Playing the Moldovans At Tennis Read online

  Adrian was laughing. Not smiling, not giggling, but laughing big time. I couldn't believe it. I looked in wonder as he wiped the tears from his cheek and beckoned me urgently back to my seat. I shrugged to him and smiled. I felt great. I wanted to proclaim 'My work here is done' and then just disappear.

  But there was a bit more to do just yet.

  'I must have come to the wrong place,' I said to myself as I looked out over a football pitch devoid of players.

  And yet I seemed to have it right. It was Sunday afternoon, this was the national athletic stadium, and the football should have started by now. The big sign by the halfway line suggested that this was the correct venue.

  MOLDOVA GAZ V NISTRU

  But no sign of any players. I cautiously approached a group of men all clad in leather jackets and enquired as to the whereabouts of the footballers, but no-one spoke any English and no progress was made.

  'Parlez-vous frangais?' I threw in hopefully.

  'Oui, un peu,' replied a solitary voice.

  A short man with a well-groomed moustache, who was the source of these sounds, explained to me in sketchy French that the match wasn't being played because the team Nistru hadn't bothered to turn up. This was more like it! This is exactly the kind of thing I had been expecting from domestic Moldovan football. Sloppy amateurism. It was just unfortunate for me that none of the players I required played their football for slack outfits like Nistru. Teams who don't turn up to matches probably aren't going to be that protective of their players.

  'Vitalie Culibaba – il joue pour Moldova Gaz, n'est ce pas?' I asked, beginning to reveal my true reason for being at the ground.

  'Oui.'

  By turning up to this game, and thus having achieved something which had been beyond the capabilities of FC Nistru, I was to be handsomely rewarded. The man with whom I was sharing this scrabbly Gallic exchange now revealed himself to be the manager of Moldova Gaz. Delighted at the news, I immediately went into my old 'I'm a BBC TV sports journalist' line and produced my video camera by way of proof. I began filming him and asked a few vaguely journalistic questions as he basked in the glory of the camera's gaze. His colleagues looked on, impressed. Just as I had done with the Green One, I added the details of my other agenda here in Moldova as an afterthought and once again I was rewarded with the home phone number of the relevant player and the manager's blessing for the playing of the tennis match.

  'Merci beaucoup,' I said shaking the manager's hand. 'J'espère que tous vos jeus seront assez facile que ce match contre Nistru.'

  He smiled, a what did all that mean? smile, and gave a friendly little wave to the camera as he and his entourage made their exit.

  I kept the camera running and panned round to shoot the empty football pitch only to find the lens filled by a big happy smiling face, its red wine-stained mouth spluttering some greeting or other. I drew the camera away from my eye to see that I'd been focusing on a large middle-aged fellow with a bulbous nose and ruddy complexion, who was flanked by three enthusiastic looking youths.

  'Hello London!' said one of them, directly down the camera lens.

  The others looked on as if I held in my hand the answer to the secrets of the universe. The camera had acted as a magnet and drawn them to me, and now they wanted to wave playfully and send greetings from the Moldovan people to those in Britain. And who was I to stop them? To my surprise, the lads spoke pretty good English and fired continuous questions at me.

  'Do you drive a BMW?'

  'How much money do you earn?'

  'Do you have a big house?'

  What is your name?'

  I chose this last enquiry as the one most worthy of a response.

  'My name is Tony,' I replied.

  'Ah Tony! Tony Blair!' chimed in the most vocal of the lads, to much amusement. 'My name is Spartak. These are my friends, Iura and Leonid, and this is our friend Emile who we met this afternoon.'

  On hearing his name, the older man Emile put his arm around me and began beckoning me somewhere.

  'Emile says that he has never met an Englishman before,' explained Spartak. 'He wants you to go and have a drink with him.'

  'Where?'

  'His house. We are all invited.'

  'OK'

  And so I traipsed off to Emile's house with my new-found friends. In between further questions about life in England and exactly how many people drive a Mercedes Benz, I was able to learn that the lads were students at the university, and that Emile was happy and drunk.

