It’s that time of the year, and we all tend to give in to the temptation.
No, I am not speaking of indulging in bacchanalian excesses at “Christmas Parties”, of going on uncontrolled shopping sprees, or of emitting irresponsible clouds of CO2 en route to visiting family or hitting the skiing slopes.
Although I suspect we are all guilty of one or the other from that list, too.
What we just cannot resist at the end of twelve months in ours, the Gregorian calendar is the look back on yet another year gone by – it’s the time for review, reflection, and retrospection. It’s the time we take stock, personally, professionally, and if so inclined, on the state of the world at large.
The media, of course, take this to another level by crowning those who they think had the most influence, impact, or power during the period in question, for better or for worse.
The Top Three in Forbes Magazine’s “Most Powerful People 2015” are Barack Obama (third), Angela Markel (runner-up), and Vladimir Putin (winner). According to Forbes, they represent the 0.00000001% - “the global elite whose actions move the planet”. Wow.
TIME Magazine in turn made Angela Markel their “Person of the Year 2015”, gracing the cover page as is the tradition, and while certain detractors claim that particular publication is so dated, so “last-century” that it only serves to gather dust on dentist practice waiting room tables anymore (speaking of which, Reader’s Digest, founded in 1922, is still going strong by the way), the accolade attracts a lot of attention and generates plentiful follow-up coverage reinforcing the TIME-less brand. It’s as much an exercise in PR as in recognising “The Person of the Year”, and I see nothing wrong with that.
While this is not the Peace Nobel Prize (yet), it is still a remarkable recognition of the German Chancellor’s pivotal role in today’s topsy-turvy world. By the way, she is the only woman to have appeared on that Forbes list every year since it was started in 2009 – now that’s what I call staying power [sic].
Here’s the link to the TIME tribute to Angela Merkel which makes for very interesting reading. It’s entitled “Chancellor of the Free World”:
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel/?xid=homepage
And then there’s another way of summing up a year which has a long-standing tradition in Dr Merkel’s home country.
Each year, ever since 1971, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, the country’s most important Government-sponsored language society, has conducted a linguistic review of the past twelve months, identifying the one word that characterises best events during that period of time and therefore has held a dominant place in the public discourse – “The Word of the Year”.
For 2015, unsurprisingly, it’s Flüchtlinge (Refugees). And yes, by year-end, a million will have arrived on German territory.
I think this tradition is a great way of cutting through the cacophony of all the disparate and often confusing messages, events, and developments of a year by reducing its essence to one linguistic nutshell. And just going through the words selected over the past decades gives you a very concise, year-by-year picture of unfolding contemporary German history.
The power of the Word – written, spoken, or, for that matter, sung:
“It’s only words
And words are all I have
To take your heart away.”
The Bee Gees, Words (1968)
The heart, and the mind, too.
Somewhere else, I think in the Financial Times, I read about another “Word of the Year” – “Hello”, the title of the new single by singer songwriter Adele that became the first song ever with more than a million digital sales or “downloads” in a week.
Adele of course is a phenomenon, and she may well yield as much soft power as the high and mighty on the Forbes list do in terms of conventional power. And, by the way, TIME Magazine actually did vote her among “The World’s 100 Most Influential People: 2012”.
Born in Tottenham, London, on 5 May 1988, aged still only 27 today, she brings out an album – a “playlist” in today’s terms I guess – only every few years, entitled her age at the time of recording.
So she broke onto the scene, coming from absolutely nowhere, with 19 in early 2008. This was followed up by 21 in early 2011. And now, in November 2015, she released 25 which features “Hello”.
As a person, I think Adele is my kind of girl. In a 2009 interview with the UK Daily Mail, she said:
"I like looking nice, but I always put comfort over fashion. I don’t find thin girls attractive; be happy and healthy. I’ve never had a problem with the way I look. I’d rather have lunch with my friends than go to a gym."
When posting the cover of 25 on Instagram as a sneak preview, she apologised to her fans: “I’m sorry it took so long, but, you know, life happened.” Among other things that may have intervened, she did actually have a baby in the meantime.
Consciously or not, Adele was quoting John Lennon who famously said: “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” Worthwhile remembering at times when we take ourselves and our priorities, ambitions, and obsessions ever so importantly. It puts things in perspective, serves as a reality check, and makes for a healthy degree of humility, I find.
