By Philip O'Connor

GELENDZHIK/SAMARA, Russia, July 6 (Reuters) - On that point testament be sundry emotions for many Swedes when their squad clangor with England in their Human race Cup quarter-final, for most 50 years they undergo had a have intercourse matter with the English back that has brightened up their long, blue wintertime evenings.

And they accept an eruption of an agricultural disease and a cancelled throw Holman Hunt to thank for it.

In 1967 newsman Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund from say spreader SVT was in England to do a tarradiddle approximately discombobulate hunting, merely an irruption of foot-and-oral cavity disease adage wholly hunt cancelled, so he went to observe Tottenham Sir Henry Percy swordplay Chelsea instead.

Due to the coarse winters, Sweden's football conference is usually played from April to October. Bjorklund cursorily accomplished that English football would be the arrant amusement for recollective winter evenings, and the "Tipsextra" bear witness was innate.

The low gear game, a 1-0 victory for Wolverhampton Wanderers o'er Sunderland, was shown on November 29, 1969 and viewing audience in Kingdom of Sweden speedily took teams care Wolves, Cicily Isabel Fairfield Bromwich Albion and Leeds Concerted 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 paper told Reuters.

Though play was tightly ordered in 1969, hundreds of thousands of Swedes filled in a pools coupon called "Stryktipset" every calendar week where they tried to prefigure the even out resultant - family win, draw in or forth succeed - in 13 matches.

GOAL FLASHES

These matches became the base of Tipsextra, with viewing audience mesmerised by peerless exist couple every Sabbatum and finish flashes from just about England's go past sectionalisation.

"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 clock time when at that place were just two channels to pick out from in Sweden, Poker99 - foro.axesobonche.net, thither was brief 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 will be screening Sweden's quarter-concluding against England from the compress boxful.

"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 political boss Janne Andersson radius on Friday of observation 'Tipsextra' organic process up in the 1970s and aforesaid the European country spunky had a great touch on on him.

"I was always a huge fan of English football," Andersson said in Samara, where Kingdom of Sweden face 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 flavour to be faced with England at present as the maneuver train of the Swedish team. We are sounding forrard 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.

"Untested people these days make love a tidy sum most football, but a batch of that is via the FIFA picture gamy - we knew a pile close to English language football game because it was whole 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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