Outdoor Snooker in Yerevan
Armenia 2 Wales 2
Meet the Amenian Ray Reardon!
MAX, the one-armed Armenian outdoor
snooker supremo, was busy honing his skills as we strolled through
Yerevan's Victory Park.
Aged about 45, dressed in a blue shell suit and sporting three
days' bristle on his chin, he was the custodian of a tatty building
with rotting timbers. Two pool tables stood on the grimy verandah.
This was Yerevan's fabled outdoor snooker centre - a shanty town
shack that looked ready to fall down.
A hundred yards away on top of a hill overlooking the city, a
100-foot high steel statue of Mother Armenia, surrounded by a
tank, missile launcher and other armoured vehicles, stood sentinel
over the capital.
But we were irresistibly drawn to the sound of clicking balls.
All 16 were the same colour - white. How did you play this bizarre
game, exposed to the elements, and not a bar in sight?
It wasn't until we had taken off our jackets and teamed up (me
and Max v Phil from Aber and Stu from Wrexham) that we noticed
our host's singular style.
He had no right arm and, standing ramrod straight, with a violent
stabbing jerk of his left arm, imparted a vicious sidespin to
the cue ball. Armenia's answer to Ray Reardon.
We spent the half hour ostensibly playing a hybrid of pool and
billiards (the rules are too dull to go into, but if you really
want to know, email and you'll get a graphic account of an epic
encounter. Dennis Taylor would've had a heart attack).
But we were secretly marvelling at melancholy Max. We'd just met
another poverty-stricken, resilient, friendly and dignified Yerevan
citizen who'd made this trip one of the best ever.
Getting whupped by a one-armed snooker whizz was another succulent,
surprising slice of the surreal. Only on a Wales trip...
After seeing the lives of so many downtrodden people - one concierge
at our hotel whose husband died in the 1988 earthquake was a qualified
doctor unable to get work and who earned $28 a month for working
ten 24-hour shifts - it would be churlish to bemoan our luck on
the field.
And what a nail-biting game it
was. The stadium is situated in the middle of a shanty town and
by day, the main approach road was full of chickens. There was
no street lighting and I nearly jarred my back stepping in a pothole
about a foot deep.
In a rare lapse of courtesy, the Armenians had swiped our seats
so we pitched camp behind the goal for another great showing by
the World's Greatest Fans.
Armed with drums bought in a flea market and dressed in dirt-cheap
Armenian football shirts and shorts, Cardiff's Boore brothers
- Alun, Gwilym and Rhys - and pals had the game of their lives.
Looking like the clap-happy troupe tra-la-laing down your local
street they banged out, to the tune of Hare Krishna: "Gary,
Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary (that's seven Garys) Speed."
They didn't sing that's seven Garys, I'm just totting them up
for you.
Maybe you had to be there but we thought it a cracker. Well worth
it just to see a prospective Parliamentary candidate for Plaid
Cymru jigging along to it.
The other No1 hit was dreamt up by eggphobic Gwilym who improved
hugely on arch rugger bugger M** B****'s "Ah so, Ah so Yogishi"
with:
"Johnny Hartson, he very big man;
None like him in Yerevan."
Good to see Cardiff boys coining a song celebrating a son of Swansea.
Anne Robinson deservedly got a good spanking but printing the
song on a family website would be naughty. Think Posh Spice, West
Ham etc.
The first goal was a classic example of why the team should have
played a friendly in February instead of topping up their tans
in La Manga. Ych a fi - I swear I saw rust spilling out of our
defenders' ears.
Hartson's equaliser was a smasher and his second goal cued the
usual Jingle Bell chants about winning away. But, as against Norway,
we seemed frightened by the prospect of winning and it was no
surprise to see Armenia come back.
I blinked hard but it wasn't Roberto Carlos, though it might have
been. Liked the newspaper observation that Movsesyan, who played
for Saturn, scored a goal from a different planet.
Leggy then nearly had a late throw knocked in by their Alexei
Sayle-lookalike keeper late on and an even later mix-up between
Page and Paul Jones was pube-stiffeningly scary.
On the whistle, only John Robinson ventured near our end to acknowledge
another tremendous effort by us - in the rain too as the roof
had yet to fixed onto the already constructed gantry.
What a bloody great, humble player this man is.
He's got more juice in his legs than a pack of hyenas chasing
down a wildebeest. At one point, he closed down three Armenians
at the same time. Cheers Robbo, such efforts are noted and cherished.
Needless to say we'd just witnessed a game we'd have won if Ryan
Giggs had played. That would've been the icing on the cake of
a marvellous six days.
Like Belarus, the friendliness, the resilience of the locals and
the glimpses of beauty amid the squalor - Mount Ararat, visible
on a clear day, from Yerevan, is an awesome site that reduces
you to silence.
And me and Max won the snooker 2-1!
Highlight:
A fantastic World War Three-esque snowball fight by 20 or
so middle-aged men on the shores of Lake Sevan after visiting
a monastery (we do culcher too, like).
While taking a leak, Keith from Wrexham was ambushed by a blizzard
of boms that, if launched at Turkey, would have won back Mount
Ararat for Armenia. He swears every one thrown by his cognac-quaffing
assailants missed.
Lowlight:
About 30 fans at Hotel Erebuni, massing for departure, were
refused access to the seventh floor lift. The reason? Despicable
crime of the vilest nature! Someone had pinched something from
one of the rooms.
The missing object? An eagle-eyed search by a platoon of staff
spooks ahd revealed the loss of
an irreplaceable ... coathanger. One fan was accused. It was like
one of Stalin show trials (Ok maybe not). He unpacked his entire
wardrobe to prove he had not purloined the plastic hanger. The
fans were then allowed to come back to Britain.
Best player:
Hartson has finally exorcised the ghost of Bobby Ghoul. Full
marks to Mark Pembridge for putting his well-being on the line,
but ending up out for a month. Top effort and get well soon.
Villain:
The unspeakable Alex Ferguson. If you are Welsh and a Man
U fan search your soul. Here, in the cradle of Christianity, you
were betrayed by a man you consider to be a God.
Just remember that we would have two more points in our table
and a better chance of reaching Japan 2002.
Celebrity bust-up:
Did Kendall, Weston etc deserve their punishment? We walked
past them late at night on the evening in question and they were
definitely not tanked up, though they could only manage to grunt
when I said: "All right, boys."
They'd just left a bar in which one of our number, Newport's Mr
Prickett, was later approached by a local who swanked in self-importantly
for a late-night snifter. Seeing Mr Prickett, who has a very visible
Newport County Skinheads tattoo on his forearm, he decided to
go straight up to him (ignoring the other three of us), extended
his right arm, puffed out his chest and introduced himself: "Hello,
I am Armenian mafioso."
What do you say to that? Mr Prickett, ever the diplomat (arf,
arf), said hello demurely and we hurriedly settled our bill before
scrambling outside.
Fans of the week:
First place:
The Boore brothers. Another humungous effort from the crack
Cardiff combo and their mates who include someone who could be
an MP by the time of the next game (he won't win). That the received
unwanted attention from some locals afterwards was very unfortunate.
Second place:
Richey from Newtown. Married on March 17. Went to Armenia on March
20. You still married?
adecolley@hotmail.com
Credits: Many thanks to Phil from Aber, Stu and Keith from Wrexham,
Andrew from Reading for inspiration. Any nice lines you liked
are probably one of theirs.
Many thanks to Roland Harris for providing the photos.