I do like the concept of “Hello” on a personal level. More than “Good-bye”. But of course, as the saying goes, “it takes two to tango”:
“I don’t know why you say ‘Goodbye’, I say ‘Hello’.” The Beatles, Hello, Goodbye (1967)
Anyhow, to round off the category “Women of the Year 2015”, Michelle Obama was voted into that elite group by The Financial Times. The paper published a remarkable and eminently readable portrait of the First Lady of the United States, aka FLOTUS, in last weekend’s edition:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a43929d0-9d17-11e5-b45d-4812f209f861.html
I admit I’m a fan of both Adele and Michelle. Maybe there’s something in the fact both names are pronounced on the second syllables and rhyme? In Belgium, the female version of my name is reasonably popular, and I once met singer songwriter Axelle Red – she’s big in her home country and a very nice lady at that!
So we categorise years by words and people, but of course we also remember them by events that happened in those twelve months, especially if they go back to the more distant past. Some random examples?
For Catholics, the year 1978 will always be remembered as “The Year of Three Popes”. First, Pope Paul VI deceased in August. Pope John Paul I, elected by the Conclave of Cardinals, died after only 33 days in office. And he was in turn succeeded by Pope John Paul II who then went on to serve until his death in 2005.
Buffs of German history will immediately know what is meant when you speak of “The Year of Three Emperors” (Dreikaiserjahr).
In 1888, the deaths of two Emperors in quick succession led to having three monarchs in one year. Wilhelm I died in March. His son, Frederick William assumed the throne as Frederick III, already suffering from terminal cancer of the larynx. After only 99 days of rule, during which he was unable to speak anymore, he died and was followed by his son, Wilhelm II who went on to reign until the bitter end – his abdication and the fall of the German Empire at the end of World War I in 1918.
To this day, the mnemonic “drei Achten, drei Kaiser” ("three eights, three emperors") is used in German history classes to memorise the year.
The one I like best is “The Year the Stars Fell Down on Texas” which refers to a spectacular meteor shower in 1833. Without the phenomenon we nowadays call “light pollution” – over our modern cities especially, it can be hard to see the stars at all – this must have been quite a sight to behold, and to this day, people everywhere in the South of the United States remember it as such.
Of course, much more important things than memorable night-sky natural phenomena happened over other twelve-month periods in the past, and maybe for that reason we tend to remember the event rather than the year.
Declaration of interest: As an historian, I can’t resist.
So please bear with me: Here’s a very subjective stab at the Top Twenty (no matter how much you simplify, synthesise, and focus, you can’t possibly do this in threes or even tens) Events in Human History, which I hope will serve as the basis for much discussion. And yes, they’re in purely chronological order, but feel free to have a go at ranking them – I won’t.
BC 508/507 Athenians establish democracy, led by Cleisthenes
BC 44 Assassination of Julius Caesar; end of Roman Republic
BC 27 Founding of Roman Empire by Octavian who takes on the name Augustus
Ca BC 5 Birth of Jesus of Nazareth
AD 476 Scirian leader Odoacer deposes Emperor Romulus; fall of Roman Empire
1066 Battle of Hastings; Norman invasion of Britain
1455 Johannes Gutenberg invents mechanical moving type printing
1492 Christoph Columbus discovers America
1517 Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses; Christian Church split
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus declares a heliocentric universe
1776 American Declaration of Independence
1789 French Revolution
1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleonic conquests undone
1859 Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species”
1900 Sigmund Freud publishes “The Interpretation of Dreams”
1905 Albert Einstein publishes “Theory of Special Relativity”
1913 Henry Ford develops the first moving assembly line
1917 United States enter into World War I; Russian Revolution
1989 Collapse of the Soviet Empire
2001 9/11
There it is. I rest my case. I admit it’s rather Eurocentric. Over to you.
On a lighter note, in English history one other year must of needs be added to the list – 1966 when the host nation’s team aka “Three Lions” won the football World Cup, known as the “Jules Rimet Trophy” then after the former FIFA President who was instrumental in starting the competition in 1930, for the first and only time by beating Germany 4-2 after extra time in the final.
Do not get me started on The Third Goal!
According to the FIFA Statutes, Brazil got to keep the trophy after winning it a third time in 1970, and the current one was introduced.
