True colours of footie fans
QUESTION Why do Italy, the Netherlands and Japan have blue, orange and blue respectively as their national colours, when they do not appear on their national flags? Italy was divided into small city states until March 17, 1861, when the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed and turin became its capital.
Victor Emanuel II, King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy, was elected king, and on april 15, 1861, the flag of Sardinia became the flag of the kingdom.
this featured today’s vertical tricolour of green, white and red, but also the Savoy crest encircled with blue.
So, when the national soccer team, as a tribute to the Royal House of Italy, wore blue shirts for the first time in 1911, azzuro (azure) did feature in the Italian flag.
the origins of the colour date back to 1366, when the Conte Verde, amedeo VI of Savoy, on a crusade organised by Pope Urbano V, displayed on his flagship — next to the banner of Savoy — a large blue flag in tribute to the Madonna.
the colour took some years to be adopted by other national teams; it was not until the 1932 Olympics in los angeles that all Italian athletes wore blue. after World War II, even though the monarchy was ousted and the Savoy crest eliminated, azzuro was retained for most national sports.
Orange has been embraced by Dutch football fans as it is the colour of the Dutch royal family, who are descended from the House of Orange-Nassau. William I of Orange (William the Silent, 1533-1584) led the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty year War, resulting in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648.
the Netherlands flag is nicknamed the Prince’s Flag and is based on the heraldic colours of William. these were orange, white and blue. Red was substituted in the 17th century, one theory being that red is more visible than orange from a distance.
an orange pennant is still attached to the Dutch flag on King’s Day in Holland, and the colour is a source of pride to the people.
Jonathan Briers, Inverness. ExCEPt for 1988-1991, when its strip was red and white, the Japanese national soccer team (‘Samurai Blue’) has usually played in all white, blue and white or all blue.
this is thought to be because blue has been regarded as lucky for Japanese football since the team wore it when they unexpectedly beat the favourites Sweden in the first round of the 1936 Olympics (the Berlin Miracle). Blue has long been associated with a fighting spirit in Japan. It has been a favourite colour of the samurai since the 14th century because the word for dark blue is homophonous with the word kachi-iro (‘winning colour’ or ‘having the upper hand in a battle’).
Graham Healey, School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield.
QUESTION What is the story of Welshman John Hughes, who established a huge coal and steel industry in Donetsk? JOHN HUgHES was born in 1815 in Merthyr tydfil, when it was the largest and richest of the Welsh iron towns. He worked under his father, an engineer, at the Cyfarthfa Works, before moving to Ebbw Vale and then Newport, becoming proprietor of the Uskside foundry, which specialised in forging equipment such as ships’ anchors and chains.
Hughes married Elizabeth lewis at St Paul’s Church, St Woolos, Newport, on October 27, 1844, and their six boys and two girls were born at home in 36 Church Street, Newport, between 1846 and 1858. In the same period, Hughes patented several inventions in armaments and armour plating.
In 1859, the family moved to london, where Hughes obtained a senior position with Millwall Engineering and Ship-Building Company on thameside.
the ‘Hughes stringer’, a mounting for heavy naval guns, appeared at this time. In 1864, the firm won the admiralty trials for producing armour plate for cladding wooden warships with the Millwall shield, and Hughes’s reputation was secured.
the company received an order from the Russian Empire for the plating of a naval fortress being built at Kronstadt on the Baltic Sea. In 1870, Hughes and his family sailed to Ukraine with eight shiploads of equipment and around 100 specialist ironworkers and miners, mostly from South Wales. Hughes was asked to help develop Russia’s iron and steel industry by setting up a foundry. geological surveys had revealed coal reserves in the Donbass basin, so he established a settlement there with a foundry and several mines. It was named yuzovka (‘Hughes-ovka’) in his honour.
a hospital, schools, bath houses and tea rooms were built, along with a fire brigade and an anglican church dedicated to the patron saints St george and St David.
Hughes died after suffering a stroke at the Hotel angleterre, in St Petersburg, in 1889. His New Russia Company was taken over by his four surviving sons. they rapidly expanded the works in the 1890s and again at the outbreak of World War I to produce artillery shells.
the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led to the departure of almost all the company’s foreign employees, but the works survived and prospered under the rule of the Communists, who renamed the city Stalino.
Known since 1961 as Donetsk, it is the fifth largest city in post-Soviet Ukraine and still a major centre for coal and steel. James Newey, Newport.
QUESTION Aside from Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, have any other Hollywood actors had political careers? FURtHER to the earlier answer, Will Rogers Jr (1911-1993), son of the humorist Will Rogers, became a Hollywood actor after a brief but interesting political career.
He was elected as a Democratic congressman for Southern California in 1942 and joined the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People Of Europe in 1943, introducing the Rescue Resolution Bill to establish safe havens for Jewish refugees from Europe in nearby neutral countries.
the Bill failed and Rogers resigned from Congress, after 17 months, and returned to the U.S. army as a tank commander. He was assigned to the 814th tank Destroyer Battalion under general Patton, but was wounded in action and received a Bronze Star.
He took up acting and starred in several tV shows and movies, playing his father in the Story Of Will Rogers (1952).
at the age of 81, after being left in pain following a hip implant, he shot himself.
Geoff Warney, Skelmersdale, Lancs.