Playing the Moldovans At Tennis (20 page)

'I don't believe it!' said a frustrated Trevor, when I bumped into him in reception after a worthy cooked breakfast. They want to put back the sightseeing tour because they've decided that the players need to do some training this morning.'

Training? All they're doing today is sightseeing and watching the senior team play.'

'Well, Ivan wants them to be in tip-top condition for both.'

'Ivan? Who's Ivan?'

'He's the trainer.'

Logical enough. That's why he had them training.

'How about the bosses?' I asked. 'Did you ask them last night if they agree in principle to me playing the match?'

Three out of four said yes. I've still got to ask Ivan.'

'He's not Ivan the Terrible, I hope.'

'No,' he joked, 'more Ivan the Bloody Awkward.'

The morning was as frustrating as they come. A veritable test of patience. I waited on a seat in the corner of reception for two hours while Moldovan players and officials came and went, all of them variously displaying expressions of vagueness, downright confusion, disorientation and bewilderment. I was powerless, other than to sit and wait.

'What's happening?' I asked Catalin, the nice Romanian lad who was studying English at Trinity College and had been roped in as team translator.

'Nobody knows,' he shrugged.

Twenty minutes later I found myself momentarily empowered. Having returned to my room to fetch a book, I saw a familiar track-suited figure approaching me from the other end of the hotel landing. I had spent one and a half hours watching this guy the previous evening so I knew him to be Sergei Rogaciov. Here was a chance to by-pass all the red tape and to confront the young man head on. The only problem was that I knew he spoke no English.

Never mind. There was one sentence which Elena had taught me back in Moldova and which I had spent hours mastering. I had only really learned it as a joke, but now I found myself in the situation for which it was absolutely tailor-made. I could not waste this opportunity. As Rogaciov drew level with me, I raised my hand to gain his attention and announced;

'Ma numesc Tony. Sint din Anglia. Am fàcut un pariu, cà-i voi bate la tenis pe toti din echipa nationala de fotbal. Vreti sà jucati cu mine?'

Rogaciov stared at me and then he shook his head. Was this a refusal? Did he just not want to play me? Was he going to be the first Moldovan footballer to turn me down flat?

Not knowing what else to do, I repeated the question.

'Mā numesc Tony. Sint din Anglia. Am fàcut un pariu, cà-i voi bate la tenispe toti din echipa nationala de fotbal. Vreti sà jucati cu mine?'

This time Rogaciov screwed up his face and shrugged. I think I knew what was going on now.

Although I thought I'd said
'My name is Tony. I am from England. I have made a bet that I can beat the entire national football team at tennis. Will you play with me?',
the appalling accent in which the words had been delivered meant that what Rogaciov had heard, in the equivalent of his own language, had been:

'My name is Stony. I am from Angland. I have made a bott that I can seat the entire national football team at tonic. Will you pale with me?'

Understandably enough, the young footballer stood before me looking like he'd cry if I said anything more to him in this strange language.

'You don't understand, no?' I tried in English.

He screwed up his face again, mainly because– he didn't understand, no. The poor fellow didn't need this. He'd probably just popped up to his room for a dump and hadn't expected to be intercepted by a strange man confronting him with a diverse range of unintelligible sounds.

Luckily for both of us, Catalin appeared and was able to enlighten Rogaciov as to what I'd been trying to communicate to him. When he had finished, the footballer looked no less comfortable. I doubted whether he had ever experienced a more surreal ten minutes.

'I have explained what you want him to do,' said the co-operative Catalin, 'but he says that he does not feel very well.'

'Oh dear. Can you tell him that it will not take long, and that if he doesn't play me, then I will have to strip naked in London and sing the Moldovan National Anthem.'

Catalin did so, and Rogaciov responded with an ambiguous look which could have been a display of any one of four emotions. Frustration, resignation, defiance or downright despair. He grunted a reply.

'He says that he will see how he feels,' said Catalin.

Thank you. Thank you,' I grovelled in his direction. 'I am sorry to have bothered you.'

