Just after midnight, one drizzly Friday morning in the poor Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Abasto, I wandered through a rusty door of a converted car mechanics. Inside the cavernous Club Atlético Fernandez Fierro, The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog echoed, anti-globalist art was lit up under a roving mirror ball and students and scuffs knocked back the cheap Italian liqueur fernet mixed with cola. It was clear this wasn’t the average stuffy tango hall. Later under a giant toilet roll – presumably to promote their recent album Mucha Mierda (2006) – the 12 piece Orquesta Típica Fernandez Fierro, with their theatrical singer Walter “Chino” Laborde carrying a fake papier-mâché bomb, leapt on stage and struck up a version of Enrique Santos Discepolo‘s lovelorn tango Cancion Desesperada. At the furious hands of OTFF tango sounds as vital and violent today when it appear in the slums of 19th Century Buenos Aires. Their set is delirious and distraught, mixing standards and originals with an attitude that is pure punk or, as they would argue, pure tango. If Sonic Youth played tango they would be OFTT.

Villa Diamonte -

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“It might be less subtle but it’s more psychotic,” double bass maestro Yuri Venturín told me before the show. “The world has changed and tango is changing with it.  We don’t copy the past, tango is about now.”
Since the late 1990s, tango had enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The melancholy poetry of lost love and societies on the verge of moral collapse found particular resonance for porteños (as Buenos Aires residents are called) during the horrific years of unprecedented poverty and social unrest. Taking inspiration from the band leader Osvaldo Pugliese, who went to prison for his communist ideas, OTFF (who may or may not be behind stencils of Pugliese around Buenos Aires) and several other groups, such as the Orquesta Típica Imperial, formed a ‘frente resistente’ out of desperation. “We are fighting against the ‘souvenir’ tango that is packaged for tourists,” dreadlocked bandoneon player Flavio ‘El Ministro’ Reggiani said. “Tango is the music of protest and we are playing it with the energy and violence to create an essential sound.”
This maturing movement is beginning to fight through the underground and stir up tango sensibilities in a way tango electronica failed wholeheartedly to do. It remains traditionalist in structure, if not form. Straying further from the tango template is the Pequeña Orquestra Reincendentes whose last album Traje (2005) fell down a hole somewhere between tango, Acadia and Balkan jazz, and somehow emerges smiling, playing a bicycle wheel.
It was the cha-ch-ch-cha of Argentine cumbia, though, that many remember as the soundtrack of the crisis in the vast shanty towns. One peculiarly Argentine take on the Colombian sound was the notorious and demonised villera or ‘shanty town’ cumbia which glamorised the drug and gun culture rampant in slums. Today cumbia, as tango did 90 years ago, transcends the shanties and the wealth divide.
I heard the unmistakable lolloping beat of cumbia at Zizek Urban Beats night at Niceto Club in the hip Palermo neighbourhood. Overdubbed was a recording of a recent collaboration: ‘One two, one two, this is M.I.A. where you at/Visha Dia-mont-eh step up,’ the London garage star MCs in a mix between her native London drawl and the Argentine phrasing that gives the double ‘L’ a ‘shh’ sound. It was a collaboration facilitated by the mash up hero DJ Diplo, a Zizek fan and regular.
“In Argentina cumbia has developed a life of his own,” said rising star Villa Diamante backstage. “People here go absolutely crazy for. It’s certainly the sound of the city right now.”
It is part of a perceptible shift in many facets of Buenos Aires cultural life. For dozens years the city has looked elsewhere for its inspiration: to the Mediterranean for its cuisine, Latin America for its art and the UK for its dance music. Now Argentina is beginning to look somewhere it never has before: Argentina.
Villa Diamante: “A lot of people who are bored of house, and now producers are going back to their roots. I’m mashing up charangos and bombos (a ukulele-like instrument and drum popular in Andean folklorico) with reggaeton, Pharrell, grime.”
As is laptopper Chancha via Circuito who also mixes in coplas (traditional poems). Another producer, King Coya is mashing up an even wider variety of indigenous beats and instruments. It is the alter ego of Gaby Kerpel, composer for the hugely successful De La Guarda flying theatre troupe and author of the enthralling Gustavo Santaolalla-produced Carnabailito (2003), which looked at music as far away as China and Africa for instrumentation, while remaining firmly in the complex soundscape of north west Argentina.
I bump into Villa Diamante at a party a week later in the Fundación Telefónica, an arts space often dedicated to vanguard sound art. We watch the furious masked rap act Spectre in front of graphical displays whose form and movement is informed the motion of the dancing crowd. It is the latest installation from an electronic art duo i2off.org+r3nder.net. i2off.org AKA Ivan Ivanoff (his parents were Dostoevsky fans) explained the basis of his work between puffs on his pipe in a city park. “I am a writer, poet, painter, web developer and designer; the only way I could bring all this together is on the web, but it is all informed by music.” And it is in this field their most alarming and innovative creations are being discovered. They have ‘played’ plants like a piano, produced live sound and image from the movement and noise of clubbers. But in 2006 they released a art work called Siembra (www.i2off.org/videocode03) or Sowing which has been shown across the world including Glastonbury. It is a video created entirely independently by a ‘virtual’ person. The sound, camera angles, content are responses to a set of algorithms which in turn respond to our (or the virtual person’s) three vital emotions, identified by Ivan as desperation, conscience and memory. They have created a new organism. “I think this is where the future of music is. After Los Beatles you can’t do anything,” he smiled. “This is breaking rules and breaking harmony. If you don’t you are a plant. And I hate yoga.”

Nothing can dent the sensitive rockers’ reputation in Argentina. Not even a dearth of new songs, learns Daniel Neilson.

‘Ole, ole, ole, ole! Coldplay, Coldplay!’ The Buenos Aires audience is in fine voice. Half an hour before the band take the stage, the art deco Teatro Gran Rex is shaking like a football stadium.

