Newsletter Summer 2006		page 4 of 4

The Apple Farm, Moorstown, Cahir, Co. Tipperary

Soccer, By Willem Traas

In our spring newsletter I wrote about Religion. This time I write about soccer.
This summer we had the World Championships in Germany. In all, 32 countries took part. Ireland did not take part because they did not qualify.
Some of the great teams of the World were there, such as Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, England and Italy. We also saw the most famous players like Zidane, Ronaldinho, Henri, Rooney and Gerrard. There are no bad players at that level. But some are better than others. Zidane is still my favourite. I cannot think of any player who gave me more enjoyment watching him. It is funny that so many games are played with a ball. Hurling, golf, snooker: think about it. There are even games that are played with a ball which is not round. Rugby is one of these of course. The ball does not roll but hops. You never know where it is going.
I played soccer too in my young days. That is the time when Pele, Bobby Charlton, Beckenbauer and Eusebio were big names. And Cruif from Holland.
Well I was no George Best. I ran after the ball for 90 minutes, but I had no speed. And I was bad in the air, as they call it now. I did not like to head the ball. It would break your neck. You see, at that time the ball was very heavy. Especially when it got wet, you could not shift that ball.
When I was a child we had no football. To play soccer, the children would go to the butcher, and blow up the bladder of a pig. The bladder never lasted long, so we planned to get a real ball.
Now there was a company making "Zoete koek", some kind of sweet bread. In each loaf was a letter, and when you had all the letters of the company called "Barenburg", you could send away for a free ball. It took us months of eating zoete koek until we had all the letters. I remember it well. The ball we got was a Wimbledon size 3.
Our club was called "On the Bult". That means "on the hump". Because there was a big hump in the middle of the pitch. We made our own wooden goalposts as well. We put them up before the match, and hid them in a small canal afterwards. That was because it was wartime, and if people found them, they would cut them up for firewood. After a while I got football boots as well. The name was "King". They had a steel toecap. Unfortunately, a bit of steel came through the leather and eventually it got so painful that I did not want to kick the ball at all. And that was kind of the end of my soccer playing. But I did play once in the first team of our town, and I would have played there more often if I had not changed to basketball where the girls took part too.
So that is all for now about soccer. I hope that Ireland qualifies for the European championships.

Page 1: June Drop

Page 2: News from The Apple Farm

Page 3: Recipe: Raspberry Cake

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