The successful resolution of this bet looked like it was going to require competence in
basic grovelling
rather than on having a powerful serve and good ground strokes.

I returned to my corner seat in the hotel reception a worried man. There was no getting away from it, if Rogaciov was ill, then Rogaciov was ill. No room for debate on the matter. I chastised myself for having taken on a bet, the outcome of which could be dependent on whether a 20-year-old was feeling off colour or not. I felt like a man carrying a vase which was so fragile it could shatter in my hands at any moment.

When Catalin explained that Rogaciov's general mood had not improved and that Ivan the Bloody Awkward was still living up to his name, I declared that I thought that the game was probably up, but Trevor was having none of it.

'Leave it to me,' he proclaimed, before disappearing outside into the car park.

Five minutes later he returned.

'It's all sorted,' he said. 'Mick the driver is going to stop the coach at some local courts and we can all get off while you play your match. We're going to make it part of their sightseeing tour.'

'But what if Rogaciov is still not feeling well?' I asked.

'He can't be that ill. He was playing international football last night. When we announce the match in front of all his mates, I bet he'll be up for it.'

'And what about Ivan?' asked Catalin.

We'll ride roughshod over Ivan. The other three officials have said it's OK, so stuff him.'

It was an exceedingly lucky break for me that Trevor Irskine had become so determined that my match with Rogaciov should take place. It was almost as if the successful conclusion of this game of tennis would represent a small personal triumph over the Moldovan bureaucracy which had dogged him during the past couple of days. I had no complaints. His feeling that way was very handy. Very handy indeed.

When Mick pulled the coach off the road and parked it alongside the tennis court, I rose to my feet and did exactly what Trevor had suggested.

'Now we are going to take a short break from the sightseeing tour,' I proclaimed, waving two tennis rackets in the air, 'while we settle a very important matter. I am going to play Sergei Rogaciov at tennis!'

This was greeted with cheers from his team-mates, who had presumably only understood two words –
tennis
and
Rogaciov.
I marched down the central aisle and handed a racket to Rogaciov, who was now enjoying being the centre of attention and was responding positively to the reactions of his colleagues. From the front of the coach I heard Trevor's booming voice.

'Come on everyone, let's go!' he called, eagerly waving his arms to usher everyone off the coach.

Amazingly everyone responded. Everyone, that is, except Ivan. He sat there stony faced as his fellow countrymen filed off the bus with remarkable obedience. Trevor and I smiled at each other as we saw the players and officials making their way to the tennis court. Marvellous. The yiddish word for it is
chutzpah,
I believe. I glanced at Catalin, who was shaking his head in disbelief.

'Amazing– you did it!' he said, as I alighted from the coach.

'Not yet, I still have to beat him,' I replied.

'You will, you will.'

'Ever used one of these?' I asked, handing him my video camera.

'A couple of times, yes.'

'In that case I've got a job for you.'

Catalin, in his role as chief cameraman, was able to record a remarkable scene, as an entire squad of footballers and their attendant entourage lined the side of a tennis court to witness a distinctly one-sided tie-break. Rogaciov had made a remarkable recovery, truly rising to the occasion by walking on to the court with his racket held proudly above his head and chanting 'I am the champion, I am the champion!'

Fortunately for me he wasn't the champion, or if he was, then he was the champion of a version of tennis in which the ball was not required to clear the net. To be fair to Rogaciov though, he was one of the better Moldovan footballers I had played to date, possibly second best to Oleg Sischin, whom I still reckoned to have been the most talented. This having been said, it was no great accolade. Any innocent passer-by, on viewing Rogaciov's performance, would still have been moved to remark:

'Goodness, what a dreadful tennis player.' (And not necessarily in such polite language, either.)

I coasted home 11-3. The crowd cheered, Rogaciov smiled, Trevor punched the air, and I jumped for joy. Upon landing, I experienced an enormous feeling of relief. I had now played and beaten the three players I'd come here for, but it had been a tense affair. Too tense for comfort. Now, with the ordeal over and my noble quest still alive, I could relax and enjoy the rest of my stay.