  When we arrived at Emile's abode, which was a rather sweet little cottage set in a small courtyard behind the football stadium, he immediately took us down into a cellar filled with bottled gherkins. There is a line to be drawn with regard to the number of gherkins that it's healthy for a man to keep, and it was a line which Emile had unquestionably crossed. On all four walls, shelves from floor to ceiling were stacked full of bottles containing this unsavoury looking vegetable. For a moment I was struck by the unpredictability of life. By rights I should have been watching a football match now, but here I was in a dingy cellar with Moldova's very own super-hero, Gherkin Man.

  'Emile wants you to take some wine,' said Spartak. 'He makes his own.'

  Oh mercy, no. This I could not take. Gherkin wine? Please no.

  'Give me your camera,' said Iura. 'I will film you.'

  I handed the camera over, just for a moment wondering whether I would ever see it again.

  'Este vin,' announced Emile, offering me what looked like a pint mug full of red liquid. 'E foarte bun!'

  Any relief at the colour of the liquid was tempered by the size of the receptacle from which I was required to drink it. As I took hold of the mug Emile grabbed my elbow and tried to force me to down the whole thing in one. My stomach still required gentle treatment and my instinct was not to indulge Emile by drinking a pint of his dodgy home-made wine. However despite resisting as best I could, I was still forced into a huge mouthful. Ugh! Foul, just as expected. Spartak and Leonid cheered, Iura filmed, and Emile grabbed me and planted a huge wet smacker of a kiss on my cheek. Alright, it may not have been the kind of kiss that had started to feature in my dreams of recent nights, but nonetheless it had its worth. It was another sign that Moldova was beginning to accept me at last.

  Having extricated myself from the over zealous hospitality of Emile, and experienced an alternative tour of Chisinau courtesy of my student chums, I stopped at a call box to report in to Iulian.

  'Great news Iulian,' I announced proudly. 'I have another home phone number – Vitalie Culibaba.'

  This is good Tony,' replied Iulian. 'I have had a lot of success today too. I called Sischin and he says that he will play you on Tuesday. He also gave me the number of the goalkeeper Denis Romanenko, who is a really nice guy. He says he will play you tomorrow and he will bring Radu Rebeja and Iurie Miterev with him too.'

  'You mean I am playing three Moldovan footballers tomorrow?'

  'Yes. You'd better get an early night.'

  12

  No Sets Please,

  I'm Moldovan

  I looked out of my bedroom window and observed a fresh, clear autumn morning; one which looked like it was going to prove Iulian wrong.

  'I think it is going to rain tomorrow,' he'd said to me the previous night as we finalised details for today's matches.

  'Iulian, you do realise that you're a I think it is going to rain tomorrow person? Let's just imagine that things might go how we want for once.'

  'OK,' he'd said, with absolutely no conviction.

  I made my way down to the kitchen with more than a tingle of nerves in my stomach. D Day had arrived. I was only too aware that if I lost to any of these three footballers today then the bet was lost. By the front door, I met Adrian who was thrilled that I was finally about to play my first tennis matches.

  'Don't you dare come home without winning!' he said as he started out for college.

  I marvelled at the change in his attitude. I watched him as
he headed for the bus stop, convinced that he looked more upright, more eager. Could it be that he was even excited by the prospect of a new day?

  There was a more positive environment awaiting me at the Journalism Centre too. From outside the door, I heard a big booming American voice coughing decibels into the normally tranquil office. Big Jim had arrived.

  Jim was a healthily round figured man with a keen, interested face, on which he sported a grey moustache similar in design to those plastic clip-on ones from Christmas crackers. He was chairman of some kind of broadcasting governing body back in Minnesota, and was in Chisinau to assist the Moldovans in setting up commercial radio stations. I learned later that he'd started out life presenting the breakfast show on Radio KSTT in Iowa before working his way to the top of his profession on the administrative side. He never told me what KSTT stood for though. It occurred to me that American radio stations are always called things like Radio WBQX or WKEVI but we tend never to find out why. From what I've heard of American radio, they all ought to be called Radio WTCB3. I liked Jim. His upbeat approach boosted my confidence just when it was needed. His response on learning the nature my business in Moldova was unequivocal.

