Foreign cash good for kicks
QUESTION Which was the first British football club with a foreign owner?
SAM HAMMAM, a Lebanese businessman, left war-torn Beirut for Britain in 1975. A love of tennis took him to Wimbledon, where, in 1977, he bought a share of Wimbledon FC. In 1981, he became the first foreign owner and chairman.
The club went on a remarkable run. Elected to the football league in 1977, they fought their way (quite literally) into the First Division in 1985-86 adopting Crazy Gang tactics; a highly aggressive, physical style of play, exemplified by hardman defender Vinnie Jones. In 1988 at Wembley, the club took on and beat a great Liverpool team 1-0 in the FA Cup final.
The first non-resident owner was Californian lawyer Bruce Osterman, who bought Tranmere Rovers in 1984. A keen goalkeeper, he’d visit the UK to train with the team. A few years later, he fell foul of supporters when he tried, but failed, to sell the stadium, Prenton Park, to Tesco. Jack Thomas, Colsterworth,
Lincolnshire.
QUESTION What became of the British army officer who found Roman artefacts near Osnabruck in Germany that ‘rewrite the history books’?
MAJOR John Anthony Spencer Clunn (1946-2014) was an amateur archaeologist who found the main site of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest of September 8-11, AD 9.
This highly significant battle saw a Germanic alliance ambush and destroy three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus, abruptly ending a period of Roman expansion under Emperor Augustus. At the time there was no definitive archaeological record of the event.
In 1987, Clunn was attached to the Royal Tank Regiment in Osnabruck, northwest Germany. He took advice from a district archeologist who, informed by 19th-century research, recommended he search around Kalkriese Hill, 15 miles north of the city. He discovered several coins from the reign of Augustus, none more recent than AD 9. A comprehensive excavation of the site in 1989 made it possible to reconstruct the route taken by Roman legionaries under Varus, and determine where they were ambushed and massacred.
Clunn was made an MBE in 1996. He retired to Osnabruck and died on August 3, 2014, at his home in Bissendorf. He was friends with Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman, also a detectorist.
Clunn’s finds are displayed at the Varusschlacht (Varus Battle) Museum and Park Kalkriese, and covered in his book, The Quest For The Lost Roman Legions: Discovering The Varus Battlefield.
Max Wright, Hay-on-Wye, Wales.
QUESTIONthe Who coined term news ‘anchor’?
DON HEWITT, creator of 60 Minutes, CBS America’s longrunning news magazine, claims to have coined the term during the 1952 Chicago Democratic convention, when he said: ‘I’m using four broadcasters (Walter Cronkite, Doug Edwards, John Daly and Quincy Howe). I said I’m gonna consider it like a relay team, and we’re gonna hand the baton to the last guy.’
‘Cronkite was that “anchor man”. It’s about track, it’s not about ships,’ he said. Penny Willis, Portishead, Somerset.
QUESTION What are some once popular schoolyard games that are no longer played?
FURTHER to the earlier answers, we used to play Weak Horse, which was the same game as Horsey Horsey Ay!
On one occasion I was a member of the scrum which we called the ‘weak horse’ and it had collapsed. My right arm was trapped at the bottom of the heap. After an X-ray at the hospital, it emerged that I had a greenstick fracture. The game was banned for a season following my break. Tony Cashmore, Nuneaton,
Warwickshire.
QUESTION Are the inhabitants of Cairo pigeon-fanciers?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, pigeons bred for the table in Cairo are not a modern phenomenon.
Among the signature sights of Egypt are the great earthen chimneys that functioned as giant dovecotes. These can be found towering above the mud brick houses on the periphery of Egyptian villages even today. Some of these structures are thousands of years old. Visitors might have eaten the famous hamam mahshi, a stuffed pigeon dish where the birds are filled with rice or freekeh, onions and chopped giblets.
Mrs Ann O’Keefe, Widnes, Cheshire.
QUESTION Did someone invent square watermelons?
YES. In 1978, graphic designer Tomoyuki Ono presented the watermelons in a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, and applied for, and received, a patent, US4187639A, for: ‘The moulding process for a natural fruit of a fruit-tree or vegetable.’
Square watermelons are easier to handle, store and ship; they will not roll and they take up less room in the fridge. However the cost was prohibitive. The cube shape could only be achieved at the expense of the fruit. They had to be harvested unripe, rendering them practically inedible. They did briefly become popular as artworks, selling for $100 a fruit.
Catherine Taylor, Hertfordshire.