At an earlier press conference in unbearable heat, the mood was less euphoric. The band arrived, seemingly cheerful enough, each dressed in black, wearing oversized shades and looking relaxed after a day spent by the pool on this mini-South American tour. ‘I don’t think anyone in London realises how fantastic it is here,’ says Chris Martin (pictured right after the press conference with guitarist Jonny Buckland). ‘Everyone in the UK is fucking miserable in February.’

But the smiles don’t last. Within 20 minutes the band glumly walk out. ‘We never said we would be playing new material here,’ insists bassist Guy Berryman. ‘We wanted this time to take a break and go back to the new stuff objectively. Don’t believe what you read in the newspapers.’ Or, evidently, their own website.

Further questions from the abrasive Argentine press about bad reviews of their Chile shows follow. ‘What did they say?’ Martin asks. ‘God, I’m depressed.’

By the time I ask about working with Eno on the album scheduled for later this year, the singer has his heads in his hands. ‘It will push us out of the comfort zone,’ says Berryman. We are still at the beginning of our career; it will be the next album that judges us.’

It is in Mexico a few days later that Martin will claim the band have ‘that one song’ on the record that ‘everyone has to hear’. The audience – who have paid up to £200 for a ticket to see the gringo superstars at one of three intimate shows – have made their judgment already. When the lights go down, a scream goes up as four silhouettes take position on the small stage. Martin, still hidden, croons the opening to ‘Square One’ until the chorus kicks in and bright lights illuminate the 5,000-strong crowd. ‘We are called Coldplay,’ Martin says in Spanish, needlessly adding, ‘we are not a heavy rock band,’ as he sits at the piano for ‘The Scientist’.

Throughout the show, Martin flails around the stage, collapsing to the floor at the finale of two songs and at one point crawling through Berryman’s legs. He gets in plenty more Spanish practice, too. Then, halfway through, there’s a fine diversion, when the band move to a smaller stage to play an acoustic version of ‘Love Me Tender’ around the same mic. There is nothing else unexpected: no new songs. Fortunately the crowd appear unperturbed, heartily singing their way through the entire set (‘And I weel feex yoo…’).

Avian beheading

The head of a pigeon comes off more easily than you might imagine. Place the neck between your index and forefinger and pull it with about the same force as you would a bathroom light cord. Partridge heads need a bit more of a yank.

Gutting a fish

For pheasants an axe is needed. An axe and a strong stomach. The brace of pheasants, a male and female tied together as in life, were dignified in their death. The soft breast fur needed to be gently plucked, and then we plunged our hands down the neck cavity and pulled out anything that wobbled. ‘That smell,’ said our young guide Alec, ‘is death.’

Two hours earlier I had been drinking an overpriced latte on a train to Oxford. Now, as we huddled around a crackling fire, the smell of pigeon in soy and ginger sauce was making my stomach rumble.

On a bushcraft weekend course you eat very well. With me were a young barrister, a filmmaker and an IT consultant.

A common sense of disaffection with our increasingly urban lives was the reason we all gave for signing up to spend two icy nights under the stars in the middle of some Oxfordshire woodland. An alarmingly bright 16-year-old lad summed it up best: ‘We are losing touch with our heritage and I wanted to find out how we used to live.’

Getting back to nature: the reality

And while ‘getting back to nature’ was the thread that ran through the weekend course, I hadn’t expected nature to be quite so close. After a hearty dinner, I looked at my accommodation for the night by torchlight: a flimsy basha. Just a piece of material tied between four trees separated me from the elements, and the already frosty leaves were
to be my mattress.

I awoke to birdsong and gazed up into the bare trees, listening to the creaking of branches and watching the final stars fade. Over a breakfast of homemade damper bread, our second guide, Jason, talked us through woodland flora. Ash, oak, acorn and apple trees stood all around us, and a long walk around the woods revealed plenty of uses for the many kinds of wildflowers and plants: there was hawthorn (edible spring leaves), nettle (good for making tea and twine), bluebell root (can be used for glue) and sorrel (delicious). After chewing on random leaves it was time for lunch: trout – which we gutted first, of course.

From survival to civilisation

Afterwards we built our shelter. Using only coppiced wood and undergrowth we sweated in the 1C temperatures, building our grand hotel. Fire-making and water purification lessons followed, then we spit-roasted the pheasants, before falling into a slumber around a mighty fire. We talked about the vast amount of knowledge we had acquired, then bedded down, warm and dry, beneath a roof of leaves – it was the best night’s sleep I had enjoyed for months.

Bedraggled, weary and utterly relaxed I returned to civilisation on Sunday afternoon with a notebook full of hastily sketched leaves and seeds, and the resolve to forage the woods at home. Now I lick my lips every time I see a wood pigeon.

The package

A Woodland Ways Weekend (07843 064114/www.woodland-ways.co.uk) in Appleton, six miles south-west of Oxford, costs £175 for two nights, three days, including course, equipment, food and board; the company will pick you up at Oxford station. Off-peak advance returns London Paddington- Oxford from £8.

Where to eat

The Big Bang
Sausages. The Big Bang loves sausages. Lamb and mint, wild venison, pork and fig and pork and marmite. Vegetarians can tuck into wild mushroom and garlic, or basil and vine tomato sausages.

All ingredients are sourced within 20 miles of the restaurant, and the six bangers we tried were solid, meaty and delicious. There’s garlic and rosemary or spring onion mash or, for a splash of colour, beetroot-stained ‘rose mash’. Combine with garden peas and red cabbage and it makes for a cheery plate of honest fare. The restaurant is in the trendy Jericho area of Oxford – browse for vintage clothes and designer furniture – and although the decor is not as upbeat as the food, the large tables and friendly service make it fun in a group. On Tuesday nights there is jazz in the cellar.

