Welcome to those news stories that crossed our desk and which collectively prompted us to smile, sometimes laugh or even draw in a sharp breath or two. If there are stories you would like to share with a wider audience feel free to send through them through to our email.
1. Happy 50th birthday to all Feyenoord fans
This date might pass unnoticed for a lot of people but not for fans of Holland’s favourite club team [or second favourite, no third even, all depending on who you talk to of course]. Fifty years ago today Rotterdam’s Feyenoord beat Celtic 2-1 in the European Cup final, the first European title won by any Dutch club.
Black and white pictures of that final are all that appears available, along with Dutch commentary.
Many would say that as well as Feyenoord played that day, Celtic assisted by playing well below the form that had seen them crowned European Cup winners in 1967.
BBC Scotland looked at Celtic’s path to that historic final and what is perhaps one of the weirdest ways that a football match has ever been decided:
‘With the scores level after extra-time, how do you decide who goes through to the quarter-finals? Penalties? A replay? No. The referee took the two captains, Celtic's McNeill and Mario Coluna of Benfica, into his dressing room for a coin toss.
‘McNeill called heads, it landed on heads. He was then informed that round was merely for the right to toss the actual coin. He stuck to his guns. Heads again. He won, Celtic won, and were through to the quarter-finals.
‘"It was midnight before the game was decided," the late McNeill told BBC Scotland in 2006. "The toss of a coin was a farcical way of deciding a quarter final - irrespective of who won.’
And why did we put this happy day first in our list of things that you need to know today?
Because a good friend of DAIMANI is Wim Jansen, who runs Holland’s preeminent hospitality sales agency emBoost. Wim’s father – also Wim – played for Feyenoord that magical night. Then, incredibly, as a manager helped Celtic [the team Feyenoord beat that night in Milan] win the 1997/1998 Scottish Premier League title – breaking bitter rivals Rangers’ nine-year run of titles.
2. The numbers game
As the Live Event world plots and plans how to restart, with talk of ‘ghost’ matches or ‘biosphere games’, World Rugby have helped the process move forward with a detailed plan about how rugby union can ready itself for a post-coronavirus world.
World Rugby has set down the maximum number of people allowed into a stadium staging a rugby match, and the specific game responsibilities they must have.
The Daily Telegraph reported, ‘the difficulty of even returning behind closed doors was also laid bare in the report, which stated that, upon returning for training, players would initially need to observe social distancing of 1.5 metres, wear gloves and face masks, and refrain from making any physical contact. All players will be asked to fill in a daily questionnaire for symptoms of Covid-19 and will be required to have their temperature checked before entering the clubhouse or training facility. Anyone with a temperature above 37.5C will be sent home.’
The Telegraph believes the first stage will return to rugby training, likely to coincide with governments reopening schools and non-essential businesses. But training would be staggered between groups of five or 10 players.
The World Rugby guidelines state: ‘Where possible, all players and staff should wear face masks to prevent possible spread from asymptomatic, infected players.’
Full squad training could only start once gatherings of up to 50 are allowed and any full-contact training whatsoever should only be planned in consultation with local public health authorities. Unions and clubs will need to ‘comprehensively screen, test and contact trace’.
3. Manchester’s charms get misunderstood. Again
For DAIMANI, the popularity of the two Manchester clubs, the city’s excellent indoor venue and the remarkable facilities at Lancashire’s Old Trafford ground, make Manchester something of an unofficial UK favourite city for official VIP Hospitality.
[To add to that city’s allure, Manchester is also where the main shareholders of Zurich-based MATCH Hospitality are located – the exclusive rightsholder of the 2022 FIFA World Cup official hospitality programme.]
So you can imagine our shock to read the horrible thoughts gushing forth this week from the wife of Angel di Maria.
‘The people are all pasty-faced, prim and proper ... weird. They're walking down the street and you don't know if they're going to kill you or what. The food's disgusting. All the girls are all dolled up to the nines, perfectly made-up and there's me with my hair in a bun and with no make-up on,’ she added.
‘We try to be closer when things go bad. I did not blame him for being there. I just told him, “Darling, I want to kill myself, it is already night at 14:00 p.m. in the afternoon.”’
If you think ‘pasty-faced’ Mancunians sounds unrecognisable and perhaps something got lost in translation, here is the original interview in Spanish with Jorgelina Cardoso.
In fairness to them both, starting off your relationship with Manchester with an attempted break-in was always going to be hard to bounce back from.
4. Do or don’t make your plans around PETA’s NFL picks
The NFL has promised to release the 2020-2021 season schedule this coming Thursday.
What we know so far is this: the NFL has already reconfirmed the venue and date for the next Super Bowl [February 7 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa]. The London and Mexico City matches will be played at US venues. This covers the four London matches [two at Wembley Stadium that were to be hosted by the Jacksonville Jaguars, two at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to be hosted by the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins] and the one at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City to be hosted by the Arizona Cardinals.
Other than that, there are a lot of question marks around how the NFL will pull this off [but also an awful lot of goodwill, hoping that they succeed, on behalf of the rest of us in the Live Event industry.]
One fragment of the last NFL season that was sent to us by an alert reader was this recommendation from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group that even has their own video game [Kitten Squad].
PETA reviewed the best vegetarian options they could find across all of the NFL’s 32 stadia and then pulled together a very impressive and mouth-watering top 10.
PETA’s 2019-2020 season ended in flames after they failed to get either of the two broadcasters of the Super Bowl to air their 1-minute advert which they said was inspired by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
5. The more things change, the more they stay the same
With thanks to the Twitter feed of Darren Rovell, we were introduced to these two remarkable keepsakes from November 1918 when Spanish ‘flu was ravaging the world.
The facts of the fight are straightforward: On November 16, 1918 at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California heavyweights Willie Meehan and Fred Fulton squared off in a four-round battle. Fulton won the fight by decision having won the last three rounds, and used his long left to maul Meehan with particular efficiency. Fulton nearly had Meehan out when the last bell rang. This was Meehan's first loss since beating Jack Dempsey.
By the time of the fight, San Francisco had suffered around 20,000 ‘flu infections resulting in more than a thousand deaths. But, as the Influenza Encyclopaedia reported, the feeling was that the worst of the ‘flu was behind the city. So concert halls and theatres were allowed to reopen provided face masks were worn by everyone.
The Meehan-Fulton was also green-flagged, although it didn’t end well for a number of VIPs who were caught by the police photographer’s unblinking lens:
‘In attendance were several notable sporting men of the city, including several supervisors, a congressman, a justice, a Navy rear-admiral, Mayor James Rolph, and Health Officer Dr William Hassler. The men were so easily identified because none was wearing a mask, as still required by law. All were caught on film by a police photographer, who sent copies of the prints to his chief for further action. Hassler paid a $5 fine on the spot, admitting that his mask may have dropped a bit while he was smoking a cigar. Several days later, Mayor Rolph was shown a photograph of his unmasked visage and fined $50 by his own police chief.’
