|
| about this site |
who we are |
site map |
reading tips |
teaching tips |
student tips |
build vocab |
|
Take advantage of your interest in the British Premiership teams and competitions to improve your English as well as your world knowledge.
|
|
 Wolverhampton Wanderers' Jody Craddock (R) tackles Newcastle United's Jermaine Jenas during their English premier league soccer match at Molineux, Wolverhampton, November 29, 2003. Wolverhampton Wanderers and Newcastle United drew 1-1. — REUTERS |
We are, of course, talking about Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea from England and Rangers and Celtic from Scotland. Indeed all these teams have a wonderful European pedigree with Liverpool, Manchester United and Celtic all being previous winners of the biggest club prize in European football, which officially anoints one team as the indisputable champions of Europe.
Floodlit friendlies
The origins of the Champions League grew out of a series of friendly matches played under floodlights in the early 1950s. As there was no formalized competition at this time, the games were merely a series of matches to unofficially determine who might be the best football team in Europe.
In England, the team of the day was Wolverhampton Wanderers, or the Wolves who, managed by the legendary Stan Cullis and led by ____(2)____, Billy Wright, had won the English league in 1953. They would play a series of games at the Molineux stadium against the best in Europe that would eventually set in motion plans for a competition in Europe called the European Cup, now known as the Champions League.
The magical magyars
Prior to these floodlit friendlies, England had entertained Hungary at Wembley in 1953, in an international friendly fixture. Not much was known of the Hungarian team at the time, they had been Olympic champions in 1952, but as England were the inventors of modern football, and had never lost at Wembley before, there was high expectation that England would teach these east-European usurpers a few lessons in what the press dubbed 'the match of the century'.
What transpired on that day is now legendary as ____(3)____, Ferenc Puskas, and his 'Magical Magyars' demolished Billy Wright's England 6-3 in an attacking, free flowing style of football that cruelly exposed and ultimately out-smarted England's old-fashioned man-to-man marking system. In the return fixture six months later England faired no better as they lost 7-1 in Budapest. England, it seemed, were no longer the masters of their invention.
England's revenge
So it was that the Wolves took on Honved of Hungary in a friendly match just over a year later under the floodlights of the Molineux. Six of the 'Magical Magyars', who had so comprehensively beaten England at Wembley, were pitted against Billy Wright's Wolves.
Things didn't start according to plan and it was a dejected English nation that watched the game ____(4)____ . At half-time, with Honved leading 2-0, thoughts once again turned to yet another emphatic victory for another Hungarian side.
However, Wolves rallied in the rain in a magnificent second half performance, scoring three times with the winner coming in the final minute to win the game 3-2 to leave the fans at the Molineux, and around England, in unbridled joy at what the English press gleefully dubbed 'England's revenge'.
Hanot's proposal
After the game, the English press continued to revel in the triumph and exalted in the Wolves' performance declaring that England had never had more worthy champions and that the Wolves were quite rightly the champions of the world. Indeed, this accolade was in no small part due to the fact that in 1953 the Wolves had also played the likes of Real Madrid, Moscow Dynamo and Spartak Moscow at the Molineux, and Wolves were still unbeaten.
This groundless accolade was all too much for Gabriel Hanot, the editor of the French newspaper L'Equipe. Hanot had long campaigned for a European-wide club tournament to be played home and away under floodlights. He proposed that before Wolves could be declared champions of the world they needed to play in Moscow and Budapest to see if they really were invincible, while also playing against other great teams in Europe, such as, AC Milan and Real Madrid. Hanot got his wish and the European footballing body, Uefa, accepted his proposal in 1955.
So the first official inter-European club games were played in what has now, 52 years later, developed into arguably the most lucrative and prestigious club tournament anywhere in the world, ____(5)____ .
QUESTIONS |
|
Ordering Put these events in the proper order.
a. Gabriel Hanot proposed a formal European club competition |
|
Find the information
1. How many British teams are in this season's Champions League? |
|
Missing words Put these phrases into the numbered spaces in the story
a. the Hungarian captain |
ANSWERS |
|
Ordering 1d, 2f, 3b, 4c, 5a, 6e Find the information
1. Six Missing Words 1b 2e 3a 4c 5d
|
| The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd.
All rights reserved 2007 |
Last modified: September 27, 2007