124 Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6AH (01865 511441/www.thebigbangrestaurants.co.uk). Open 8am-3pm, 5-11pm Mon-Fri; 9am-11pm Sat; 9am-9pm Sun. Main courses £5-£12.

Where to stay

The Old Bank
Through the bedroom windows, the spire of St Mary the Virgin can be seen towering over the city, while Merton, Oriel, University, Christ Church and All Souls colleges flank this well-located hotel. But inside the converted Georgian bank, the owner’s twentieth-century art collection – you may get a Stanley Spencer drawing or a Roger Hilton – gives the 42 rooms a modern feel. Only the suites are large, but all rooms are well appointed, light and comfortable, with marble bathrooms throughout. It is the buzzy vibe, however, that is the highlight, enhanced by the hotel’s restaurant, Brasserie Quod, which serves up reasonably priced Mediterranean cuisine.

91-94 High Street, Oxford, OX1 4BN (01865 799599/www.oldbank-hotel.co.uk). £145-210 for double room.

It is a picture of seaside tradition, recognisable from any point in the last 70 years, give or take a bathing station or two. The words ‘genteel’ and ‘elderly’ are often used to describe Eastbourne, a town of 100,000 residents on the south coast between Brighton and Hastings. And a walk along the seafront does little to nullify Eastbourne’s reputation as ‘Costa Geriatrica’.

On anecdotal evidence at least, the majority of people enjoying the spring sun are pensioners. It is seemingly the England of church fêtes and blue rinses. It is Tory. And with the exception of Liberal Hubert Beaumont in 1906 (when the Liberals routed the Conservatives nationally), and Lib Dem David Bellotti – who was elected in the 1990 by-election (and lost his seat in 1992) after Conservative Ian Gow was killed by a Provisional IRA car bomb – it has always been a Conservative constituency. In recent years, the borough council has flitted between Conservative and, currently, Lib Dem.

If the number of posters is anything to go by, a different political landscape belies the serene seafront. Although Nigel Waterson won his fourth term in 2005 with a majority of 1,124 against Lib Dem Stephen Lloyd, it is the words ‘Stephen Lloyd to Win’ on bright orange placards that dominate the streets. They undoubtedly outnumber Conservative posters, especially in the middle class areas of Hampden Park and Old Town. The notable exception is the resolutely Conservative area of Meads, at the foot of the newly founded South Downs National Park.

Ladbrokes currently have the Lib Dems on 8/11 and the Conservatives on evens. The odds on the remaining candidates, Labour, BNP, UKIP and three independents, are 100/1. However, Stephen Lloyd only became a slim favourite after first leaders’ debate – the week earlier it was the other way around.

With the national resurgence of the Lib Dems, Eastbourne has become even more important to win – it is sixth on the list of Lib Dem target seats with only a 0.8 per cent swing required.

As the sunbathers relaxed on Saturday afternoon, Stephen Lloyd shook hands in the bandstand and Nigel Waterson cheered on Eastbourne Borough football club, the foot soldiers put up more placards. But as is often pointed out during political campaigns, gardens don’t have votes, people do. This seat is a local reflection of a national race that is proving too close for anyone to honestly predict.

Coming soon will be interviews with Nigel Waterson and Stephen Lloyd, about how they are fighting to win this seat.

On 23 April 1642, Charles I arrived at Beverley Gate protecting Kingston upon Hull – the remains of which can be seen by Prince’s Dockside and Whitefriargate. A month earlier, the King of had fled London as the quarrel between Parliament and the Monarchy escalated. He founded his de facto capital in York, but within Hull’s city walls were a formidable magazine of arms and ammunition and a strategic port. Sir John Hotham, the Governor of Hull and a faithful parliamentarian, had other ideas and after a discussion with sympathetic aldermen at his home, now thought to be the Ye Olde White Harte on Silver Street, he fell to his knees before Charles I, but refused the King entry. The King rode away, humiliated. It was the first major act of civil disobedience of the English Civil War, and one of the catalysts that sent the most important era of British history down a bloody path. As the t-shirts in the tourist information centre would have you believe: It’s never dull in Hull. Nor was it ever.

Hull History Centre

It was Charles’s ancestor, Edward I, who granted Hull its royal charter on 1 April 1299, renaming it King’s Town upon Hull, recognising its commercial and strategic importance on the River Humber and Hull.

711 years later, Carol Tanner, senior archivist of the Hull History Centre, is pulling the lid off a bespoke box to display the immaculately preserved original charter and its hockey puck-sized seal. It is one of the first pieces to be moved from the city archives to the temperature and humidity controlled environment of the new Hull History Centre.

Set to open its doors to the public on 11 January 2010, this ultra-modern wood and concrete construction, costing £10.7 million over five years (£7.7 million from a Heritage Lottery Grant), is a new home bringing together three of the city’s most important archives: the Hull City Archives, Hull Local Studies Library and Hull University Archives. Several years ago, it was realised that a new storage facility would be needed to conserve the cramped Hull City Archives in the best condition possible. Yet the design remit went far beyond the temperature controlled storage environment. The facilities include a conservation unit, for preservation and conservation work. However, the ethos behind the Hull History Centre is that it is expressly designed to open these vast archives for everyone and continue the process of restoring pride in Hull’s incredible, but often overlooked, history.

