soviet officials insisted on a Soviet referee, Nikolay Latyshev, who had accompanied the team. The FA agreed.

Writer George Orwell, who had recently published Animal Farm (Nineteen Eighty-Four was yet to come), was in attendance, and called the match "War minus the shooting." The Soviet players, knowing Matthews was the best player on either side of the pitch, targeted him for rough treatment.

Both goalies, Khomich and Arsenal's Wyn Griffiths, took more physical assaults than shots with the ball. Griffiths sustained a concussion, and had to be replaced for the 2nd half. Harry Brown, goalkeeper for West London team Queens Park Rangers, was in attendance, and, since the Soviets had negotiated for the right to a substitution, something the FA wouldn't allow in League and cup ties until 1966, they allowed Brown to step in for Griffiths.

Dynamo scored first, but Ronnie Rooke equalized shortly thereafter. Shortly before the half, there were 3 goals within a span of 4 minutes: Mortensen put Arsenal up 2-1, then he took another Matthews feed to make it 3-1, and then Beskov put the ball past Griffiths to make it 3-2.

The 2nd half was a travesty. Solovyov scored to tie it up, but multiple witnesses claimed he was blatantly offside. Latyshev let the goal stand. A little later, Arsenal thought they should have been awarded a penalty, but Latyshev denied it. Shortly after that, he sent Arsenal midfielder George Drury off for throwing a punch. No one else claimed to see the punch.

Vsevolod Bobrov, who became one of the Soviet Union's first great hockey players as well, received a Solovyov pass while offside, and scored. The goal was allowed to stand. Rooke was nearly brought down by a rugby-style tackle by Dynamo Captain Mikhail Semichastniy, opening a cut on his forehead, but elbowed him out of the way, giving him a black eye, and driving a 25-yard shot that beat Khomich. But instead of rightly allowing the goal and sending Semichastniy off, Latyshev waved off the goal and called Rooke for a foul.

So instead of what it should have been, 4-2 to The Arsenal, with Arsenal having 11 players on the pitch and Dynamo having 10 at most, it was 4-3 to Dynamo, with Arsenal down to 10 and Dynamo fielding... no one was sure how many. Dynamo took advantage of the fog to put more players on, with some accounts saying it was now 15 against 10.

The match ended 4-3 to Dynamo. The Daily Mail wrote, "It was one of the most exciting games 54,000 people never saw." Unusually for the paper known in modern times as the Daily Fail, it was the truth.

The controversy threatened to cancel the 4th and final game on the tour. But the FA were making too much money to bow to the wishes of the fans, and the finale went on. On Wednesday, November 28, Dynamo were hosted by Rangers Football Club, Scotland's most successful team, at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow. Despite Bobrov scoring what The Daily Telegraph called "as perfect a goal as has ever been scored at Ibrox," Rangers held on for a 2-2 draw.

Dynamo had finished the tour with 2 wins, 2 draws, and no losses. But all the goodwill they had generated in their games against Chelsea and Cardiff City was thrown away by their actions against Arsenal. The game with Rangers did them no good in the eyes of the British, or European, sporting public.

Dynamo would win the Soviet Top League again in 1949, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1963 and 1976. But they never won it again. Nor have they won its replacement, the Russian Premier League. They have long since been surpassed as Moscow's top team by Spartak and CSKA, and St. Petersburg team Zenit have also surpassed them among Russia's teams.

Nikolay Latyshev, the referee for the Arsenal-Dynamo match, went on to officiate at the 1962 World Cup Final, which featured a team from what was then a Communist nation, Czechoslovakia. But none of his calls in the game were considered controversial, and Brazil defeated the Czechs.

November 21, 1945 was a Wednesday. Actress Goldie Hawn was born on this day. 

January 2, 1971: The Ibrox Disaster

Stairway 13 after the disaster

January 2, 1971, 50 years ago today: The Ibrox Disaster occurs, at Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland. (It was renamed Ibrox Stadium in 1997.) There were 66 deaths, over 200 injuries.

The stadium opened in 1899, as the home of Rangers Football Club, a soccer team for the Protestant citizens of Glasgow. Their arch-rivals were Celtic Football Club, a team founded by and for Irish Catholics living in Glasgow.

These 2 teams -- Rangers in blue shirts, like their counterparts in New York hockey and Texas baseball, Celtic in green and white stripes, giving them the nickname "The Hoops" -- have dominated Scottish soccer, and, together, are known as "The Old Firm."