Then in 1996, England staged the European Championships which also turned out to be a memorable tournament, if for other reasons. Germany won the final against Czech Republic 2-1 through a “Golden Goal” scored by Oliver Bierhoff in the 95th minute, marking a brief experiment of FIFA with the principle of “sudden death” (sounding too American and negative I assume, hence the euphemism) to avoid boring, tactics-dominated 30-minute extra time periods or unjust penalty shoot-outs – the game was immediately over.
I was there at Wembley Stadium on the day. Back then, it was still so comparatively easy to get tickets for such games.
In the 2000 Final between France and Italy, end score also 2-1, David Trézéguet repeated the feat for the Équipe Tricolore; and in the Women’s World Cup Final of 2003, Germany defeated Sweden, you’ve guessed it, 2-1 with a header by Nia Künzer.
FIFA discontinued the rule because they realised that, you know what, we football fans like boring, tactics-dominated 30-minute extra time periods and unjust penalty shootouts.
Anyhow, not wanting to fall short of the occasion, there was an official anthem for the 1996 England team, “Football’s Coming Home”, the title referring with justified pride to the fact The Beautiful Game had indeed been “invented here”. The opening lines of the lyrics are:
“Three lions on a shirt,
Jules Rimet still gleaming.
Thirty years of hurt,
Never stopped me dreaming.”
Twenty years and ten major football tournaments without an England triumph later, I cannot help but ask myself whether that third line will be updated to “Fifty years of hurt” for the upcoming European Championships to be played in France in 2016.
Just kidding!
But before looking forward to 2016, football- and otherwise, let’s finally reflect on the year drawing to a close now. Like many before, it has been marked by suffering, death, and destruction. But like many before also, it has given us cause for joy, happiness, and belief.
Enough said on the former, so let’s focus on the latter maybe.
Category One: My favourite 2015 moments in general or political terms, in ascending order:
2 June – FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces his intention to resign amidst an FBI-led corruption investigation, and calls for an extraordinary congress to elect a new president as soon as possible
20 July – Cuba and the United States re-establish full diplomatic relations, ending a 54-year stretch of hostility between the nations
September – Angela Merkel opens the borders to all refugees, regardless of the burden it will inflict on Germany. In her own quiet way, she reassures her countrymen: “We can do this.”
And now, with a great drumroll, Category Two: My favourite 2015 moments in personal terms, also in ascending order:
1 June 2015: Under the most dramatic of circumstances, my football club Hamburger SV (HSV in short – one of the biggest brands in German sports if I say so myself) avoided relegation from the Bundesliga which would have been a first in their proud history dating back all the way to 1887. The bad news is they had to do the same in the previous season 2013/14 as well. The good news is things are looking up very much now. – As somebody much wiser than I once said: “A man can fall in love with a number of women in the course of a lifetime, but only with one football club.” I have nothing to add.
17 May 2015: Graduation of my youngest daughter Greta at Davidson College in North Carolina (www.davidson.edu). The third of three, but what a landmark (not a mere milestone)!
All year 2015: Following from a distance and finding out first-hand by visiting how well my son Preben has settled in and is doing as Athletic Director of English-taught Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Mae Rim near Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand (www.ptis.ac.th). When he started there in August of 2014, it was the first time one of my kids went somewhere I hadn’t been before or hadn’t scouted jointly with them first. Call me a “helicopter parent”, but saying good-bye to him then was a bitter-sweet moment.
Again, over to you. Top Three in each category?
So – what’s another year?
I’ll tell you what “What’s Another Year” is: It’s the title of the song that won the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC to those in the know), back in those days still the Concours Eurovision de la Chanson I believe, in 1980. Performed by the legendary Irish crooner Johnny Logan, it triumphed at that year’s event held in The Hague, Netherlands. You see, the Dutch had won in 1979 and according to the hallowed statutes of the competition got to host the following year’s one.
Johnny Logan went on to succeed again in 1987 with the equally timeless ditty “Hold Me Now”, earning him the nom de guerre, Mr Eurovision. What the Irish won’t fess up to is that he was born in Frankston, Victoria, Australia, but under the admittedly very “Old Country” name Seán Patrick Michael Sherran.
Anyhow, before I come to the story itself, let it be known that Ireland has been the most successful of nations participating in this epic continental battle of musical talent first launched in Lugano, Switzerland in 1956. It has been staged annually ever since, and in the intervening 60 years has visited 40 cities in 25 countries. 52 nations have now taken part, including for the first time, and as a one-off, Australia in 2015.
