Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations

Akiva Anderson

A Programme coming to the BBC on Monday, 2nd May. It is about my football team 'Glentoran'. It'll be worth a watch. My friend, Sam Robinson, pitched the idea and a film was made. Please have a read below.

OK, here goes...

On Monday 2nd May at 10.40pm, (next Monday) BBC Northern Ireland will air a documentary entitled "Belfast's Victory in Vienna." The piece tells a 40 minute story of Glentoran's tour of central Europe in 1914. It was filmed by Clean Slate Productions, funded in association with the Ulster Scots Agency, made in conjunction with Glentoran FC and is presented by Holly Hamilton, one of the BBC's most acclaimed national sports anchors, sports journalist, and a highly experienced documentary presenter.

Two years ago, following the visit of Gianni Infantino (the president of FIFA, the head of world football) to the Oval, I was asked by the chairman of Glentoran FC, to investigate the story of the Vienna Cup, a trophy won by Glentoran in the Austrian capital in May 1914, two and a half months before the outbreak of WWI

Infantino himself suggested the cup should sometime in the future, go on temporary display in the FIFA museum.
And so I began to dig.

It is a story often told, but little or no information existed about the circumstances around Glentoran's winning of The Vienna Cup. After an inordinate amount of time spent in investigation (often well into the wee small hours) I struck gold in the National Libraries of Austria, Germany and Hungary.

The whole story was there. Using Bradshaw's 1913-14 Continental Travel Guide and reports of the journalist Celtic took with them to the region, I plotted the East Belfast men's journey using the train, boat and paddle steamer timetables. I became so engrossed in the whole thing, that I knew Glentoran FC were standing on the jetty of the Radetzky Bridge at 11am on the Sunday after the final game in Vienna waiting to sail the Danube up to Bratislava. What they undertook was insane.

The result would become a book published in November 2020 entitled One Saturday before the War.
Many people who read the story said to me that it was even a film, a play or a documentary and so, with their support I pitched the tale to a film production company who loved it and took it to the BBC.
Getting a documentary from page to screen is as hard as it gets in TV land I'm told.
But......The BBC loved it too and commissioned the film to be made. They are so happy with it, they have brought it forward in their schedules. It was meant to air in November in the run up to the World Cup, but it hits the screen next Monday night !!! They only received it in finished form last Thursday.

As a cradle to the grave Glenman, I've thrown my heart and soul at this story and in the watching, it's important to remember that although West Auckland won the Lipton Cup several years before in Europe, they were a team of amateurs and subsequently the cup was then stolen.

Glentoran were the first "professional" British team to lift a trophy on European soil. Celtic and Burnley played for another cup during the same tournament, but their bad tempered 1-1 draw in Budapest, a few days before Glentoran took on the finest players in Vienna, meant that their trophy was never presented. It was melted down to help the German war effort.
Glentoran own the oldest existing trophy in European football. It sits in the Oval boardroom.

These are the views of Guy Oliver, curator of the FIFA museum in Switzerland. Guy maintains that the Vienna Cup is the oldest European football trophy still in existence and that it is the starting point for all the competitions that come afterwards. The Champions League, Europa League et al.

But he insists that the trophy is not the focal point of the story, it's about the people and overcoming the challenge. In May 1914, 13 East Belfast men, decent footballers, most of them shipyard workers, some who had helped build Titanic, covered 3,500 miles in 14 days, slept on boats and trains, crossed 9 countries, played 6 games, won 3, drew 1 and lost 2 and went on the lash on more than one occasion !!!

The Vienna Cup is the only Glentoran artefact that survived the Blitz, because the trip's organiser, Glentoran secretary Joseph Shaw of Shaw's Sweets on Templemore Avenue , kept it on his mantlepiece, stating publically that he was so proud of what his team had achieved that he looked at it every day. Joseph Shaw planned every aspect of the adventure and then, along with Tom Mallon another director and neighbour from Wandsworth Road off the Belmont Road, made the journey with the lads. His family returned the trophy to the Oval after Joseph's death.
Although, later on, it spent a number of years behind the bar in The Albert Bar !!!

The men of Ballymacarrett rubbed shoulders with Archduke Albrecht of the Hapsburg Dynasty a close relative of Franz Ferdinand and many of the richest men in Austria and Germany, members of the Reichstag and in the years that followed, several instigators of the Anschluss. In Berlin, they met Baron von Lynar, who insisted he was related to Davy and Roly Lyner from Flora Street and who would, in WWII as a member of the German high command. hang for trying to assassinate Hitler.

In the German capital the Glens would render a rousing rendition of God Save the King before their game with Hertha Berlin. Germany had a population of 64 million at that time. Surely this would be the last time this anthem was sung in the German capital before the outbreak of the war to end all wars.

