Live Football on Bulgarian Televison

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Bulgarians love their football and here especially they love the English Premiership football. If you watch the sport news the premiership football updates feature high on priority in relation to other Bulgarian sports news. In the few shop that sell sportswear, the English premiership team shirts and novelties are mainly based around the English league teams. And of course the other main interest is the Bulgarian footballers that are exported to the English teams.

In the main Bulgarians support a team in their own country, not always local teams either. Here out family support CSKA football club this is a Sofia based team some 300 kilometres away. from Yambol. They also have their favourite English football team, usually Manchester United or Liverpool. This is the norm as these teams have featured in European Championships quite often and have a large world following in any case.

My previous experiences with Bulgarians and football was rather low key, watching a live match where the Bulgarian National team were playing, there was more interest in talking drinking and eating than watching the match. It's funny, but if I watch football match I watch it intensely, never missing a moment of action or non action as it turns out. Here they just tend to ignore the game for the most part. They just focus on the match when the crowd noise increases and this is the attention grabber. Then they know something exciting is about to happen, it happens and they turn off again unless it's a goal, a penalty or a sending off.

This Saturday afternoon I was back in Yambol as farm work had been rained off. Ivo, Galia's son called me into his bedroom. He wanted to show me a full crate of bottled beer he had just brought in. Not being in Yambol most Saturdays I had forgotten what happens here. CSKA and Manchester United were playing today and were live on television. Ivo is a fan of both of these teams. As well as CSKA and Manchester United playing, directly afterwards it was Newcastle Utd. against Arsenal. Anton his brother who supports Liverpool was expected here later along with another football mad friend. The beer was for us all as he had decided to treat us with booze and live football in his television.

Well how could I refuse what was on offer here with Bulgarian beer, live football from Arsenal and great company?

So seven hours later after much talk, jumping up every few moments and then groans when Manchester united lost, the Skalitsa banitsa I had made in the village that morning were warmed up and eaten between matches - It doesn't get better than that or does it? It does, then the Arsenal won and the all the beers had some how evaporated by the end of the match. An extended, but totally exhilarating late afternoon and evening with the Bulgarian boys was had. This was topped up afterwards with home produced chicken and cabbage stew made and served from Baba to soak up not only the pool of beer that had accumulated in our stomachs, but the results Ivo's sorrow and my joy.

It will be back to the village next weekend, hopefully with Galia who should be another week into recovering from her operation. At the same time, if I feel like a feast of beer and football there is always that option in Yambol every Saturday during the football season. How fortunate that watching your favourite football team live on television in Bulgaria doesn't involved getting a mortgage to pay for the view!

'Foul' Chicken From a Bulgarian Supermarket

In view of Galia not being in the best of health it was a trip to the dreaded supermarket for some convenience food to make life a little easier for her this weekend with the meals we were to have.the last thing we wanted was for Galia to exhaust herself preparing for home cooked food which take up time and effort. So we were faced with a decision as to what we can buy that was cheap and easy to cook.

If I had my way I'd just forget the supermarket and just get some frozen meat that we had been using from last year's slaughtered lamb, goat and pig. We still had lots of stock of this meat, but the preparation took quite an effort. Galia just didn't feel it was right that I should be assigned kitchen duties this weekend. As she argued, "It was time for me to relax as well as her!" Well she did have a point, but only from her side of the fence. What she doesn't take on board is the fact that I don't find cooking a chore and it helps me relax whilst doing it. It's a bit of a turn around that Galia get stressed with me doing the cooking and I get stressed seeing her fingers being worked to the bone. Hence letting her just get on with choosing a meal from the supermarket.

The trouble right now with Bulgarians is that they believe everything they see and here in the advertising mediums. On the television, on the radio, in newspapers and on massive bill boards and posters, which is on the increase in Yambol. So, when is a supermarket the advertising ups another two gears it is a advertising and marketing tactical hybrid in action and the poor Bulgarian don't stand a chance in the face of such a monster. This particular supermarket called Kaufland. this is a German based company who excel in conning people into thinking the food there is good for you. Me, being a far wiser shopper from days gone by, knew better of it and certainly knew far better than 99% of shoppers there whose minds were being polluted before their guts were.

Galia had chosen a frozen chicken and a packet of dried chemical enhanced herbs and spices. This 'herb and spices' packet has a separate compartment where there was a plastic bag in which the chicken and chemicals, sorry herbs and spices, are introduced and whacked in an oven. Galia had seen this particular brand advertised on television, not once, but many times so it had been embedded subconscious mind and came to life when the product was recognised on the supermarket shelf. She at that point had just followed the planned advertising campaign as the fat cat advertisers sucked her into the world of false promises s we were to find out.