In due recognition of this impressive history, the organising European Broadcasting Union was awarded a “Guinness World Record” this year for Longest Running Annual TV Music Competition. I have a suspicion this category was specifically created in order to be able to make the award. That’s PR, baby.
For all sorts of fascinating statistics, well documented gems, and entertaining trivia, check out www.eurovision.tv.
In your faces, IOC and FIFA!
So Ireland has remarkably won this competition seven times to date, with three in consecutive years (1992/93/94) and four out of five from 1992 through 1996. Runner-up is Sweden with six wins, followed by joint thirds France, Luxembourg, and, yes, the United Kingdom (not England)!
The British group Bucks Fizz (after the orange-champagne cocktail) won in 1981, the year after Johnny Logan’s first success, with “Making Your Mind Up”. Legendary was the moment when, right on cue to the words “And if you want to see some more”, the two male singers pulled off the bottom parts of the two female singers’ stage costumes to display, well, some more. The technical term for this attention-grabbing gag was, I believe, a “skirt-rip”. Timeless television and a classic on YouTube to this day.
The Brits traditionally suffer from the fact this is considered to be a competition for up-and-coming talent – and that the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney, or Adele will never risk showing up and maybe not pulling it off. Can’t blame them really.
Germany, by the way, has managed just two meagre wins, if that makes everybody feel better. It’s not all about football, guys!
Very few winners of the ESC subsequently went on to big-time careers. One exception to this rule is Canadian Céline Dion who as a musical hired gun won the competition for Switzerland in 1988 with the song “Ne partez pas sans moi” that I confess doesn’t ring a bell.
And then, of course, there was ABBA as the huge exception to the rule: Their victory in 1974 with “Waterloo” launched one of the most successful acts in pop music history ever.
So here finally is the story.
On 19 April 1980, as already mentioned, Johnny Logan won the ESC with “What’s Another Year” (no question mark by the way). A few weeks later, precisely in the late afternoon of Saturday 24 May, I was standing at a gas station in Leverkusen, Germany, filling up my car for a very long and sad ride back home to Heidelberg, having just witnessed HSV lose 2-1 (there it is again) to then lowly, newly promoted Bayer Leverkusen on the penultimate game day of the Bundesliga season, thereby blowing their chances to win the German championship (which instead went to Bayern Munich). On the car radio all they played that afternoon and evening was “What’s Another Year”, and while at first I felt riled by the song’s title and lyrics (it’s to do with romance of course, not football), I eventually decided to take comfort in them – we’ll do it next season then!
I also still held out great hopes for the next game to be played on Wednesday 28 May in the Bernabeu Stadium of Madrid where HSV were in the Final of the European Champions’ Cup, the precursor to today’s Champions’ League, against Nottingham Forest. Having just massacred high and mighty Real Madrid in the semi-finals, surely nothing could go wrong for my team in that match-up, right?
Well, guess what, it did. We lost 1-0, with the equaliser wrongly disallowed for offside, and that’s when I faced up to the sad fact “another year” would actually be quite long.
To keep you from googling, it sadly turned out to be more than just twelve months. HSV won the German Championship twice in a row in the 1981/82 and 1982/83 seasons.
And we did finally also win the Champions’ Cup on 25 May 1983 by beating the then seemingly invincible Juventus Turin 1-0 in Athens. The goal was scored by a certain Felix Magath in the eighth minute, and when he was interviewed in the context of the 30-year anniversary of the club’s greatest triumph, asked about what he thought at that moment, he disarmingly replied: “As I walked back for the kick-off after my goal, I looked up at the big stadium clock, and I thought, shit, that was much too early in the game. They’re going to kill us now.”
Well, they didn’t. And I like to think Italian goalkeeping legend Dino Zoff still wakes up bathed in sweat at night from dreaming about that goal!
So – what’s another year or two?
Remember: “When it all comes down / We will still come through / In the long run.”
The Eagles, The Long Run (1979)
So in addition to making this the time of year for review, reflection, and retrospection, let’s make it the occasion for positive thoughts, planning, and confidence.
“It’s the time / Of the season / For loving.” The Zombies, Time of the Season (1968)
Signing off for this year, I wish you all a happy, peaceful, and re-energising holiday period and all the best for 2016. I, for one, am looking forward to both.
