I direct bridge games and tournaments and create stuff for my bridge work which people seem to want. So I set up this web page to slowly put the things (essays, programs, information) I've created into the public domain. If I were a better writer or programmer I would not be giving them away, but since I am not, I trust you will not descend upon me in anger should they not interest you or work for you...
Nothing on this site has ads or asks for a credit card number (some of the external links might). Since I maintain this site for information and entertainment purposes only, there is no security layer and some browsers may get antsy. I'll do my best to ensure none of these pages is infected with something transmittable so you can safely ignore the warnings that today's browsers insist upon, and we can keep this all free and simple.
Among the things you may currently — or eventually — find here:
(Feb 08, 2022)
A look at the entertaining “Olympic controversies” entry on Wikipedia led me to the 1936 football (soccer) tournament in Berlin, which was a total farce that would be great material for a Coen brothers film.
Sixteen teams entered and the German organizers carefully arranged a knockout draw that favoured the home team, but nobody took into account the new rules. Football’s best players were now professional players and ineligible for the Olympics, although not as highly paid as they would be after the war. Football had not been a part of the previous Olympic games after the first FIFA World Cup in 1930, now with two World Cups in the bag, FIFA felt it safe to allow the Olympics to run an amateur world championship. This meant that nobody really knew how the “amateur” players (many of them promised “time-shifted compensation” by their federations to compete), in countries where the best played in emerging pro leagues, would compare with teams from countries who could send most of their best players.
The first match was 1934 World Cup champion Italy against the USA, and the first questionable incident occurred after the referee watched an Italian defender violently foul two American players and was physically restrained from sending him off, with Italy ahead only 1-nil midway through the second half. The German referee, arms held by Italian players to keep him from booking the offender, while others covered his eyes while the offending player escaped to another area of the field, relented in favour of his country’s ally and the USA lost 1-nil. Among the other first-round surprises were Japan’s win over Sweden, Norway’s shutout of Turkey, and Peru allowing three goals to Finland while scoring seven in a dominant win.
The quarterfinals began with Italy’s 8-nil takedown of the Japanese, and later that day the Fuhrer, who had initially planned to watch rowing, attended a football match for the first and last time, leaving angrily when the Norwegians, ahead of Germany 1-nil on an early goal, scored again near the end.
The next day’s Poland-Britain quarterfinal was dominated so well by Polish forward Hubert Gad that British papers claimed that their squad was “defeated by God” — the Poles took a 5-1 lead before the British amateurs got three late to make it look respectable.
That left Peru to face German neighbour/ally Austria, which was a few years away from being annexed by Germany and was already politically trending in that direction. The game went to extra time tied 2-2 after Austria had led 2-nil with fifteen minutes left, and in the extra time, the Peruvians scored five goals in 30 minutes. Three of them were disallowed, and temperatures rose so high that there was a pitch invasion by fans near the end, most of them Germans or Austrians. Austria protested the 4-2 result, complaining that their players had been manhandled by the pitch invaders, one of whom had a weapon; there were perhaps a handful of Peruvian fans in attendance among thousands of Germans and Austrians. There was also a strange rules-based appeal based on the dimensions of the pitch being wrong, which was fine while they were ahead but suddenly not acceptable after Peru overturned the result. A hearing was called for the following day to address the charges of the Austrians and hear a defence from Peru, in the fair and impartial manner that was legendary for Nazi officialdom.
Peruvian officials attempted to attend the hearing but were prevented from getting to the place where the hearing was held — by a military parade! — one that most expect was hastily organized for that exact purpose. The hearing heard no defence from Peru, and ordered the match replayed without spectators. Peru’s team read the tea leaves and decided it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. German embassies and consulates suffered broken windows and protests when the news reached Peru, but by then it was too late to do anything else.
Austria advanced by default, got past “God” in the semifinal against Poland, and meanwhile Italy defeated Norway and then Austria with extra time goals in both matches to take the gold medal. Footage from the final exists, but is carefully edited to make the opening and winning goals by Annibale Frossi look slightly different; in fact, the extra time goal was not filmed (ran out of film perhaps?). The speculation from most observers outside Germany was that after Germany was eliminated by Norway, with the Fuhrer present (until he left angrily when the result was clear), German organizers feared for the very survival of the sport and moved heaven and earth to get Germany’s closest allies into the final.
Writing is something I do a lot of, editing not so much. If you are prone to the TL:DR* comment, go watch a video on YouTube, the stuff posted here will not interest you. I'd rather read something than watch something and I hate seeing sites switch to video.
* TL:DR stands for 'too long; didn't read.' For someone who struggles to get words and phrases and sentences to fit together, the only comeback to that lazy slam is DILLIGAF, which you'll have to look up on Wikipedia....
That's all for now. I'll put the date of the latest update at the bottom of this page so you can see what's happened.
Last update: September 9, 2024 (at least, the last time I updated and scrolled down to the end to change this line......)