Now I knew that ever since first stepping onto Bulgarian soil and eating home produced chicken that anything else just wouldn't be the same afterwards. Was this going to be the case we with this supermarket factory produced frozen chicken and mainly artificial flavoured marinade. Galia was quite excited about it, she had seen the television advert and the picture on the packaging as a scrumptious occasion we should enjoy. What she didn't know is that the pictures of the chicken on the plate she had seen TV and on the package was probably painted with coloured lacquer and was of course totally inedible from the cosmetic make up that it had gone through to look like that. I didn't briefly try to explain, but the power of the advertising were too strong for my points raised. I decided to shut up and let her get on with it. I knew that the meal that we will end up, just wouldn't live up to Galia's expectations.

To cut a long story short, I knew that the frozen chicken might be 20% water as they inject the meat with water before freezing, I was right. When the chicken had completely defrosted the was such a puddle it overflowed on the plate it was defrosting in. We had paid good money, for this chicken, nearly 5 Lev a kilogram and 20% was now water not meat! Moving on, the meal was cooked exactly to the instructions laid out in 8 different languages and the plastic bag that was the cooking environment was opened once out of the oven. The chicken didn't look anything like the pictures on the package, then we tasted it.

Both Galia and I took one bite and just couldn't face any more. It was cooled and to be taken back to Yambol for Baba to do something with it, nothing wasted here of course. Galia had to agree with everything I had preached before, she was quite embarrassed about the whole episode. I had to remind here that we had been spoilt with the poultry we had eaten over the last few years. We realise that in the main, others who buy their frozen chickens from the supermarket on a regular basis, just don't know the difference, many if not most never having had the opportunity to taste home produced, free range chicken meat.

Will Galia ever buy frozen chickens from the supermarket again? Maybe as over time one forgets and the advertising may get back at her, but she is much more the wiser now. We both agreed on how lucky we are and are now talking about having chickens in the garage and yard in the Yambol house with eggs produced a added bonus!

Yambol's Future - I Blame America

Yambol is changing day by day and not for the good. Most of the change is coming about from the younger generations and now from young parents who have young kids. The reason for this is quite clear. Young parents now have been exposed to western ideals and ways since the 1990's. Television and media, mainly from America has now had a big impact on this generation and it shows.

Everyday another incident examples the way of the west infiltrating into Yambol life. A trait of America is the graffiti that only a few years ago was no existent. It has slowly taken off with little signatures on walls that didn't infringe on personal or business properties, there was still the respect as to where graffiti was sprayed. Right now it is everywhere, on shop doors, apartment blocks, everywhere without any care to the privately owned drawing boards. This is disturbing news and the images graffiti clad towns create is remnant of a run down environment. With all these new building developments and investment in Yambol, the 'New Town' image is more than tainted with the graffiti defeating the object of uplifting the town.

Young children, the offspring of the younger parents are another major concern from what I see. I shops they pine for everything they see, and get it. If they don't get what they want the bawling and screaming starts until they finally get it. This is not a one off occasion but time and time again this happens. The attitude of the parents, mainly the women, remind me of what I left back in the UK. A spoilt race of children who already have lost respect for adults and real values. I have lost count of how many times these children just run around in shops, bumping into customers without any apology and the parents at this point are just focused on the shop shelves. Looking from this angle their commitment to being responsible for their own children in shops seems to be put into the shop assistant's hands as they try and limited the damage to goods they knock down with their bull in a china shop actions.

Teenagers now are learning how to use alcohol to get drunk rather than just a social aid. Only the other week Galia's son got the rough end of this with a lad who just drunk get drunk, and a fight broke out, with injuries sustained, from insults that were made through drink. This would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago but is now less of a shock in many Yambol teenage circles.

Obesity has been written about before but now seen in this true light with Bulgarian 'Billy Bunters' a common sight in Yambol, all the fast food given to them by their young mothers, which can be described as either pencil thin, full of make up and cheap copied western fashion or fat and full of fast food, either way most just don't bother cooking anymore and the pizza takeaway meal washed down with coca cola is tops.

There are other give aways to Yambol becoming a slave to American TV media and a classic example is the music scene. Rap with its the foul language and awful message is probably the most noticeable influence. The language is copied and used in everyday conversation and the black culture and fashion. Young Bulgarians in Yambol are losing their own identity as you see hooded, tat toed, chunky chain fashion all around. Even their walking is done in the same copied style with a slight lean into every other step.

All this leads me into thinking what will the future hold for Yambol as quite clearly this is here to stay. Well, for many living here they will carry on with things and move along with the change, I may have to re think is this what I came to Yambol for. This is just a fleecing thought right now and of course I can always go back to village life which will not change as quickly as it does in towns.