Ben was on a journey that he would never forget. He’d heard about the country of Romania for sure. Unfortunately, a lot of it was negative, connected to Communism and all of its consequences. And then, of course, there was football. Without football, Ben’s knowledge of the world would have been poorer. But as it was, he was well clued up on geography having watched matches from all sorts of places. Bucharest was one of them. He had vague recollections of Rapid Bucharest, whose players, fortunately, weren’t so rapid as to give West Ham the run-around.
And then, there was the World Cup. Ben was old enough to remember red-shirted players giving some Columbians a few problems. Lăcătuș was one of them if Ben wasn’t very much mistaken. A funny name if ever there was one, Ben had thought at the time. Ireland had put pay to their progress in the end, though.
Next, there was the World cup in the USA. This was a golden time for the Romanians’ golden generation. There had been a flaw though. They’d allowed some players into the team whose surname didn’t end in -escu, which had obviously disrupted team unity and led to their quarterfinal exit. I mean look at Bulgaria, hardly anyone whose name didn’t end in -ov ever got into the team and they made it to the semi-final and, by Ben’s reckoning, really deserved to be in the final, which they could have won. They even beat Germany on the way.
Such football reminiscences could have gone on for a long time, if it were not for a sudden jolt. This woke Ben out of his deep football-related meditation. It was probably a good job too, as he was getting close to ’98 and 2000 in his thoughts, not happy years for English football fans as far as Romania is concerned.
The jolt was from the train coming to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Well at least to Ben it seemed like nowhere. The train spent many a minute standing still for apparently no reason and with no announcement to illuminate the passengers as to what was going on. Gradually, Ben was to learn that this was not an uncommon occurrence, but no problem, Ben was from Britain after all. And maybe it was better to not know that you are waiting because there are the wrong type of leaves on the line.
While he was waiting, it gave Ben a chance to reflect on his surroundings. The train looked like it had seen better days. Ramshackle was a word that came to mind. Sadly, the same could be said of many of the passengers. Old people who looked like they’d had hard lives and young people who looked like they were having hard lives. The man sitting beside Ben was typically plump and middle-aged with not so designer stubble and an ominous-looking bottle by his side, the size of a large coke bottle, but brown and three-quarters empty.
There were also beggars. One little child had a sign with her, ‘Mor de Foame’. With the help of his bi-lingual dictionary, Ben had worked out that this meant starving. He’d compassionately given her his last cheese sandwich, although she obviously wasn’t quite that hungry and instead of scoffing it down, had put it in her pocket saying ‘mersi’. Well, Ben thought it was quite a merciful act, although he would have been happier if she’d eaten it ‘cos he had slaved ages to make those sandwiches and now he too was quite hungry.