P.S. The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 will be held in Stockholm on Saturday 14 May 2016. Whatever else you may have planned for the day – Hold the Date!
Although I suspect we are all guilty of one or the other from that list, too.
What we just cannot resist at the end of twelve months in ours, the Gregorian calendar is the look back on yet another year gone by – it’s the time for review, reflection, and retrospection. It’s the time we take stock, personally, professionally, and if so inclined, on the state of the world at large.
The media, of course, take this to another level by crowning those who they think had the most influence, impact, or power during the period in question, for better or for worse.
The Top Three in Forbes Magazine’s “Most Powerful People 2015” are Barack Obama (third), Angela Markel (runner-up), and Vladimir Putin (winner). According to Forbes, they represent the 0.00000001% - “the global elite whose actions move the planet”. Wow.
TIME Magazine in turn made Angela Markel their “Person of the Year 2015”, gracing the cover page as is the tradition, and while certain detractors claim that particular publication is so dated, so “last-century” that it only serves to gather dust on dentist practice waiting room tables anymore (speaking of which, Reader’s Digest, founded in 1922, is still going strong by the way), the accolade attracts a lot of attention and generates plentiful follow-up coverage reinforcing the TIME-less brand. It’s as much an exercise in PR as in recognising “The Person of the Year”, and I see nothing wrong with that.
While this is not the Peace Nobel Prize (yet), it is still a remarkable recognition of the German Chancellor’s pivotal role in today’s topsy-turvy world. By the way, she is the only woman to have appeared on that Forbes list every year since it was started in 2009 – now that’s what I call staying power [sic].
Here’s the link to the TIME tribute to Angela Merkel which makes for very interesting reading. It’s entitled “Chancellor of the Free World”:
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel/?xid=homepage
And then there’s another way of summing up a year which has a long-standing tradition in Dr Merkel’s home country.
Each year, ever since 1971, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, the country’s most important Government-sponsored language society, has conducted a linguistic review of the past twelve months, identifying the one word that characterises best events during that period of time and therefore has held a dominant place in the public discourse – “The Word of the Year”.
For 2015, unsurprisingly, it’s Flüchtlinge (Refugees). And yes, by year-end, a million will have arrived on German territory.
I think this tradition is a great way of cutting through the cacophony of all the disparate and often confusing messages, events, and developments of a year by reducing its essence to one linguistic nutshell. And just going through the words selected over the past decades gives you a very concise, year-by-year picture of unfolding contemporary German history.
The power of the Word – written, spoken, or, for that matter, sung:
“It’s only words
And words are all I have
To take your heart away.”
The Bee Gees, Words (1968)
The heart, and the mind, too.
Somewhere else, I think in the Financial Times, I read about another “Word of the Year” – “Hello”, the title of the new single by singer songwriter Adele that became the first song ever with more than a million digital sales or “downloads” in a week.
Adele of course is a phenomenon, and she may well yield as much soft power as the high and mighty on the Forbes list do in terms of conventional power. And, by the way, TIME Magazine actually did vote her among “The World’s 100 Most Influential People: 2012”.
Born in Tottenham, London, on 5 May 1988, aged still only 27 today, she brings out an album – a “playlist” in today’s terms I guess – only every few years, entitled her age at the time of recording.
So she broke onto the scene, coming from absolutely nowhere, with 19 in early 2008. This was followed up by 21 in early 2011. And now, in November 2015, she released 25 which features “Hello”.
As a person, I think Adele is my kind of girl. In a 2009 interview with the UK Daily Mail, she said:
"I like looking nice, but I always put comfort over fashion. I don’t find thin girls attractive; be happy and healthy. I’ve never had a problem with the way I look. I’d rather have lunch with my friends than go to a gym."
When posting the cover of 25 on Instagram as a sneak preview, she apologised to her fans: “I’m sorry it took so long, but, you know, life happened.” Among other things that may have intervened, she did actually have a baby in the meantime.
Consciously or not, Adele was quoting John Lennon who famously said: “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” Worthwhile remembering at times when we take ourselves and our priorities, ambitions, and obsessions ever so importantly. It puts things in perspective, serves as a reality check, and makes for a healthy degree of humility, I find.