But perhaps no 2 teams in all of sport hate each other as much, because religion is thrown into the mix. It has made both teams much bigger than they ordinarily would have been. Celtic, not the University of Notre Dame, are the most famous Catholic-themed sports team in the world. They can call upon that heritage in ways that Rangers have tried to do with the world's Protestants, but just can't.

There had previously been a disaster at Ibrox on April 5, 1902, during a British Home Championship match between Scotland and England that ended 1-1. A section of the newly built West Tribune Stand collapsed, killing 25 people and injuring about 500 others. In 1961, 2 people were killed in a crush on the narrow Stairway 13, the exit closest to Copland Road subway station. In 1967, 8 fans were injured there. In 1969, there was an incident there, injuring 26 people.

Ibrox Park, as it was named, and would have appeared, in 1971

On January 2, 1971, the teams took the pitch at Ibrox, and over 80,000 people attended. The game remained scoreless until the 90th minute, when Jimmy "Jinky" Johnstone, often regarded as Celtic's greatest player ever, scored. And so, many of the Rangers fans got up to leave.

But in stoppage time, Colin Stein (like Celtic's manager, John "Jock" Stein, that's pronounced "STEEN," and isn't Jewish or German), scored an equalizer for Rangers. Hearing the roar of the fans who hadn't left, some of those who did turned around and tried to go back to see what had happened.

This proved fatal on Stairway 13. It is widely believed that someone tripped and fell, causing a domino effect. Bodies ended up being stacked up to 6 feet deep. Among the 66 deaths were 31 teenagers, and 5 children who were schoolmates from Fife.

The incident happened so late that the on-pitch people, including the players, and the fans still in the stands, didn't know what happened until after the game was over. The players for Celtic included 18-year-old forward Kenny Dalglish, who would become a star for the team, and later for Liverpool Football Club. He would be present for the Heysel Stadium Disaster of 1985, where 39 died; and the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster of 1989, which would surpass the Ibrox Disaster of 1971 as the deadliest sporting disaster in the history of the British Isles.

Rangers F.C. were sued, and, knowing the case was unwinnable, settled. Ibrox soon underwent a renovation, including a new Stairway 13. While the Hillsborough Disaster was the catalyst for all English stadiums converting to all-seater, the Ibrox Disaster led to most Scottish stadiums doing so far sooner, and Ibrox was all-seater by 1981. Today, it seats 50,817.

A recent photo of Ibrox Stadium

In 2001, on the 30th Anniversary of the tragedy, a monument with the names of the victims was dedicated. It includes a statue of John Grieg, their Captain in 1971, and often regarded as their greatest player ever.

In 2011, on the 40th Anniversary, Grieg and Billy McNeill, Celtic's Captain at the time (though he was injured and didn't play in the game in question), led the current versions of their respective teams out for a pregame ceremony.

Foreground: McNeill (left) and Grieg.

Background: 2011 Captains Scott Brown (left) and David Weir.

Celtic won the game, 2-0.

The teams still play each other on New Year's Day when it can be arranged. When they do, they put their hate aside and commemorate the tragedy.

What Is "Over the Line" in Fan Chants?

Warning: This post contains filthy language. In this case, I'm not just using it just for the heck of it, or to express my own anger over anything. I'm using it to quote others, to make a point.

February 6, 1958: The Munich Air Disaster. While not the worst disaster that any sports team has ever faced -- there had been, and have since been, in-stadium incidents with greater loss of life -- and later plane crashes have wiped out entire American teams (the 1961 U.S. figure skating team, the 1970 Marshall University and Wichita State University football teams, the 1977 University of Evansville basketball team), it remains the worst loss any professional team has ever faced: 23 dead, including 8 Manchester United soccer players.

Among the 21 who survived were a badly hurt team manager Matt Busby, and 2 other players who survived but were so badly injured that they never played again. This U.S.-based newsreel compares it to the defending World Series winners, the Milwaukee Braves, being involved in a crash.

Two years later, on January 18, 1960, came the closest any North American professional team has come to this happening: The Minneapolis Lakers, nearly mirroring another recent and nearby plane crash (the one that killed Buddy Holly and 3 others on February 3, 1959), were flying from an away game in St. Louis back to Minneapolis, when a snowstorm forced them down into an Iowa cornfield.

(Naturally, team owner Bob Short's reaction was to move the team to Los Angeles in the following offseason, meaning they had to do a lot more flying.)

