Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger's Tor! The story of German Football is a bloody good read. It also raises some points about the nature of its subject matter. First, it is possible to misunderstand the football of a given country if you are not part of, or well informed about, the culture. When you delve deeper, you find that the passion Hesse-Lichtenberger displays is based on a form of blind faith in what you may consider historical fact or Tatsache. The English do not necessarily understand the former point, but will get the latter rings more than a few bells.

In the English game, there is a lack of repect for the culture of German football. It is, like English football, packed with passion and pain and not a little beauty. If only they could see it, though. The stereotypes of Germany that one finds in football, although occasionally amusing, are essentially shorthand for what they feel about Germans as they (mis-) understand them.

Some Germans don't get it either. Take one of the most succesful films to be made in Germany in recent years, Das Wunder von Bern (pictured above). The historical event it depicts is a fascinating series of events that tell us of the complexities, the genius and often roaring inepttiude and lack of completeness that West Germany experienced when it attended the 1954 World Cup. The film of the event is a film of the myth, and therefore lacks an appreciation of the complexities of the original story. It makes no mention of the unfortunate rendition of Deutschland Ueber Alles, the abandoned and jingoistic first verse of the German national anthem, or the wider fall out of the win for German society, the tut-tutting of the media at the euphoria that followed. Clumsily, Germans were beginning to stumble towards asking themselves who they were. This is a lesson, I think, that has yet to be drawn from England's own iconic World Cup victory.

Hesse-Lichtenebrger doesn't make this point, which is a pity. But he does display what the film displays. A tacit understanding of the power of those events, and that only the hardest of football fans could not get a lump in their throat thinking of the significance of this occasion. A power and significance recognised in the current Berlin Republic. For me, its the power of football.

The return of the Ginga Ninja

Hello again!

I'm the bald guy on the left, and worried at how I look like William Hague. Still, such is life, and I am left to compare my early appearance with that of a failed Tory leader.

Let me bring you up to speed. My last blog was in 2003. Since then I have made it as a qualified teacher: the zenith of my career was reached this morning when one of my students indicated the city of Mainz on a map of Germany with the corner of his (flying) dictionary. His aim was remarkably true. Sadly, he was not involved in my school's unsuccessful attempt to reach the next stages of the Leinster Junior Cup (Rugby, don't you know...). It seems they were hit by a some sort of gypsy curse: The captain hurt his shoulder, another player chucked the big vom, or so I am told, and most cruelly, they were defeated after leading at half time.

This, however, leads me to my real reason for writing this post. My one true passion, writing, has been rekindled this week. Hurrah! Another attempt to be Nick Hornby, strutting self consciously in Helen Fielding's knickers? Eh, I think not. Life, like literature, doesn't need to be so contrived. My problem with modern popular literature is that it fails to see that coinicdence provides the better scenarios than conscious literary endeavour. The temporary rush of adrelaline in a fourteen year old boy with a book in his hand, an unfortunate fall in a training session and butterflies on an empty stomach indicate that there is absolutely no need for a controlling third party to invent what reality throws up so much more eloquently every day.