I do like the concept of “Hello” on a personal level. More than “Good-bye”. But of course, as the saying goes, “it takes two to tango”:
“I don’t know why you say ‘Goodbye’, I say ‘Hello’.” The Beatles, Hello, Goodbye (1967)
Anyhow, to round off the category “Women of the Year 2015”, Michelle Obama was voted into that elite group by The Financial Times. The paper published a remarkable and eminently readable portrait of the First Lady of the United States, aka FLOTUS, in last weekend’s edition:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a43929d0-9d17-11e5-b45d-4812f209f861.html
I admit I’m a fan of both Adele and Michelle. Maybe there’s something in the fact both names are pronounced on the second syllables and rhyme? In Belgium, the female version of my name is reasonably popular, and I once met singer songwriter Axelle Red – she’s big in her home country and a very nice lady at that!
So we categorise years by words and people, but of course we also remember them by events that happened in those twelve months, especially if they go back to the more distant past. Some random examples?
For Catholics, the year 1978 will always be remembered as “The Year of Three Popes”. First, Pope Paul VI deceased in August. Pope John Paul I, elected by the Conclave of Cardinals, died after only 33 days in office. And he was in turn succeeded by Pope John Paul II who then went on to serve until his death in 2005.
Buffs of German history will immediately know what is meant when you speak of “The Year of Three Emperors” (Dreikaiserjahr).
In 1888, the deaths of two Emperors in quick succession led to having three monarchs in one year. Wilhelm I died in March. His son, Frederick William assumed the throne as Frederick III, already suffering from terminal cancer of the larynx. After only 99 days of rule, during which he was unable to speak anymore, he died and was followed by his son, Wilhelm II who went on to reign until the bitter end – his abdication and the fall of the German Empire at the end of World War I in 1918.
To this day, the mnemonic “drei Achten, drei Kaiser” ("three eights, three emperors") is used in German history classes to memorise the year.
The one I like best is “The Year the Stars Fell Down on Texas” which refers to a spectacular meteor shower in 1833. Without the phenomenon we nowadays call “light pollution” – over our modern cities especially, it can be hard to see the stars at all – this must have been quite a sight to behold, and to this day, people everywhere in the South of the United States remember it as such.
Of course, much more important things than memorable night-sky natural phenomena happened over other twelve-month periods in the past, and maybe for that reason we tend to remember the event rather than the year.
Declaration of interest: As an historian, I can’t resist.
So please bear with me: Here’s a very subjective stab at the Top Twenty (no matter how much you simplify, synthesise, and focus, you can’t possibly do this in threes or even tens) Events in Human History, which I hope will serve as the basis for much discussion. And yes, they’re in purely chronological order, but feel free to have a go at ranking them – I won’t.
BC 508/507 Athenians establish democracy, led by Cleisthenes
BC 44 Assassination of Julius Caesar; end of Roman Republic
BC 27 Founding of Roman Empire by Octavian who takes on the name Augustus
Ca BC 5 Birth of Jesus of Nazareth
AD 476 Scirian leader Odoacer deposes Emperor Romulus; fall of Roman Empire
1066 Battle of Hastings; Norman invasion of Britain
1455 Johannes Gutenberg invents mechanical moving type printing
1492 Christoph Columbus discovers America
1517 Martin Luther publishes his 95 Theses; Christian Church split
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus declares a heliocentric universe
1776 American Declaration of Independence
1789 French Revolution
1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleonic conquests undone
1859 Charles Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species”
1900 Sigmund Freud publishes “The Interpretation of Dreams”
1905 Albert Einstein publishes “Theory of Special Relativity”
1913 Henry Ford develops the first moving assembly line
1917 United States enter into World War I; Russian Revolution
1989 Collapse of the Soviet Empire
2001 9/11
There it is. I rest my case. I admit it’s rather Eurocentric. Over to you.
On a lighter note, in English history one other year must of needs be added to the list – 1966 when the host nation’s team aka “Three Lions” won the football World Cup, known as the “Jules Rimet Trophy” then after the former FIFA President who was instrumental in starting the competition in 1930, for the first and only time by beating Germany 4-2 after extra time in the final.
Do not get me started on The Third Goal!
According to the FIFA Statutes, Brazil got to keep the trophy after winning it a third time in 1970, and the current one was introduced.
Then in 1996, England staged the European Championships which also turned out to be a memorable tournament, if for other reasons. Germany won the final against Czech Republic 2-1 through a “Golden Goal” scored by Oliver Bierhoff in the 95th minute, marking a brief experiment of FIFA with the principle of “sudden death” (sounding too American and negative I assume, hence the euphemism) to avoid boring, tactics-dominated 30-minute extra time periods or unjust penalty shoot-outs – the game was immediately over.