Under the distinctive sweeping roof using the same material as the Eden Project, is the arcade, a wide-open multi-use area for exhibitions, many by local groups and societies (proposals welcome), and as the setting of a series of seminars, talks and meetings. A café and shop is also housed in the arcade. Through the glass walls on the ground floor is the local studies library, with PCs, microfiche readers and relevant library books covering many areas of Hull and the region’s natural and human history. Next to this is a dedicated search room, where an expansive range of census, records, photographs, film and pamphlets can be ordered from staff who will bring it down for those researching family history, local history and university studies can examine the archives.  There are even height adjustable tables for map research. The archives themselves are upstairs in a rigorously monitored environment on 9,000 metres of shelves (four times the length of the Humber Bridge). However, the modern building’s defining characteristic is its openness, transparency and welcoming vibe. It is eye-popping addition to Hull’s war-scarred urban landscape.

“It’s very visible,” Carol Tanner explains. “We want a window front for Hull’s history and for people to feel they can just wander in.”

Judy Burg, the university archivist, agreed. “This project developed from a desire, shared by the University and City Council, to encourage and enable many more people to explore the archives and local studies resources of Hull in many different ways.”

Some of the records have never been seen before. Manorial Court Rolls from the 14th and 15th century, for example, have never been unfurled, but thanks to the Hull History Centre’s state-of-the-art conservation studio, documents such as these will be restored and be made available to researchers. Other documents have been unearthed in the moving process. A well-known tale, now in Hull folklore, surrounds the bombing of the Prudential Building during a raid in World War Two, known as the Night of 40 Fires. More than a hundred servicemen and women were said to have perished; yet in a city council file, marked “Top Secret” found the true total was 16.

Hull’s well-known sons and daughters are represented with a unique collection. Letters from Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), a poet and Parliamentarian, sit by another poetic agitator, Philip Larkin (1922-1985) who was a University of Hull librarian from 1955 until his death. Even Larkin’s precious jazz records will be stored in the Hull History Centre.

Aviator Amy Johnson’s letters can be read, as can the words from novelist Winifred Holtby. One of the largest collections relating to one person is William Wilberforce (1759-1833). A Hull-born aristocrat, he became city’s MP in 1780 and later represented Yorkshire. It is his campaigning against the slave trade for which he is most famous, and letters proving his support are seen here – invaluable to anyone researching the slave trade.

However, for family historians it is the vast archives in maritime sphere that will be of most interest. Hull’s position on the River Humber at its mouth to the North Sea has been of great significance since the Middle Ages when wool, lead and grain were exported and timber imported from Northern Europe.

The golden age for fishing and whaling in Hull, however, happened after in 1843 when a fleet of fishing vessels from Harwich and Lowestoft were blown off course. They discovered the Dogger Bank, east of Hull, which was the richest fishing ground around the UK ever found – it was known as the silver pits. Before long, the most people were either involved in fishing or had relatives who were.

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Away from the sea, the collection donated by Hull City Council contains microfiche copies of indexes of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 and microform census results. It also has all the burial records from the municipal cemeteries from 1861 and the Hull General Cemetery 1847-1972 on microfilm. To assist in the interpretation of the gravestones, the Hull History Centre has the monumental inscriptions and volumes from the Monumental Inscriptions produced by the East Yorkshire History Society.

Burgess Rolls and electoral registers from 1935 are held in the collection, as are poll books dating from 1747 to 1868. Of particular interest are church records from Quaker and Methodist churches as well as Hull’s Holy Trinity parish registers between 1554 and 1892.

There are 40 local periodical titles, with 10 main runs from 1787, which can shed further light on particular events or newsworthy ancestors. But for a visual interpretation, the City engineering department took thousands of photographs of the city. Granted, they might not be the most spectacular pictures, but they document the transformation of a city. Likewise there is some film on loan from the Yorkshire Film Archives in York.

The remit of the Hull University archives is not so confined to the city limits. The records were often collected by professors with an interest in certain subjects. In the University of Hull’s case, it is politics, particularly left wing movements such as the Union of Democratic Control (found at the bottom of a lift shaft in London), and campaign and pressure groups, such as Liberty and the Housewives’ League. The other main focus is literature collections and letters from local authors such as Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith and Winifred Holtby.

“You reach a critical mass of documents, after which the university became the main point for a certain collections,” says Judy.

Beyond that, there is a wide-reaching and often bizarre mix of fascinating data. From air crash investigations to the records of the British Campaign for Peace in Vietnam. Probably the most beautiful piece in the collection, however, is the illuminated pedigree of the Palmes family (circa 1600). The family is unique in that they can trace, with only one exception, unbroken linage from 1140 to 1974.  It was a family that had lived in East Yorkshire since 1226. They saw Hull become a city in 1299, the War of the Roses, and were, of course, involved with the English Civil War – George Palmes (d. 1654) was knighted by Charles I, before becoming Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of the East Riding.

As for poor old Sir John Hotham, he and his son, Captain Hotham, fought with Parliamentarians. As the war progressed, however, they wavered in their allegiance, explicit in correspondence with the Earl of Newcastle. Parliament got wind of these letters, and after a long court marshal, both were beheaded for treason in January 1645. Hull History Centre has these letters, of course.

Star document: Hull City Charter

The first settlement in the area that is now Hull, was called Myton. Nearby, there was also the Abbey of Meaux and a settlement they called Wyke after the Archbishop of York. In 1296, King Edward I, bought Wyke and Myton appreciating its value by the sea, especially for resupplying his troops in Scotland. He gave the town a new name: King’s Town upon Hull and the status of a borough. It would now have its own court, coroner, market and taxation, all administered by a Warden (to become Mayor), who represented the King. No other government official was to have any jurisdiction over the borough. Merchants, recognising its commercial prospects, moved to the settlement.

The charter, available to see in the Hull History Centre, is written on parchment (treated animal skin) and beautifully preserved. The charter was written, in Latin, on 1 April 1299. To verify the charter, it is sealed with the Great Seal of England which shows the King seated on one side and mounted on a horse on the reverse. “I am particularly fond of the seal as it immediately portrays the sense of history embedded in the document to anyone unable to read the Latin text,” senior archivist Carol Tanner says.