  3We Talk Complete Bollocks.

  'You'll win that bet, Terry, no question.'

  This sentence summed up the two things I liked most about him. His positive attitude, and the fact that he persistently got my name wrong. All around him people would refer to me as Tony, but Big Jim was deaf to these sounds. For some reason he'd locked on to Terry, and was not prepared to countenance addressing me any other way. Terry may hot have been my given name, but it was certainly the one I'd been given by him.

  Well, good luck, Terry,' he said, as Iulian and I headed off for the courts. 'Go out and do your stuff!'

  On the way we stopped off to buy some beers, on the assumption that it's not just British footballers who are partial to the stuff. I would have bought a Page Three model, and a tabloid photographer for brawling purposes, but they'd sold out. That's state-run shops for you.

  Since the courts at the National Tennis Centre were being used all week in a training camp for promising young juniors, Iulian and I had been forced to find another location for the matches. After a little to-ing and fro-ing we had secured the use of one of the courts within the grounds of the Republican football stadium, a fitting venue given the profession of my opponents. The courts, which were sandwiched between the stadium's stands and the road, were looked after by a man called Sergei, whose chiselled features and rough-hewn hands suggested that factory life had preceded his recent foray into commercial sport. He seemed a nice enough guy and what's more, he wasn't charging me an excessive amount for the hire of his court. OK, I might have been paying slightly over the odds compared to a Moldovan, but then I was a wealthy guest in this country, so why not? Sergei's slight adjustment of the going rates contrasted sharply with The Arsehole of the Universe in Transnistria, who appeared to assume that everyone in the West was a millionaire and consequently fair game for wholesale exploitation.

  Sergei's face lit up when Iulian explained to him what was about to take place on his patch.

  'He is a big football fan,' Iulian informed me. 'He says he knows all the players.'

  In this regard Sergei was untypical. Most Moldovans show little interest in their national side, preferring to follow the fortunes of either Romania or the Ukraine, depending on their ethnic background. Sergei, however, knew all the players' names and was quite delighted that they were going to appear on his tennis court. He smiled broadly, as well he might. His court was being hired out at a good rate and he was going to get to meet all his heroes. Not a bad

  gig-Sergei watched me with interest as I paced nervously, awaiting the arrival of my first celebrity guest. It was ten past two and the first player had been due to arrive at two o'clock. I did my best to resist thoughts that I was about to be stood up, but I couldn't help myself. By quarter past two I'd convinced myself that I'd been naive to expect professional footballers to give up their free time for a game of tennis, especially when there was absolutely nothing in it for them.

  'Ah – Iurie Miterev!' exclaimed Sergei with excitement, referring to one of the three young men emerging from a car which had just pulled into the car park adjoining the courts.

  I looked over, awestruck. Could it be true? Was I finally about to do battle with a Moldovan footballer on a tennis court?

  The three men made their way towards us, and it became obvious which one was the footballer. The tall, fit-looking one. My immense relief at the arrival of a player was instantly superseded by fear, especially now I could see that Iurie Miterev was a fine physical specimen, and one which looked likely to make formidable opposition. Even though only a few days earlier I'd done enough of it for a lifetime, I was close to crapping myself again.

  Iulian made the introductions and I shook hands with the object of my fear, who then made his way into the wooden hut which Sergei called a changing room. While he prepared himself for battle I met his two friends who happily accepted the offer of a beer. I tried to get Iulian to establish from them whether Iurie Miterev had played much tennis in his life, but the two men just shrugged and then giggled a bit. Terrible thoughts crossed my mind. Why were they laughing? Was it because I was about to get stuffed by Iurie, who was an ace with the racket? Was Iurie going to be the best of all of the players? It would be Sod's Law that the first one I played would be the best. I tried to think back to what Natasha, the gypsy card reader from Soroca, had said about Miterev. The more I thought about it, the more I became sure that he had been one of the players that she had told me not to play. Hang on, wasn't he one of the footballers who she had said would try and poison me? Maybe that's why he had the two guys with him – they'd help him dispose of my corpse when he'd finished with me. I would have to be very careful. Very careful indeed.

