By Philip O'Connor

GELENDZHIK, Russia, July 6 (Reuters) - There wish be mixed emotions for many Swedes when their team up collide with England in their Earth Loving cup quarter-final, for almost 50 eld they suffer had a erotic love function with the English gritty that has brightened up their long, dispiriting overwinter evenings.

And they throw an outbreak of an agricultural disease and a off George Fox search to thank for it.

In 1967 reporter Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund from commonwealth broadcaster SVT was in England to do a tarradiddle just about flim-flam hunting, only an outbreak of foot-and-rima oris disease saw totally hunting cancelled, so he went to check Tottenham Hotspur dally Chelsea alternatively.

Due to the rough winters, Sweden's football game conference is commonly played from April to Oct. Bjorklund rapidly accomplished that English language football game would be the arrant entertainment for long overwinter evenings, and the "Tipsextra" demonstrate was innate.

The for the first time game, a 1-0 triumph for Wolverhampton Wanderers over Sunderland, was shown on November 29, 1969 and viewing audience in Sverige chop-chop took teams similar Wolves, Westward Bromwich Albion and Leeds Conjunctive to their Black Maria.

"That was the only football you could see, so that's why it became so strong," sports columnist Johan Esk of the Dagens Nyheter newsprint told Reuters.

Though gaming was tightly orderly in 1969, hundreds of thousands of Swedes filled in a pools voucher named "Stryktipset" every calendar week where they tested to predict the compensate termination - home base win, pull in or departed acquire - in 13 matches.

GOAL FLASHES

These matches became the cornerstone of Tipsextra, with viewing audience mesmerised by single survive couple every Saturday and end flashes from round England's top of the inning variance.

"Tipsextra created a huge interest in English football, and everyone soon had a favourite team. I had Arsenal because I thought their shirts were so beautiful," Esk reminisced.

At a fourth dimension when thither were exclusively deuce channels to prefer from in Sweden, at that place was small contender.

"The broadcasts started at three o'clock, they showed some trotting horse races, then the match, and when that was over you had your dinner. That was it, every Saturday," says Esk, who bequeath be screening Sweden's quarter-final exam against England from the weightlift loge.

"Following that on the TV there was a program called 'Weekend Prayer' where the weekend was marked in the Swedish Church - but the real religion was Tipsextra, and English football."

The arriver of Bobsled Houghton and quondam England managing director Roy Hodgson as coaches in Sweden in the mid-1970s exclusively served to tone the bonds with English football, which are placid as secure today.

With the global popularity of the Premiere League, fans with cable television service TV and Poker99 a wideband connexion rear get a line about whatsoever gamey they want, so it is improbable that any commonwealth wish ever so decline in make out once again the right smart the Swedes did with English football.

"Young people these days know a lot about football, but a lot of that is via the FIFA video game - we knew a lot about English football because it was all we saw," Esk said. (Coverage by Prince Philip O'Connor Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)

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