There are 3 United players who survived the crash and are still alive, 55 years later, following the death last year of Kenny Morgans: Harry Gregg, Bill Foulkes, and Bobby Charlton, who went on to be the centerpiece of the rebuilt United team that won several trophies in the 1960s, and was the leading scorer of the England team that the 1966 World Cup.

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Last night, the New Jersey Devils played the New York Rangers. We beat The Scum, 3-1.

I've been calling the Rangers, the Yankees' arch-rivals the Boston Red Sox, and East Brunswick High School's arch-rivals Old Bridge "The Scum" since I got interested in English soccer, as that term is usually used for an arch-rival team.  Fans of said rivals are often called "Scummers."

Most North American fan behavior usually doesn't get more imaginative than, "Hey, (person's name): You suck!" The English, European and South American soccer chants are much more inventive.

Example: In 1992, Rome-based club Lazio bought Paul Gascoigne from Arsenal's arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur. "Gazza" was immensely talented, but he was mentally ill, and an alcoholic. The extent of his psychological impairment would not be known for many years, but his boozy reputation was already known.

And when Lazio played their arch-rivals Roma at the Olympic Stadium (which the two clubs share despite their fans despising each other), the Roma fans had this chant:

UBRIACONE CON ORECCHINO
PAUL GASCOIGNE DARCI UN BOCCHINO

Literally translated, it's "Drunkard with an earring! Paul Gascoigne, give us a little kiss!" But in Italian slang, "Bocchino" can also mean "blowjob."

Did Gascoigne, with his heavy "Geordie" accent (he was from the Newcastle area), mind this? Nope: As the Welshman Ian Rush said when going from Liverpool to Turin's Juventus, the language barrier wouldn't be much of a problem because, "I have enough trouble with English."

But the Lazio fans are known for outrageous behavior. Their hardcore fans, their "ultra," occupy the Stadio Olimpico's Curva Nord -- the north end of the oval stadium. Roma's ultras occupy the south end, the Curva Sud.

And with their fascist background -- Lazio were said to be the favorite team of 1922-43 dictator Benito Mussolini -- they have frequently held up a banner suggesting that Roma have Jewish fans and rely on black players:

Squad of blacks, stand of Hebrews -- though, in this case, "Negri" is the Italian equivalent to what we in America now call "the N-word."

I should note that "ghetto," a word generally associated in America with poor black neighborhoods since the mid-20th Century, previously described Jewish urban neighborhoods, and was originally coined to describe the Jewish neighborhood of Medieval Rome.

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When is sports fan behavior "over the line"? When do fans go too far?

Fans of United's in-city rivals, Manchester City, have had to spend the last 20 years hearing about how Alex Ferguson's teams have won trophy after trophy, largely due to on-field cheating and the intimidating of officials. They are sick of not just the cheating, but the failure of the Football Association (English soccer's governing body) to punish them for it, because a successful United makes a shitload of money for the FA -- and for the British TV networks.

This is true in North American sports: The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry generates money, and so U.S. sports media outlets have an interest in both teams being good, even if, for the moment, the Red Sox can't keep up their end of the bargain. (UPDATE: That was about to be reversed, for both teams.)

Larry Bird and his Boston Celtics in the 1980s, Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, Kobe Bryant and his Los Angeles Lakers the last 13 years, and now LeBron James and his Miami Heat, can play rough and travel and do all kinds of things that the rules, or at least ethics, say shouldn't be done, and the NBA doesn't care. Sidney Crosby can dive all over the place and whine like a little bitch, and the NHL will love it.

And, just as CBS' NFL broadcasts once got it labeled the Cowboys Broadcasting Service, so, too, has NBC been nicknamed the Notredame Broadcasting Company. When certain teams -- usually teams that are in, or, as with Notre Dame, otherwise fit the pattern of, a "big market" -- do well, they are allowed to do better than they deserve.

Meanwhile, from 1976 (the League Cup) until 2011 (the FA Cup), 35 years, Man City didn't win a single trophy of any significance. In 2012, a Sergio Agüero goal in the last minute of the last game of the season meant that City won the League. Had it not been scored, United would have won it, as the tiebreakers would have worked in their favor.

But the Man City fans have occasionally reacted poorly to Man U's ill-gotten gains.  On occasion, they have referenced the Munich crash in their chants. The most common one is to the tune of "The Aeroplane Song":

Who's that dying on the runway?
Who's that lying in the snow?
It's Matt Busby and the boys
making all the fucking noise
'cause they couldn't get the aeroplane to go!