  Iurie emerged from the dressing room wearing a red top and green shorts, but with no steaming test tube spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Good, no evil potion. And no established tennis kit either. This I took to be a good sign. For a moment I was reminded of the junior tennis tournaments I used to enter in the summer holidays when if a player turned up with better tennis kit than you, then the assumption was that they would be the better player. Sometimes you'd be half way through the first set before you'd suddenly realise that their game wasn't as impressive as their brand new rackets and expensive Fred Perry tennis wear, and that you could actually beat them. On occasions it worked the other way. A player would turn up with one racket, odd socks and a tatty T-shirt and turn out to be extremely talented. A bluffer. You had to watch them.

  Conversations were significant too, especially in the nervy pre-match walk to the tennis courts. Big talking, boasts of tournaments won or difficult opponents thrashed, all played their part. Similarly, players might say things which can suggest a poor level of play is to be expected. Many years after my junior days, in a celebrity-am tournament at the Queen's Club, I was due to play in a match with a radio presenter who some might say was no longer at the peak of his career – to protect his identity let us call him David 'Doddy' Hamilton. As we walked to the courts David looked at me and said:

  'What have you got two tennis rackets for?'

  I knew from this that he did not play very much, or hit the ball hard using much topspin. (A player who does will accept the possibility of breaking a string at any moment, and will therefore keep a spare in readiness.) As we got to the courts and took out the balls, David turned to me and smiled confidently. Suddenly it dawned on me that he was probably a bluffer who had plenty of spare rackets stashed in his car. As it happened I needn't have worried. David's career was in a much healthier state than his tennis.

  I was pleased to see that Iurie had gone one better than David 'Doddy' Hamilton. He had no tennis racket at all. This augured well but I was still uneasy. Maybe he was a bluffer. Maybe he played so much he'd broken all his rackets and they were off being re-strung.
Maybe he'd traded his rackets in to pay for the poison.

  While Iulian set the video camera on its tripod, I handed Iurie my spare racket and we made our way to our respective ends of the court. Battle was about to commence. After travelling over a thousand miles and grovelling for more than a fortnight, could it be that I'd then fall at the very first hurdle? Miterev, a colourful figure in his green and red, looked unsettlingly eager as he waited at the opposing baseline.

  I hit him the first ball. A high, gentle, looping one aimed at his forehand. I watched keenly as he shaped up to it, taking a big and hugely worrying back-swing. This guy was about to strike the ball very hard indeed. His face, a picture of concentration, was almost grimacing as his racket head made contact with the ball, and . . . bang! . . . he hit it clean over the back fence. His two beer-drinking chums fell about laughing and I let out a huge sigh of relief, while Iulian scurried off to retrieve the recently expelled yellow projectile.

  Iurie's next attempt at striking the ball, although in marked contrast to the first, was still no better. This second shot bounced several times before it reached the net. He needed to find some kind of middle ground between the two shots, but I knew this was something he'd be unlikely to achieve in the course of an afternoon. Thank God.

  After Iulian had returned for the fourth time from retrieving one of Iurie's 'big' shots, he oversaw a short meeting at the net between lurie and myself at which it was decided what form the match should take. My initial suggestion was that we should play one long set – the first to nine games, with a tie break at eight all. lurie, however, was not keen since he had to go to training later that afternoon and was pushed for time. He suggested that we played one long tie break – the first to eleven points. At first I was reluctant to agree to this. In the sudden death situation of a tie-break I felt that I might fall victim to a freak passage of inspired play by my opponent, and not be afforded the opportunity to stage a spirited comeback. However, after giving it a moment's thought, I agreed, largely for two reasons. First, so that I could conserve energy given that I had three matches to play in one afternoon, and secondly, because lurie was crap. So crap that it really made no odds whether we played up to three, or a thousand and three.