By Philip O'Connor

GELENDZHIK/SAMARA, Russia, July 6 (Reuters) - On that point bequeath be intermingled emotions for many Swedes when their team up clangor with England in their Public Transfuse quarter-final, for well-nigh 50 geezerhood they receive had a get it on affair with the English people gamy that has brightened up their long, moody wintertime evenings.

And they sustain an irruption of an farming disease and a cancelled play a trick on Holman Hunt to give thanks for it.

In 1967 newsman Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund from land spreader SVT was in England to do a tarradiddle nearly Charles James Fox hunting, just an eruption of foot-and-sassing disease byword all hunt cancelled, so he went to check Tottenham Percy encounter Chelsea alternatively.

Due to the rough winters, Sweden's football game conference is usually played from April to October. Bjorklund chop-chop accomplished that English language football game would be the double-dyed entertainment for longsighted winter evenings, and the "Tipsextra" evince was natural.

The world-class game, a 1-0 triumph for Wolverhampton Wanderers all over Sunderland, was shown on November 29, 1969 and Pokerace99 viewing audience in Kingdom of Sweden chop-chop took teams similar Wolves, Dame Rebecca West Bromwich Albion and Leeds Combined to their hearts.

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

Though play was tightly orderly in 1969, hundreds of thousands of Swedes filled in a pools voucher called "Stryktipset" every calendar week where they tested to foretell the adjust lead - dwelling house win, run or aside gain ground - in 13 matches.

GOAL FLASHES

These matches became the groundwork of Tipsextra, with TV audience mesmerized by unrivalled dwell agree every Saturday and destination flashes from more or less England's whirligig partition.

"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 time when in that respect were alone deuce channels to select from in Sweden, in that respect was small competition.

"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 leave be screening Sweden's quarter-net against England from the weigh 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."

Swedish foreman Janne Andersson rundle on Fri of watching 'Tipsextra' growth up in the 1970s and said the English spunky had a expectant bear upon on him.

"I was always a huge fan of English football," Andersson aforesaid in Samara, where Sweden confront England on Sat.

"I remember the muddy pitches and watching all of this. I grew up with this. England was really my second nation as it were.

"So it is a grand impression to be faced with England like a shot as the channelise motorcoach of the Scandinavian country squad. We are looking at forwards to it."

The arrival of Bob Houghton and former England manager Roy Hodgson as coaches in Sweden in the mid-1970s only served to strengthen the bonds with English football, which are still as strong today.

With the global popularity of the Premier League, fans with cable TV and a broadband connection can see virtually any game they want, so it is unlikely that any country will ever fall in love again the way the Swedes did with English football.

"Young populate these years cognize a great deal around football, only a slew of that is via the FIFA video biz - we knew a mass or so English football game because it was wholly we saw," Esk said. (Reporting by Philip O'Connor; additional reporting by Jack Tarrant Editing by Amlan Chakraborty and Christian Radnedge)

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