I was there at Wembley Stadium on the day. Back then, it was still so comparatively easy to get tickets for such games.
In the 2000 Final between France and Italy, end score also 2-1, David Trézéguet repeated the feat for the Équipe Tricolore; and in the Women’s World Cup Final of 2003, Germany defeated Sweden, you’ve guessed it, 2-1 with a header by Nia Künzer.
FIFA discontinued the rule because they realised that, you know what, we football fans like boring, tactics-dominated 30-minute extra time periods and unjust penalty shootouts.
Anyhow, not wanting to fall short of the occasion, there was an official anthem for the 1996 England team, “Football’s Coming Home”, the title referring with justified pride to the fact The Beautiful Game had indeed been “invented here”. The opening lines of the lyrics are:
“Three lions on a shirt,
Jules Rimet still gleaming.
Thirty years of hurt,
Never stopped me dreaming.”
Twenty years and ten major football tournaments without an England triumph later, I cannot help but ask myself whether that third line will be updated to “Fifty years of hurt” for the upcoming European Championships to be played in France in 2016.
Just kidding!
But before looking forward to 2016, football- and otherwise, let’s finally reflect on the year drawing to a close now. Like many before, it has been marked by suffering, death, and destruction. But like many before also, it has given us cause for joy, happiness, and belief.
Enough said on the former, so let’s focus on the latter maybe.
Category One: My favourite 2015 moments in general or political terms, in ascending order:
2 June – FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces his intention to resign amidst an FBI-led corruption investigation, and calls for an extraordinary congress to elect a new president as soon as possible
20 July – Cuba and the United States re-establish full diplomatic relations, ending a 54-year stretch of hostility between the nations
September – Angela Merkel opens the borders to all refugees, regardless of the burden it will inflict on Germany. In her own quiet way, she reassures her countrymen: “We can do this.”
And now, with a great drumroll, Category Two: My favourite 2015 moments in personal terms, also in ascending order:
1 June 2015: Under the most dramatic of circumstances, my football club Hamburger SV (HSV in short – one of the biggest brands in German sports if I say so myself) avoided relegation from the Bundesliga which would have been a first in their proud history dating back all the way to 1887. The bad news is they had to do the same in the previous season 2013/14 as well. The good news is things are looking up very much now. – As somebody much wiser than I once said: “A man can fall in love with a number of women in the course of a lifetime, but only with one football club.” I have nothing to add.
17 May 2015: Graduation of my youngest daughter Greta at Davidson College in North Carolina (www.davidson.edu). The third of three, but what a landmark (not a mere milestone)!
All year 2015: Following from a distance and finding out first-hand by visiting how well my son Preben has settled in and is doing as Athletic Director of English-taught Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Mae Rim near Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand (www.ptis.ac.th). When he started there in August of 2014, it was the first time one of my kids went somewhere I hadn’t been before or hadn’t scouted jointly with them first. Call me a “helicopter parent”, but saying good-bye to him then was a bitter-sweet moment.
Again, over to you. Top Three in each category?
So – what’s another year?
I’ll tell you what “What’s Another Year” is: It’s the title of the song that won the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC to those in the know), back in those days still the Concours Eurovision de la Chanson I believe, in 1980. Performed by the legendary Irish crooner Johnny Logan, it triumphed at that year’s event held in The Hague, Netherlands. You see, the Dutch had won in 1979 and according to the hallowed statutes of the competition got to host the following year’s one.
Johnny Logan went on to succeed again in 1987 with the equally timeless ditty “Hold Me Now”, earning him the nom de guerre, Mr Eurovision. What the Irish won’t fess up to is that he was born in Frankston, Victoria, Australia, but under the admittedly very “Old Country” name Seán Patrick Michael Sherran.
Anyhow, before I come to the story itself, let it be known that Ireland has been the most successful of nations participating in this epic continental battle of musical talent first launched in Lugano, Switzerland in 1956. It has been staged annually ever since, and in the intervening 60 years has visited 40 cities in 25 countries. 52 nations have now taken part, including for the first time, and as a one-off, Australia in 2015.