You think I'm kidding? Here's a clip:

Notice that the singers include women, and even kids.  And there are cops there, and they do nothing about it.

Liverpool and Leeds United, also rivals of Manchester United, have also used this song. But Liverpool are the only ones I know of whose fans have actually batted an airplane-shaped balloon around the stands.

Naturally, United fans get all righteous when the Munich crash is referenced. But they go even lower when it comes to Liverpool, the club they replaced as the most successful in England, and near enough to them (33 miles, roughly the distance between my residence and Midtown Manhattan) to be considered their "real rivals."

After the Heysel Disaster, in which 39 Juventus fans were killed in an accident at the 1985 European Cup Final in Brussels, Belgium, Liverpool fans have since been branded "murderers." (Juventus won the game, beating Liverpool 1-0.)

The deaths of the Juve fans were not Liverpool fans' fault at all: They ran from threats, and ran into a wall that collapsed, at a stadium that was too unsafe to host any event, much less Europe's biggest sporting event, what's now known as the UEFA Champions League Final. The old Heysel Stadium has since been demolished, and replaced with the new King Baudouin Stadium.)

Four years later, on April 15, 1989, Liverpool were playing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup Semifinal, on neutral ground at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, home of Sheffield Wednesday. Arsenal in 1973, Tottenham in 1981, Leeds United in 1987, and Liverpool and Forest themselves in 1988 had all had near-disasters in the stands at that stadium, when stadium stewards and South Yorkshire Police did a poor job of getting them in, and people were nearly crushed and asphyxiated.

When it was Liverpool vs. Forest again in 1989, "nearly" didn't happen: "Actually" happened. Over 600 people were hurt, 96 of them killed, all of them Liverpool fans.

The "Murderers!" chants got worse, and while other clubs have used it, it's Man United fans who use it the most. They also chant, "Ninety-six was not enough!" To the tune of "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day," they still sing, "I Wish It Could Be Hillsborough Every Day!"

This, above and beyond their unearned success, is why Manchester United, while also the most-loved sports team on the planet, are the most hated sports team on the planet. And there's a lot more people who hate them than love them.

Man City fans, for reasons known only to them, have adapted "Winter Wonderland" to sing this about Sir Bobby Charlton, United's greatest player:

There's only one Bobby Charlton.
There's only one Bobby Charlton.
With a packet of sweets
and a cheeky little smile
Charlton is a fucking pedophile.

Charlton is one of the most admired living figures in sport on Earth, and, as far as I know, there is not one shred of evidence of him being guilty of such crimes.

Nor is there any such evidence against Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger. Tottenham fans sing the same song about him, because he seems to favor young players over older ones.

But it's not just Tottenham, who at least have the lame excuse of being less than 5 miles from Arsenal and the glory that Wenger has brought to the club (on top of what it had already earned): Man United fans, to the tune of "La Donna e Mobile" from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto, have sung, "Sit down, you pedophile!" at Wenger.

Man United fans are pure evil. All the songs about the Munich crash combined do not justify their despicable behavior.

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Except it's not just them, or Tottenham fans, who are truly loathsome creatures. When Sol Campbell, Tottenham's Captain, played out his contract in 2001 and signed with Arsenal, even before he helped Arsenal win the League and the FA Cup ("doing The Double") in the very next season, and helped Arsenal clinch the 2004 League title at Tottenham's stadium, the "Spurs" fans sang this about Sol, who is black:

Sol, Sol, wherever you may be
you’re on the verge of lunacy!
And we don’t give a fuck
if you’re hanging from a tree
you Judas cunt with HIV!

Like I said: Loathsome creatures.

And this kind of behavior has come to our shores. I was a New York Red Bulls season ticket holder last year, in the South Ward at Red Bull Arena. (I did not renew my ticket, although I will be going to games this season.) And in the 2nd half, when the visiting team would defend the south goal, we would sing the "Packet of sweets" song about the opposing goalkeeper. And we have no way of knowing whether the charge is true -- and it almost certainly is not true for any of those goalies.

With Red Bull Arena being located in Harrison, New Jersey, which is next-door to Kearny, a lot of people from those towns come to the Arena. Many of them are of Scottish descent and root for Glasgow club Rangers. Many of them are of Irish descent and root for Rangers' in-city arch-rivals, Celtic, with their history of assisting Scots of Irish descent.

