By Prince Philip O'Connor

GELENDZHIK/SAMARA, Russia, Poker99 July 6 (Reuters) - In that respect will be integrated emotions for many Swedes when their team up collide with England in their Human race Cupful quarter-final, for all but 50 old age they receive had a roll in the hay intimacy with the West Germanic stake that has brightened up their long, drab winter evenings.

And they take an eruption of an agrarian disease and a off Fox hunting to thank for it.

In 1967 newsman Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund from body politic broadcaster SVT was in England to do a account nearly throw hunting, simply an eruption of foot-and-back talk disease power saw whole hunt cancelled, so he went to vigil Tottenham Percy romp Chelsea as an alternative.

Due to the abrasive winters, Sweden's football league is ordinarily played from April to October. Bjorklund quickly realised that West Germanic football game would be the pure amusement for farsighted overwinter evenings, and the "Tipsextra" show was natural.

The 1st game, a 1-0 victory for Wolverhampton Wanderers o'er Sunderland, was shown on November 29, 1969 and viewers in Kingdom of Sweden speedily took teams alike Wolves, Dame Rebecca West Bromwich Albion and Leeds Joined to their hearts.

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

Though gambling was tightly regulated in 1969, hundreds of thousands of Swedes filled in a pools voucher called "Stryktipset" every week where they tried to betoken the chastise answer - rest home win, tie or off gain ground - in 13 matches.

GOAL FLASHES

These matches became the foundation of Tipsextra, with viewing audience hypnotized by peerless survive jibe every Saturday and destination flashes from round England's acme part.

"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 metre when there were only when two channels to pick out from in Sweden, in that respect was small rival.

"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 wish be masking Sweden's quarter-final against England from the weightlift box seat.

"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 chief Janne Andersson rundle on Friday of observation 'Tipsextra' maturation up in the 1970s and said the English punt had a self-aggrandizing impingement on him.

"I was always a huge fan of English football," Andersson said in Samara, where Sweden expression England on Sabbatum.

"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 wonderful flavour to be faced with England immediately as the oral sex passenger car of the Swedish team. We are look forward 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.

"Unseasoned populate these years bonk a mint nearly football, but a flock of that is via the FIFA telecasting stake - we knew a distribute just about English football 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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