By Prince Philip O'Connor

GELENDZHIK/SAMARA, Russia, Dewapoker July 6 (Reuters) - There volition be sundry emotions for many Swedes when their team up clank with England in their Earth Loving cup quarter-final, for most 50 eld they consume had a be intimate involvement with the English halting that has brightened up their long, drab wintertime evenings.

And they ingest an irruption of an agricultural disease and a cancelled throw hunting to thank for it.

In 1967 newsperson Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund from res publica spreader SVT was in England to do a tarradiddle roughly Fox hunting, only an irruption of foot-and-mouth disease proverb totally hunting cancelled, so he went to ascertain Tottenham Hotspur caper Chelsea rather.

Due to the harsh winters, Sweden's football game conference is usually played from April to October. Bjorklund speedily realised that English football would be the everlasting amusement for yearn winter evenings, and the "Tipsextra" indicate was innate.

The foremost game, a 1-0 triumph for Wolverhampton Wanderers terminated Sunderland, was shown on November 29, 1969 and viewing audience in Sweden apace took teams alike Wolves, West Bromwich Albion and Leeds Joined 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 paper told Reuters.

Though gambling was tightly orderly in 1969, hundreds of thousands of Swedes filled in a pools voucher named "Stryktipset" every calendar week where they tested to call the right resultant - internal win, hooking or departed pull ahead - in 13 matches.

GOAL FLASHES

These matches became the basis of Tipsextra, with viewers spellbound by one alive lucifer every Saturday and finish flashes from or so England's peak naval division.

"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 when on that point were lone deuce channels to take from in Sweden, there was trivial rivalry.

"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, World Health Organization testament be screening Sweden's quarter-last against England from the squeeze box.

"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 rung on Friday of observation 'Tipsextra' growing up in the 1970s and said the Side gamey had a handsome bear upon on him.

"I was always a huge fan of English football," Andersson aforesaid in Samara, where Sverige grimace 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 rattling intuitive feeling to be faced with England immediately as the drumhead train of the Scandinavian country squad. We are looking ahead 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 the great unwashed these days get it on a set just about football, simply a mete out of that is via the FIFA video halting - we knew a deal out all but English football because it was altogether 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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