“The Charter has always been accessible to the people of Hull but hopefully the opening of the Hull History Centre will increase awareness of the rich cultural history that Hull enjoys and attract more visitors to view not only the Charter but the wealth of documents of local, regional and national importance housed there.”

Local collection focus: Maritime records

Most people who trace their family back to Hull, will come across its maritime heritage. Hull History Centre holds a vast archives of official maritime records. Any seaman, as fourth hand or higher rank, will have been recorded every time they went to sea. Between 1884 and 1914, the council accrued 25,500 crew lists, giving details of exceptional events, injuries and ill-discipline. It is now available for an on line search at (www.hullhistorycentre.org.uk). Shipping registers from 1804-1994 give details of the vessels and owners, documenting the development from sail to steam, including information on the use of Hull’s boats for the Navy during the two world wars. Whaling logs are also available.

As certain as death is, of course, taxes, and both have become invaluable research tools. The Water Bailiffs, officers of the corporation of Hull, rigorously collected dues – and recorded information – on shipping between 1569-1874, as did the Customs Bills of Entry records between 1832 and 1971. The earliest shipping documents are the Records of the Hull Court of Admiralty 1565-1675.

The archives of private seafaring companies have also fallen into the possession of the Hull History Centre, via the University archives. The most significant is the Ellerman’s Wilson Line, which became one of the largest privately owned shipping companies in the world, with more than 100 ships. It amassed enormous archives from 1792 to 1944. One personnel document, for example, showed poor captain Edward Borrowdale Johnson (b. 1870), who won the Distinguished Service Medal, only to be suspended a couple of years later when he ran his ship aground. It is one of thousands of such documents that shine a light on this incredible history. Similar records exist from trawler owners Thomas Hamling and Co. Ltd. based in at St. Andrew’s Dock. Other maritime records include those of welfare organisations for families of sailors and schools that were set up for the children.

For a wider overview of the maritime industry, the Associated British Ports and its predecessor bodies (1776-c1970) charts the economic and commercial development of Hull and the Humber estuary.

Top tip

While the centre holds a vast archive, the East Riding Archives and Beverley Local Studies Library documents can be found at the The Treasure House, Champney Road, Beverley (01482 392790, www.eastriding.gov.uk). It also has the police records. Other useful resources include the Hull Maritime Museum (01482 300300, www.hullcc.gov.uk) and the North East Lincolnshire Archives, Town Hall Square, Grimsby (01472 323585).

Watch out!

The city archives have been closed to researchers since January. And coupled with the general interest in the new centre, they are expecting a large amount of people to be using the centre in the first few months. Microfiche readers and computers can be booked in advance, and researchers can dig out the files before you arrive. Researchers can also be hired remotely.

Vietnam is a scythe-shaped country that juts into the South China Sea. To the west, the country borders Cambodia and Laos, and China to the north. As the country thins out in the central highlands, it has often been brittle enough to snap, ­separating the north and south, most dramatically during the Vietnam War. Yet today, with more than a quarter of the population under 14, the

Water puppets

horrors of war are a distant memory, and the united country is swaggering, at breakneck speed, into a new era. Vietnam’s landscape is as inspiring and diverse as the charming population and travelling this country is a joy.

I had travelled to Hanoi, the country’s capital in the north of the country, and found a thrilling and mystical city. In 2010 it celebrates a millennium of existence. A millennium of being the focus of educational aspiration, religious ardency, governmental rule and musical and theatrical diversion. It has also been, during the almost unwavering invasions from the Chinese, the Mongols, the French and the US, the focal point of resistance. It was in Hanoi where Ho Chi Minh announced Vietnamese independence in 1948, and where his body now lies, embalmed and seen by thousands of devotees everyday. It has been a millennium of being the centre of Vietnam’s identity.

Simply wandering the streets of Hanoi, and similarly in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Vietnam) in the south, Hoi An and Hue in the centre and in the numerous beach resorts including Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, is the highlight of any trip to Vietnam. It is on these moped-choked alleyways where the Vietnamese conduct their daily life. Merchants tout silk and handicrafts; ladies wearing iconic conical hats weave through the traffic with baskets of bizarre looking fruit. Hopping on and off the pavements avoiding scooters, I walked among the ‘36 streets’ of the Old Quarter ­–the oldest continuously inhabited area of the country. In times past, each street was lined with merchants from a particular craft guild. Today the names remain: Hang Quat, silk and feather fan street, Thinh Hang, wood turners streets, but the exclusivity doesn’t. Fake DVD box sets, silk clothing, Communist propaganda posters and musical instruments compete for selling space.

Attracted by the alluring odours of a street restaurant, I pause to eat. I am shown to a tiny low plastic table and stool – the kind I remember from infant school, and I am brought a beer foaming over the brim. It is a bia hoi (literally today’s beer), a small street bar that sells a light lager brewed daily and distributed every morning around the city. There is no menu, but I am brought a succession of food collectively known as bun cha. A bowl of noodles, steaming pho, a soup with various unidentifiable chunks of meat, fried rolls, pork patties, a colander filled with greens I have never seen before, chopped garlic and fiery chillis, and some fried bacon. I’m thrown some chop sticks and I dig in with fervour. All my senses are invigorated. The clanging of dishes and bubbling of soup, the slippery chopsticks in my clumsy hands, the frenetic street life before me, the mixture of smells, and the tastes. Hot chilli, cool bia, slippery noodles, salty bacon. It is an epiphany, and, on my first day, I decree to try any food I can.

I spent my few days in the capital walking the streets, stopping at bia hois, often at the invitation of a friendly local with a smattering on English. I investigate the fish markets with bowls wriggling with live sturgeon, crabs and frogs – still a delicacy from French colonial days. I visited Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, the delightful water puppet theatre with a live traditional orchestra, and circled Ho Kiem Lake, Hanoi’s heart, as the hot sun rises, to watch locals practise Tai Chi ­– a rare moment of peace before the daily onslaught begins again.