"The Troubles" in Northern Ireland have lent themselves to "sectarian" songs, with Rangers fans singing about "Fenian blood" and Celtic fans singing songs in praise of the Irish Republican Army. When Rangers fans want to insult Celtic fans' Catholic faith, they shout an obscenity about the Pope. When Celtic fans want to insult Rangers fans' British Unionism, they reverse said obscenity onto Queen Elizabeth II. (Even in this post, I won't post the exact words. Although I am not an admirer of the current Pope, I deeply admired both John Paul II and Elizabeth II.)

There was one pro-Celtic, anti-Rangers chant that I thought was in bad taste, but still funny. A few years back, Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Most people hear "schizophrenia" and think "multiple-personality disorder." That's wrong: They're thinking of "schizoid tendencies."

Nevertheless, to the tune of "Guantanamera" (written by Cuban poet-soldier José Martí, but popularized in America by folksinger Pete Seeger), they altered the traditional, "One (name of player), there's only one (name of player)!" to sing, "Two Andy Gorams, there's only two Andy Gorams!"

However, when the Scotland national team plays, Celtic and Rangers fans swallow their differences and unite for their "country." And Red Bulls fans, no matter who they support in Europe, leave their international support aside and unite.

Whether Arsenal or Tottenham, Liverpool or Man United, Celtic or Rangers, Real Madrid or Barcelona, or (with the Portuguese community right across the Passaic River in Newark's Ironbound section) Benfica or Sporting Lisbon, they leave each other alone and support the Red Bulls. I have seen occasional scuffles in the South Ward, and not between Red Bulls fans and opposing fans dumb enough to buy a ticket in those sections. But it doesn't happen often.

One of the songs that is sung in the South Ward is by the London-based punk act Cock Sparrer, a minor British hit in 1983:

Take 'em all!
Take 'em all!
Line 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em!
Short and tall!
Watch 'em fall!
Come on, boys, take them all!
Take them all!
Watch them fall!
Take them all!
Watch them fall!
Take 'em all...
(repeat until you get tired and want to sing a new song)

In the wake of the mass shootings of 2012, especially the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, this song should probably be retired, no matter how much fun it is.

It's over the line.

Thankfully, Major League Soccer has, for the most part, been spared the violence of games in Britain, Europe, and South America.

But not for a lack of provocation.

Sort of makes "Yankees suck!" "Boston sucks!" and "Dallas sucks!" seem tame by comparison.

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UPDATE: On February 18, 2015, West London team Chelsea, whose fans have a history of right-wing bigotry -- the National Front and the English Defence League both recruited from their ranks starting in the early 1980s -- played a Champions League match against the defending French Champions, Paris Saint-Germain. On the way back, a group of their fans filled up a car on the Paris subway, and refused to let a black man on, chanting, to the tune of "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March, "We're racist, we're racist, we're racist, and that's the way we like it, we like it, we like it!"

On September 16, 5 months later, Simon Rowntree, a freelance soccer writer, was covering another Champions League match between Chelsea, by then the defending Premier League Champions, and the defending Champions of Israel, Maccabi Tel Aviv, for whom I have an affinity not just for some Jewish heritage, but also because their home is called Bloomfield Stadium, sharing a name with my original hometown. On Twitter, he posted:

I am at Stamford Bridge and I can hear Chelsea fans singing "We will, we will gas you" along with other anti-semitic chants (1/2)

and making hissing noises towards the direction of the Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters. This is simply disgusting. (2/2)

Chelsea fans are animals.

Yankees 3, Arsenal 1

How does that Rod Stewart song go?

You're an essay in glamour
please pardon the grammar
but you're every schoolboy's dream.
You're the Yankees and Arsenal
go on, take it personal
but you're the best team I've ever seen.

Actually, it's, "You're Celtic, United, but baby, I've decided... " But it's hard to root for a team with the same name as one from Boston, even if it's Glasgow soccer; and I won't root for Manchester United unless they're playing the Rangers. The New York Rangers. Or maybe the Mets. Or the Red Sox.

So the question coming into today, the next round of my Great Premiership Experiment, was... who was going to score more, the Yankees or Arsenal?

That the question even has to be asked is not funny in the slightest.

Arsenal played West Bromwich Albion, a team from England's "Black Country" in the West Midlands. The newly-signed French player Samir Nasri scored in the 4th minute, and then Arsenal coasted the rest of the way, winning 1-0.

