FC Dulliken v FC Olten
Being noisy, English FC Winterthur fans, Mrs Duck and I have slowly become World-Famous in Winterthur. "Bullshit Referee!" has become something of a catchphrase since an infamous debut on Schützi TV and now we are being asked to do interviews for the local newspaper.
So we spent an evening drinking beer with local freelance journalist, Damian Keller the day before Donny Rovers performed their final second promotion spectacular in Brentford. Donny obviously formed a large part of the conversation and our liking for the bizarre in football was also mentioned.
Damian let us know about Cow Bingo. Football and crap. It's a natural combination for a fan who's team has spent far too long in the lower divisions and something we had to see.
So a few weeks later, we 'd travelled the couple of hours out to Dulliken, a village near Olten where the home side were entertaining FC Olten. The clash was a top of the table, local Derby. OK - Swiss Liga 2 (the sixth level in the Swiss pyramid system) is a regional league so a Derby was pretty much guaranteed. But table topping football followed by cows crapping live. What more could you want for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon?
So, is a shitting spectacular the way to bring in the fans? Well apparently, yes it is. Just over 900 spectators turned out to watch Swiss sixth flight football. The majority of second flight teams have lower attendances. And why not? There was plenty of good food available on the barbecues and at 10 SFr a ticket with the chance of winning a car, bovine bingo was worth a flutter.
But football first and we watched a game where, frankly both teams would have needed all night to get a goal. There were some decent skills on show elsewhere on the pitch with one Dulliken player making a double backheel to turn his opponent that was worthy of a bigger stage.
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| First Prize |
The ball was not going to find its way into a goal though, sometimes you could point fingers at wastefulness among strikers on other occasions you were just left wondering how it had stopped out. But 0:0 it was and there was a quite hush as cows started to gather at the far side of the neighbouring pitch.
With quite a crowd gathered around the pitch, Eric led out is team. His tactic was to keep everyone guessing for the opening minutes, galloping with his teammates all over the pitch showing no particular tactics. After a few minutes, fans who had lots in the penalty areas were starting to look like they could have made shrewd investments. There was a twitch of a tail, an "ooooh" from the crowd but Jim, on the right wing as just teasing.
A dog that was passing then tried to take matters into his own hands. Could he scare a heifer into action? Nope, he just received a long, incredulous stare before the herd took a few steps towards him. Obviously my plan of whipping on a lion mask and roaring should the cows come near my area of the pitch wasn't going to win the day.
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| Eric eyes the crowd nervously |
The crowd was getting inpatient. "Schiesse! Schiesse! Schiesse!" chanted a group of kids near to us. Fittingly, it was Eric who won someone a car with an attractive dribble in the inside left channel. This started something as a few minutes later, an electric Bike was won after significant movement in midfield.
But it was all taking too long. I think the coach had to take some of the blame. Surely the diet of the young team needed to be examined before the big day? You can't have heifers eating Chicken Vindaloo, that's just not natural but I'm sure Aloo Gobi would have produced a faster moving game! People started to drift away and we followed them, returning back to the clubhouse for some more of that excellent steak and Apèrol Proseccos.
We chatted with the Dulliken fans while the referee had to follow the cows alone, carefully marking the midpoint of their pats in accordance with the rules. Luckily, the rules mean the match is over after two hours, by which time only 8 of the 10 prizes had been awarded.
The trainer was disappointed.
"Eric's been looking like he could shit for Switzerland all week", explained coach Jürg. "But on the day, in front of such a big crowd, he just got nervous."
"Wouldn't nerves be a good thing?
"No, he bottled it!"
Exactly what is not needed by Cow Bingo teams. Anyway, a unique day for me. I cannot yet remember complaining that there wasn't enough shit on a football pitch!
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