Five things to do

Sip a beer at a bia hoi

Pull up a low plastic chair at the street bar and order a beer. Within moments chances are you’ll be invited to sit with a local and share fresh peanuts and boiled quails eggs. It is a great opportunity to chat to Vietnam’s friendly population in a relaxed way. Some also serve food – take a lucky dip.

Ha Long Bay

After the city becomes too loud and frantic, book a couple of nights on an old junk boat floating across Ha Long Bay. It means ‘Descending Dragon Bay’ because of the 3,000 limestone karsts that rise out of the South China Sea ­– the dragon’s back. Sunset over the bay is spectacular.

Sapa Valley

Another popular trip out of Hanoi is to the Sapa highlands, a day’s train journey north. The beautiful people of the hill tribes in the area still dress in unique traditional dress. Many visitors spend the days hiking through the misty mountains before returning to a home stay.

Temple of Literature

In the middle of Hanoi’s high rises are several acres of solitude. The Temple of Literature has been Vietnam’s principal seat of learning since 1070. This Confucian temple is one of the oldest parts of the city. Among the courtyards are 82 stone tablets on the back of tortoises recording the results of exams between 1442 and 1779.

Reunification Express

This trundling train between Hanoi in the north and the lively commerce capital of Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon) in the south is an unforgettable experience that traverses the many of the distinct cultures and countryside that makes Vietnam such a thrilling experience.

Food and drink

The cuisine of this country is the highlight of the Vietnam experience. Street restaurants that spill out on to the pavements often just serve one dish; perfectly. Each part of Vietnam has subtly different food, and all is worth trying. Just sit down at a busy looking place and point to what your neighbour is having. It is an adventurous approach but perhaps the most rewarding. Go for nem, spring rolls, pho, a broth with noodles, hu tieu, a pork and seafood noodle dish and cha ca, fish with rice noodles.

There are some highly rated upmarket venues, especially in Ho Chi Minh City such as Lemongrass and Cung Dinh Rex and Hanoi like Green Bamboo and Cha Ca Long Vong that. Hotel restaurants are best for international food, when battling with chopsticks becomes too much. Vegetarians are catered for in high-end establishments and hotels, and while much of Vietnamese street food is vegetarian, it is impossible to vouch for the food’s provenance.

There are ‘western style’ bars including the ubiquitous Irish bars, however, nightlife in Hanoi is subject to a 10pm government curfew. Ho Chi Minh City, with more expats, is a more suited to the party lifestyle. All drinking for Vietnamese is done at bia hois – street bars that serve light, fresh beer, and some snacks.

I like – a lot.

Illustration for article on cider making for Air Canada's En Route magazine

Our writer masters the skills of cider making – and, more importantly, tasting.

The first thing I do at the Cider Academy (yes, academy) in Gloucestershire is mill piles of ripe cider apples – Kingston Black and Dabinett – in a machine that bears a striking resemblance to a Medieval torture machine. It seems appropriate to the setting: this is a part of England that seems untouched by passing time, that’s still a green and pleasant land marked by roiling hills and pastoral charm. The innocent-sounding West Country burr is on everyone’s friendly lips, including Peter Mitchell, who runs the course and is a long time teacher and advisor to the burgeoning cider industry in the U.K. and North America.

What comes out of the mill – a big stone circle with crushing wheels for innards – is all the apples’ precious nectar. Peter leads me to the lab, where we test the make up of the juice. Using equipment I vaguely remember from school science lessons, I check the gravity of my juice to assess the estimated alcoholic content: a whopping 11 per cent. We assess the PH value and after some blending with different apple juices, it’s time for lunch and, best of all, a tasting.

There is an infinite variety of cider. Some is bubbly, some flat, some tongue-shrinkingly dry, some sweet. Peter and I sniff, swill and swallow. I learn that “cidery” is a perfectly acceptable aroma descriptor (it means apple-y and zingy, pretty much), but “hay barn” seems most applicable in some cases, which taste of farmyard and orchard, of earth and life. Cider pairs perfectly with cheeses, but a light perry (the equivalent of cider but from pears) is great with fish and salad. The more earthy ciders are best with beef stews and pork.

As we admire one of many pear saplings planted by the Orchard Centre, set among the green folds of the Gloucester Vale, Peter explains how cider was first cultivated in central Asia around 6,500 B.C. and across Europe soon after. By the 17^th century cider and perry became as highly valued in England as champagne in France. “Cider was also safer than water,” Peter says, since sewage systems were lacking in those days. “It was drunk by the whole family, morning, noon and night.”

Replete and rosy-cheeked (there’s no spitting out where cider tastings are concerned), I feel the call of my own brew. Back in the lab I add a strain of yeast and yeast nutrients, and that’s pretty much it. As I write, the satisfying blub, blub, blub from the demi-john is within earshot. In a couple of weeks fermentation will have finished, and about six months of maturation will begin. By summer I will have my first homemade batch of cider to enjoy. What it will taste like is anyone’s guess, but I assure you, it will be drunk.

Dawn around Hoan Kiem Lake and the sun filters through the smog lighting up Ngoc Son Temple, at the northern end of Hanoi’s heart, in a warm orange. In the quiet, Hanoians restfully practise Tai Chi in front of the glimmering lake. Tied to a tree, on the same piece of string as a barber’s mirror, is an old radio squeezing out a tune. Through the crackles, long gone male and female voices take turns to declare their love in a northern quan họ folk song. It is an interpretation of the oldest musical tradition in Vietnam that dates back to spring festivals in the 13^th century.