I had never been sightseeing with a squad of Under 21 footballers from Moldova before, and I was reasonably confident that I wouldn't do so again. It certainly wouldn't be something I'd be requesting. They were a nice enough bunch of lads, but at this stage of their lives, theirs was not really a quest for knowledge. Consequently at the first stop, the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, they displayed an interest in the whiskey-distilling process as minuscule as Ivan the Bloody Awkward's general desire to lend me a helping hand. We were in and out of that place before you could say 'Jack Daniels'.

At Portstewart, Trevor's offer of a beautiful shore-side walk was rejected following an overwhelming vote
against,
and instead a team photo was organised which, for some strange reason, I was invited to join. As I stood in the back row, quite clearly not a footballer, not Moldovan, and just possibly not looking under 21, I wondered what the players' friends and family would make of it in years to come.

Who's that guy?' they'd ask, pointing at me.

'Oh that was an Englishman who played tennis against Sergei Rogaciov.'

'I see.'

'Now they
must
want to see the feckin' Giant's Causeway,' said a frustrated Trevor, who took it personally each time one of the stops on his tour was rejected.

I knew that I certainly did, never having seen it before. On the previous occasions when I'd been in this part of the world, a visit had been prevented either by a lack of time or having the burden of a refrigerator as a travelling companion. But now, as the coach drew closer to this extraordinary geological wonder – thousands of basalt hexagonal columns extending from the cliffs down to the sea – we were informed that Ivan had announced that he did not want us to stop the coach here because we did not have time to pay it a visit. Trevor couldn't believe it.

'He's only saying that if we stop here,' he moaned, returning to his seat beside me, 'they won't have time to go shopping in Belfast.'

'Maybe that's why he is the way he is,' I ventured, 'because he's the sort of guy who favours shopping for a track suit over visiting one of the earth's wonders. I don't think he's a very sensitive man.'

'Me feckin' neither.'

As the Moldovan party set off to enjoy the world renowned pleasures of the Castlecourt Shopping Centre, Belfast, Trevor and I said goodbye.

'Listen Trevor, I really do appreciate all your help,' I said. 'I honestly don't think I could have done it without you.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares? The point is you've done it. Now you've got to make sure you get the guy in Israel.'

'I promise to do my best.'

'Are you going to the game tonight?'

'You bet I am.'

'I'll probably see you there.'

The European Championship qualifying game between Northern Ireland and Moldova kicked off that night at Windsor Park, Belfast, at 8.00 pm. It was the first time I'd watched an international football match in which I'd played tennis against so many of the players on the pitch. Oddly I knew nothing about them as footballers, but suffice it to say that this was a sport in which they gave a much better account of themselves.

I watched the first half in the stands, seated next to a little old man who was grateful enough for someone to talk with, but was possibly just a little disappointed by the nature of most of my offerings.

That was Oleg Fistican,' I'd remark. 'Nice guy – two handed on both sides – ooh and that was Curtianu with that shot – he speaks good English, you know.'

'Is that so?' he'd reply politely, instead of saying what he was really thinking:
'Look, I'm supporting Northern Ireland and I don't give a toss who the others are.'

I think Moldova surprised Northern Ireland rather, leading twice in an exciting match which finished in a 2-2 draw. I particularly enjoyed the visitors' second goal.

That was Ion Testimitanu!' I shouted. What a shot! That's probably good enough to secure his transfer to Bristol City, you know.'

The little old man turned to me, his face contorted with restraint.

'Is that so?' he just about managed.

*

For the last five minutes of the game I took advantage of the photographer's pass which had been arranged for me by my good friends at UTV, and I watched the game's final action from the touch line. This afforded me the privilege of rushing on to the pitch at the final whistle. Unlike the local press, who immediately bombarded the Northern Irish players for reactions and comments, my goal was entirely different. I headed for the Moldovan players that I knew – the ones I'd met in such a novel manner. Our second meeting was no less peculiar. As the players left the field, exhausted but delighted at the result, they were greeted by a vaguely familiar figure wearing a bright orange bib, offering his own congratulations.