In due recognition of this impressive history, the organising European Broadcasting Union was awarded a “Guinness World Record” this year for Longest Running Annual TV Music Competition. I have a suspicion this category was specifically created in order to be able to make the award. That’s PR, baby.
For all sorts of fascinating statistics, well documented gems, and entertaining trivia, check out www.eurovision.tv.
In your faces, IOC and FIFA!
So Ireland has remarkably won this competition seven times to date, with three in consecutive years (1992/93/94) and four out of five from 1992 through 1996. Runner-up is Sweden with six wins, followed by joint thirds France, Luxembourg, and, yes, the United Kingdom (not England)!
The British group Bucks Fizz (after the orange-champagne cocktail) won in 1981, the year after Johnny Logan’s first success, with “Making Your Mind Up”. Legendary was the moment when, right on cue to the words “And if you want to see some more”, the two male singers pulled off the bottom parts of the two female singers’ stage costumes to display, well, some more. The technical term for this attention-grabbing gag was, I believe, a “skirt-rip”. Timeless television and a classic on YouTube to this day.
The Brits traditionally suffer from the fact this is considered to be a competition for up-and-coming talent – and that the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney, or Adele will never risk showing up and maybe not pulling it off. Can’t blame them really.
Germany, by the way, has managed just two meagre wins, if that makes everybody feel better. It’s not all about football, guys!
Very few winners of the ESC subsequently went on to big-time careers. One exception to this rule is Canadian Céline Dion who as a musical hired gun won the competition for Switzerland in 1988 with the song “Ne partez pas sans moi” that I confess doesn’t ring a bell.
And then, of course, there was ABBA as the huge exception to the rule: Their victory in 1974 with “Waterloo” launched one of the most successful acts in pop music history ever.
So here finally is the story.
On 19 April 1980, as already mentioned, Johnny Logan won the ESC with “What’s Another Year” (no question mark by the way). A few weeks later, precisely in the late afternoon of Saturday 24 May, I was standing at a gas station in Leverkusen, Germany, filling up my car for a very long and sad ride back home to Heidelberg, having just witnessed HSV lose 2-1 (there it is again) to then lowly, newly promoted Bayer Leverkusen on the penultimate game day of the Bundesliga season, thereby blowing their chances to win the German championship (which instead went to Bayern Munich). On the car radio all they played that afternoon and evening was “What’s Another Year”, and while at first I felt riled by the song’s title and lyrics (it’s to do with romance of course, not football), I eventually decided to take comfort in them – we’ll do it next season then!
I also still held out great hopes for the next game to be played on Wednesday 28 May in the Bernabeu Stadium of Madrid where HSV were in the Final of the European Champions’ Cup, the precursor to today’s Champions’ League, against Nottingham Forest. Having just massacred high and mighty Real Madrid in the semi-finals, surely nothing could go wrong for my team in that match-up, right?
Well, guess what, it did. We lost 1-0, with the equaliser wrongly disallowed for offside, and that’s when I faced up to the sad fact “another year” would actually be quite long.
To keep you from googling, it sadly turned out to be more than just twelve months. HSV won the German Championship twice in a row in the 1981/82 and 1982/83 seasons.
And we did finally also win the Champions’ Cup on 25 May 1983 by beating the then seemingly invincible Juventus Turin 1-0 in Athens. The goal was scored by a certain Felix Magath in the eighth minute, and when he was interviewed in the context of the 30-year anniversary of the club’s greatest triumph, asked about what he thought at that moment, he disarmingly replied: “As I walked back for the kick-off after my goal, I looked up at the big stadium clock, and I thought, shit, that was much too early in the game. They’re going to kill us now.”
Well, they didn’t. And I like to think Italian goalkeeping legend Dino Zoff still wakes up bathed in sweat at night from dreaming about that goal!
So – what’s another year or two?
Remember: “When it all comes down / We will still come through / In the long run.”
The Eagles, The Long Run (1979)
So in addition to making this the time of year for review, reflection, and retrospection, let’s make it the occasion for positive thoughts, planning, and confidence.
“It’s the time / Of the season / For loving.” The Zombies, Time of the Season (1968)
Signing off for this year, I wish you all a happy, peaceful, and re-energising holiday period and all the best for 2016. I, for one, am looking forward to both.
P.S. The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 will be held in Stockholm on Saturday 14 May 2016. Whatever else you may have planned for the day – Hold the Date!
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