As the barber cuts the young man’s hair in silence, they listen to the ancient lore before the onslaught of modernity revves up around them. By 6am, hundreds of mopeds speed around the lake, and won’t stop until 11pm when a government curfew comes into effect. The noise from the horns and engines gradually drowns out the atmospheric melody plucked out on a one-string Dan Bau. The magic lost for another day, I hail a moped taxi, or rather the rider hails me (‘moto, moto’ they shout incessantly), and I jump on the back for a frankly terrifying ride through the city, which in 2010 will celebrate 1,000 years since its foundation.

Bouncing through the narrow streets with seemingly unfinished brick buildings towering either side, it is hard to imagine Hanoi a millennium ago. Since being founded in Ly Thai To, the Vietnam governed from Hanoi, has been in constant conflict with the Chinese, Mongols, French and the US. The violence has left its mark on the physical Hanoi, but as I find out, its cultural heritage is stronger than ever.

The moped weaves through increasingly narrow alleys, before jerking to a fumy halt outside a three-storey house. I have come to Thanh Cam musical workshop to meet Do Viet Dung and his father Do Van Thuoc. Instruments, that this workshop has become world famous for, hang from the walls: the dan ty ba, a four-string pear shaped lute played with a plectrum, and a moon-shaped lute called dan nguyet; both part of the traditional Vietnamese eight-piece orchestra. However, it is the 16-stringed zither called Dan Tranh and, in particular, the one-stringed haunting dan bau which characterises Vietnamese music, the latter upholding a claim to be endemic to the country, and instantly recognisable with its almost Theremin-like sound. It is also Thanh Cam’s speciality. “There are 54 minorities in Vietnam,” Do Viet Dung says as he greets me. “And each have a special instruments. Many instruments have roots in China, Korea, Japan, Iraq and Iran, it’s cross cultural. But there’s a unique interpretation in Vietnam.”

As we wander the labyrinthian floors of the workshop, workers crouch over half-made dan baus, gently hammering mother of pearl inlay or sanding the soft wood from the wootung tree. Most are being built for professional musicians in the Hanoi Conservatory of Music. “The popularity of traditional Vietnamese music has been up and down, but since the 1990s, when Vietnam opened up the country, the government has paid more attention to traditional music, and the number of students of classical Vietnamese is higher than ever.”

Ca trù style is enjoying a particular renaissance. “Ca trù is one of the most difficult types of folk music to play because of its intensity,” Dung says. “It used to be played in brothels, so the government used to try and ban it for its associations with prostitutes, but in the 1990s they realised there were only a few people left to play it in the world, so they supported it.”

The renewed interest has also seen artists such as the Khac Chi Ensemble and Huong Thanh touring festivals with their interpretations of ancient songs. Other artists, such as Kim Sinh, have even longer standing respect popping up on CD compilations of music from the country. I bid good bye to the plink plunk of instruments being tested and hop back on a moped.

As Hanoi hurls face first into its second millennium, I remember what Do Viet Dung told me: “1,000 years of Chinese trying to control Vietnam, could not make Vietnam become China. The Vietnamese are very difficult people to change.”

As the teargas disorientates the mob, the police, dressed in military green, baton charge. But these are no ordinary batons. About as long and thick as a forearm, they also disperse a 150,000 volt shock: enough to drop any hooligan in a second. Panic spreads as the hard-hatted police spark up their truncheons and the electrical ‘click-click-click’ is heard through the crowd. Angry police jab at anyone who gets in the way, and the stampede sweeps towards the narrow exit.

But many fans remain defiant, angrily pointing out the brutal police officers to the watching media pitch-side. It isn’t until the muzzles are ripped off the baying German Shepherds and sent over the wire fence into the terrace when the final fans troop out into the street, still waving ‘Ultra’ banners, in a nod to the Italian hooligans they emulate.

Watching the melee from the quieter parts of the stadium, an older fraternity lament the violence that takes place beside them. Among the Hanoi populace over 30, there is no appetite for any more trouble. Until the North Vietnamese Army finally fought off the Americans in 1975, the Vietnamese people had been in constant unwavering conflict since gaining independence from China…in AD 938.  After 1,071 years of fighting, many in Vietnam don’t have the stomach even for scuffles with the authorities.

Yet in the one-party state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the military still permeates many parts of life, and football is no exception. At the opposite side of the stadium from the Hai Phong fans, are the vocal and musically inclined home supporters of Hanoi’s oldest team, The Cong (pronounced ‘Tah Con’) – a team that is still owned by the army. Throughout the day’s clash against Hai Phong Cement, The Cong’s fans, many war veterans or active army officials, sing their call to arms:

Our life is a song of military operations

Our life is the song of soldiers

We sing lovely, unceasingly, day-to-day, month-to-month

Fly over border mountains and forests to remote islands

We sing the song of the soldiers unceasingly

Even though we love the rose

The enemy force me to bring the gun

But we dearly love our homeland

With love we sing the song of military operations.

The June 10 match between Xi Mang Hai Phong FC (Hai Phong Cement), a team from an industrial port 60 miles from Hanoi, and The Cong, Hanoi’s most supported team, has been eagerly awaited by fans looking to catch their first glimpse of Brazilian Denílson de Oliveira Araújo. Once the world’s most expensive player, he signed to Hai Phong in a shock move a week earlier. A convoy of minibuses, scooters, coaches and cars have transported more than 5,000 fans from Hai Phong and dropped them in the middle of Hanoi. Police are on red alert, fearing a flare up of violence that, almost uniquely, has followed Hai Phong around the country. Their fears were not unfounded. Violence during and after the match left several fans and policemen injured – and an announcement from the Vietnamese Football Federation that would have dire consequences for Hai Phong Cement.