In the game I watched at their New York Supporters' Club official watering hole, the 11th Street Bar on the Lower East Side, Liverpool was pretty good on defense, but on offense they were terrible. Of course, when it's 11 against 14...

Apparently, being English is no defense against lunkheaded officiating. I kept thinking of the song I read about in one of the books about "football" I've been reading: "Oh, Graham Poll... you're a f---ing ar$ehole... " But he's retired, so we can't blame him. (Note: This was before I began regularly using profanity in this blog.)

This one was the opposite of the Arsenal-West Brom game, where the team I was pulling for struggled most of the game before a late score. Fernando Torres scored in the 82nd minute, and it was "Sunderland 0 - 1 Liverpool." The Reds (though wearing their road grays) walked on through the wind, walked on through the rain, though their dreams were tossed and blown, and beat the North-East club.

Blackburn Rovers 3, Everton 2 -- the winning goal scored in injury time, the 94th minute. Everton had a 2-1 lead at home, and they blew it. "Two-one, and you f---ed it up! Two-one, and you f---ed it up!"

The Liverpool supporters seemed to greatly enjoy seeing that highlight at halftime of their game, seeing their city rivals (whom they call "the bitters" because of their fans' bitterness over LFC's success) embarrass themselves. Unlike their rivals, Everton appears to walk alone. I, however, picked the result of that game wrong.

Middlesbrough 2, Tottenham Hotspur1. Got that one right, but how hard was that? "Sp*rs" -- apparently, Arsenal fans, a.k.a. Gooners, have to type it like that because they consider it a profanity -- were on the road, against a good team (another North-East club), and, we'll, they're, you know, Tottenham. If Arsenal is the Yankees of London "football," and Chelsea having bought 2 titles after decades of none is the Red Sox, then Sp*rs are the M*ts.

(UPDATE: In 2013, I did a post about how the Mets are not "the Tottenham of New York," the Rangers are. And, since then, the Red Sox' owners have bought Liverpool FC. But the Red Sox are still more like Chelsea in how they behave.)

Bolton Wanderers 3, Stoke City 1. Got that one right. Hull City 2, Fulham 1. Picked a road win there, and got it wrong. West Ham United 2, Wigan Athletic 1. I didn't even pick that game, so I have to score it a tie. One point for me, instead of three for a win.

Overall, for my first-ever attempt at picking Premiership games, 4 wins, 2 losses, 1 tie, a percentage of .643 (counting a tie as a half-win) -- 4-2, .667 in the games I actually tried.

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Back in New York, there was a great story about how the local supporters' clubs of Liverpool and Glasgow's Rangers got together for a charity "friendly" and raised $5,000 for local youth soccer. Here's the story: http://www.lfcny.org/

That's another one where I would've had to root for Liverpool. A team in red, against a team in blue called "Rangers"? Yeah, that's a hard choice. Even if the only team in the Premiership with a "Devilish" nickname is the Red Devils of Manchester United -- Boooooooo!

But pretending it's hockey makes it a lot easier to watch, as there are a lot of similarities, particularly when the team you're rooting for seems to have forgotten how to pass the damn rock!

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And in a game actually played in New York, the Yankees blew opportunity after opportunity... and beat the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in the bottom of the 13th inning. Brett Gardner, called up when Melky Cabrera got sent down because he wasn't hitting squat, got the winning hit. A message.

Am I relieved? Yes. Am I encouraged? Not yet, although we gained back a game on Tampa.

The Met bullpen nearly blew it for Pedro Martinez, but they were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates, who haven't had a winning season, much less made the postseason, since the fall of 1992, when the elder George Bush was President and lost to Bill Clinton (or, if you prefer, since John Major won his one and only general election and the "First Division" became the "Premier League"). The Mets hung on to beat the Bucs.

The New York media, as you might guess, slobbered over Brett Favre's first game as a Jet, saying how great he was. First of all, it was an exhibition game. Second of all, they lost, to the Washington Redskins, a mediocre team these last few years.

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Yes, it's Superman. Strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman! Who can swim the course of mighty rivers, break world records in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Michael Phelps, mild-mannered swimmer for the U.S. national team, fights a never-ending battle for truth! justice! and the American way!

You got a better explanation of how Phelps went 8-for-8, setting world records in each event, topping by one the 1972 achievement of Mark Spitz, and raising his career total to 14 Gold Medals, an Olympic record that may never be matched?

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The Yankees have to make their move. Yesterday has to be the beginning.