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Spectators settle back during the long stretch of scoreless innings of the Westermarc-Drinomar baseball final. Upstart Westermark finally broke the deadlock and ended up beating the heavily favored Dinomar 4 - 3 before a crowd of 32,787 avid fans. Vexillium Magazine, as can be seen from the huge sign boards hung at the far end of the stands, has established strong advertising presence at the games already, in only its second week of publication. |
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VEXGAMES: Stolen Limelight It turned out to be the wrong week to pick to stage the first VexGames; or, alternatively, it was the wrong week to pick to stage potential cataclysm. It depends on your perspective, but there can be no doubt that, in terms of the competition for attention from the Vex's media, the potential cataclysm won hands down. Somehow, the outcome of a soccer game no longer seemed of such overriding importance to a public preoccupied in wondering whether their world would still be there the next morning. Still the Games went on, although in the anxiety generated by the uncertainties |
of the international situation certain events were run ahead of schedule. Thanks to this, the internatinal sporting public could comfort comfort itself that, even it their nations did not survive the weekend, they would to down knowing which of them had had the best baseball or soccer team on the planet. Cold comfort, one might think, unless one is hopelessly addicted to following these pastimes. By Tuesday, however, as the tension of the diplomatic crisis gradually dissipated and life returned to normal, the Games once again came to the center of the Vex's attention, not because of something happening on the playing fields of Morania City but because of what was reported out of the vast and mighty nation of San Patricio, | always an important player on the world stage. (Cf. Letters, p.1 -- it pays to write letters to the editors!) For there the deliriously jubilant citizenry was in the course of giving a tumultuous welcome to their victoriously returning track and field heroes, who had brought back to them more bezants than a galleon of yore. To quote from El Mondo, Puerto Bravo's leading afternoon daily: "'Medallas / Medallas / Arriba Las Medallas!' chanted the surging crowd,and the Morania City prizewinners obliged their legions by lifting high above their heads the symbols of their triumph: four gold, four bronze, one silver. Pandemonium ensued." The Vexgames will last until 28 July. Perhaps in the calmer world they can regain the limelight. |
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WHAT WE THOUGHT WE'D NEVER SEE: The official logo for the new Altlandic soccer/football league -- not exciting, but undeniably there. Recently the RAAC (Royal Altlandic Athletic Commission) has unveiled yet further suprises, including the proposed national team uniforms, illustratrated below. |
| King George I Amadeus played it, but quietly and privately, as he did most things, out on an improvised pitch in the park behind the Jergenpalas together with a dozen or so of the old Romandian friends of his boyhood whom he kept around the capital and employed in sincures just for the purpose of having them on hand for these informal weekend games. No crowds watched, no particular attention was paid -- just another of the King's many eccentricities, the public thought, if they thought about it at all. Soccer, particularly in the conservative, northern, Teuts-speaking provinces of Altland, has never caught on, and a soccer-playing king made no difference. | Now, however, things seem to be changing. The mild taste for the game acquired by the late king's son, George II Victor, during his two-and-a- half years of exile -- some of it rumored to have been spent in the soccer-mad Westrian Realm -- has resulted in the chartering of the nation's first effort at governmental sponsorship of a sport, and that sport is soccer. In a country that adheres tenaciously to its traditions and that has had no tradition whatsoever of professional spectator sports, the current introduction of soccer, the provision of training in the game in every province, and the planned organization of provincial teams to compete in what amounts to a semi-professional domestic | league constitute almost a cultural revolution -- and yet, thusfar, a quiet and rather blandly accepted one This is remarkable in that, when the Neonesian regime encouraged soccer as part of their effort to "modernize" the country, the response was only hostile indifference. Those given to political speculation further note, however, that soccer fits well into the unannouced new policy of stressing things culturally more Romandian. Commissioner Knokenbijn, one of only two or three surviving soccer-buddies of the late king, foresees a brilliant future for his beloved game in Altland: "It's catching on fast, even in the North! But you should see those kids from Disonda -- they could take on the Lexicans already! |
| THE PROPOSED NATIONAL SOCCER KIT looks good coming and going, at home or away. White is for domestic consumption, while red is for the purpose of making a vivid impression abroad. But long before anyone ever gets to wear these uniforms, a whole program will have to be built, practically from the ground up. In the meantime, there's plenty of work for the designers on the twenty-some provincial teams due to start up in the fall. |  |
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