The Glens exploits were recorded by Barlog most eminent cartoon satirist in Europe at the time. I know this because I found them.
Several of the characters the Glentoran team would meet including Eugene Lillenfield, the Jewish groundsman of DFC PRAG, would go on to be executed in Nazi death camps during WWII.

While they were in the region, Glentoran accepted two further games in Bratislava and Budapest in order to put food on the tables in the homes of the players back in east Belfast. The agreement almost killed them. After the final game in Budapest, broken and actually on their knees in the rain lashed stadium begging the referee to abandon the game, they had to then flee for their lives for the Belgian coast as the political heat intensified in the region.

These are some of the stories, I couldn't squeeze into 40 minutes.
If you are a Glentoran supporter, I hope you can find the time to watch the story about your football club. In fact turn on every tv you own to get the ratings up !!!! Hopefully, it'll hit the BBC iplayer too.

It is an achievement not only followers of Glentoran FC should be very, very proud of, but also the people of Ballymacarrett, East Belfast, and the city of Belfast itself.

Even in death, Johnny Scraggs and William Emerson, two thirds of the most famous half back line in Glentoran history, are buried thirty yards apart in Dundonald cemetry. Davy Lyner looks down on them from the top of the hill.
I really hope you enjoy the film. It has been an honour and a priviIege as a Glenman to work with Glentoran FC, First Vienna FC, Clean Slate, Holly Hamilton, the Ulster Scots Agency, DFC PRAG, Budapesti Athletik Club, Philip Stevenson, Alan Godden, Roy Downes, the Hungarian Consul, Christian Wouter in Germany, Thomas Ollerman in Prague, Bernd Fisa in Vienna, Paul McGuigan, BBCNI and all of the contributors in order to tell this gripping story.

Most of all I'd like to thank my long suffering wife Sheila who backs me to the hilt in whatever madcap, hair brained endeavour I throw myself into. She's the reason stuff like this gets done.

Now, I really think I'm spent with regards to the story of the Glens.
It's been an incredible adventure.

I'd like to dedicate the film to the memory of Tom Ferrett, son of Glentoran's Vienna Cup winning half-back George Ferrett, who passed away peacefully aged 101 on the morning we arrived in Vienna. A war hero and a Glenman to the end.
The people are the stories.

Le Jeu Avant Tout.

Sam.

John Folan

@ryan said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

@john-folan Its amazing!!! I loved it, one of the best things about. Roy Kent is the best character on TV in years

Football is Life!

Ryan

@john-folan Its amazing!!! I loved it, one of the best things about. Roy Kent is the best character on TV in years

John Folan

@richard-latimer said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

Or Kodi for zero a month

I can’t be arsed with all that anymore. Much as I enjoyed not paying these tosspots .

Richard Latimer

Or Kodi for zero a month

John Folan

@richard-latimer said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

@john-folan said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

How have I not seen Ted Lasso before? Laughing so much it hurts

Brilliant that!

I can’t stop watching it. Apple TV £4.99 a month. Better than Netflix by a country mile

Richard Latimer

@john-folan said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

How have I not seen Ted Lasso before? Laughing so much it hurts

Brilliant that!

John Folan

How have I not seen Ted Lasso before? Laughing so much it hurts

Matt Wood

@richard-latimer Got this on my list and was looking at it last night, will give it a go

Richard Latimer

If anyone has amazon I'd recommend Goliath. Just started the 2nd season last night.

Ryan

I started the dropout at the weekend which is really good.

Ryan

@gary-finnigan-0 I started this but haven't got round to finishing it

? Offline

Not sure if its already been mentioned , but we have been watching Power on Netlix. Really enjoying it , upto season 4 out of 6 so far.

Ryan

@matt-wood first one was decent, I was a teen when it came out though - perhaps dreaming of a car like that only to realise that aint cool

Ryan

She's a babe, you just know she's a laugh too - doesn't seem to take herself too seriously.

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@john-folan Ohhh might have to give that a watch, I've always had a thing for her too!

John Folan

Just watched The Lost City. I’ve always had a thing for Sandra Bullock so this was right up my street. Silly little film you don’t have to think about much and will make you laugh.

Matt Wood

@martin said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

@ryan said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

Well I wasted 2 hours watching Fast & Furious 9 last night - Maybe there will be dinosaurs in the next one? It's got to that stage I feel.

Let's just throw anything in.

I felt that way from the first film

Haha yep me too, watched the first one, never even thought about watching any of the others

Martin

@ryan said in Netflix/Amazon/Gaming and Book Recommendations:

Well I wasted 2 hours watching Fast & Furious 9 last night - Maybe there will be dinosaurs in the next one? It's got to that stage I feel.

Let's just throw anything in.

I felt that way from the first film

Mark Maguire

@matt-wood enjoyed it to be fair Matt - binge watched like you, was thinking I'd hate it because I've read all the books which are bloody brilliant, easy reading but never get bored with them and haven't recovered from bloody Tom Cruise as Reacher - as far away from the character as you can get