In 2010, the city’s population of more than six million souls will celebrate 1,000 years since its foundation by Ly Thai To. Over the centuries, successive governments, tyrants, invaders and Dynastic conquerors have invaded Vietnam’s capital, yet Hanoi has always remained the cultural heartland of the country, and the focus of the resistance movement. Yet wandering the streets of Hanoi in 2009, it is impossible to imagine the bloodshed and strife that has dominated Hanoi’s century long history.

Hanoi is a swiftly modernising city. Once considered the backwater of an entire continent, the city is hurtling towards capitalism – albeit on the back of a choking 10-year-old Vespa. When Four Four Two visit, it is an insufferably humid 42C. The moist air is still and heavy with exhaust fumes from an estimated two million mopeds. Many have families of up to five squeezed on to the narrow seat, while other bikes of burden are unbalanced with pigs, eggs, steel girders and, on one occasion, a fridge freezer.

Down narrow alleys, woman squat in doorways selling bizarre looking fruit, or they stoke a flame to cook a Hanoi delicacy of grilled chicken feet. The streets are a market. Turn left through the labyrinthian old quarter, and the stalls are dominated by pork. Traders shave trotters for sale, while others carefully lay out the belly, ribs, penis and tail under the glaring sun. Turn right and plastic bowls full of live koi, sturgeon, shrimp, squid and lobster are on display for customers. Frog sellers chop off the head and effortlessly pull off the skin in one swift movement, leaving the legs briefly twitching in a bowl.

The legacy of this delicacy is as apparent as the few remaining colonial buildings that replicate the opulent Beaux-Arts of late 19^th century Paris. French Catholic missionaries had brought their word to Buddhist Vietnam in the 1620s, but it wasn’t until the Third Republic in the 1870s led to an era of French colonialism across Asia. Vietnam was always at the heart of the Gallic determination to balance out the power of the British who were quickly colonising India and China. In 1873 Hanoi fell to French troops, becoming the capital of French-Indochina in 1887. The invaders imposed French justice, language and Catholicism upon the country. Between munching on frogs legs and building opera houses and forcing farmers to plant rubber, they also played football.

It was French civil servants and soldiers in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) who first kicked a ball – an oval one – around in 1896. The sport caught on immediately and football clubs, run by expatriates, burgeoned. Infanterie, Cercle Sportif Saigonnais and Stade Militaire were the most popular French teams. Unlike in other colonial outposts, the Vietnamese were also encouraged to form teams to play in the newly formed Cochinchina league, a competition for teams in the southern third of Vietnam.

It wasn’t long however, until the tense backdrop of Vietnamese resistance to French colonialism was thrown onto the football pitch. By the early 1920s, the Vietnamese had created their own Department of Football to balance the domination of the French Department of Football. In a somewhat misguided venture, Gia Djnh Star again played Cercle Sportif Saigonnais in a 1925 cup tie. During the ill-tempered match, the French referee sent off Paul Thi to the disgust of Gia Djnh Star players and fans. The mutual hatred between the two departments led to a suspension of domestic football for seven years.

Saigon, in the south of the country, has always been more open to foreign influence. By contrast, the north, precariously ruled by French officials in Hanoi, was the centre of the independence movement. Football was just as popular in Hanoi, and there are reports of the French playing Vietnamese teams, and even forming a team together. By the 1930s however, forces stronger than football were in movement. Independent sentiments were growing through the northern rice paddies and along the Red River. During World War Two the French were preoccupied by their European plight, but once it was over Vietnam again became a symbol of the last vestiges of French power. This time, however, they were up against a much stronger and organised militia: the Viet Minh national liberation army, led by Ho Chi Minh. The leader, whose embalmed corpse lies in a vast Hanoi mausoleum, declared Democratic Republic of Vietnam to be independent on September 2, 1945. War ensued. For nine years the French fought a jungle war with the Viet Minh, until in 1954 the Geneva Accord split the country in two along the 17^th parallel, recognising the Democratic Republic of Vietnam administered from Hanoi and the Republic of Vietnam from Saigon.

The pause of full-scale war saw the creation of many sports teams – two national teams (North and South) and the renewal of the sporting calendar in the north. The Cong sports club of the Vietnam People’s Army was formed on 23 September 1954 and quickly dominated football in North Vietnam, winning the A1 North Vietnam League a record 13 times between 1955 and 1979. But even with a cursory knowledge of geopolitics, it is obvious that something else rather important was happening between these years.

CIA spooks, US mercenaries and military advisors had been active in Vietnam for at least a decade, carefully watching the ‘devil’ AKA Ho Chi Minh and his communist tendencies while arming and training South Vietnamese forces. In 1960, Hanoi agreed to legitimise the Viet Cong guerrilla army who began to upscale their efforts against the South Vietnamese. The poorly armed South needed help. American GIs entered stage right. In 1963 there were 16,000 American troops. By 1969 it was more than half a million.

Social life in Hanoi is centred on bia hoi. On most street corners, from 9am to the government enforced curfew at 10pm, men of all ages assemble on primary school sized plastic chairs and order glass after glass of fresh beer from a giant keg. At a bia hoi near the Hang Day Stadium, a few hours before the game, Four Four Two meets Nguyen Anh Tuan, orders a couple of beers and a pre-game favourite of boiled quails eggs (other random items on menu: ‘roasted turtle with salt’ and ‘braised fighting cock with rice ferment’). Tuan is a lifelong The Cong supporter and a Vietnam War veteran (service number 19287) who fought in the North Vietnamese Army.

“We went to the games all the way through the war,” he remembers. “There were B-52s constantly flying overhead and bombing Hanoi, but it didn’t stop us. It was very dangerous.”

The first US bombs landed in Hanoi, and the port of Hai Phong, in 1966 and continued without break until 1975 – almost ten years of raids, of sirens, of flak, of fear. But through it life, and football, went on as normally as possible. “Bombs would land nearby the stadium, but it didn’t matter,” Tuan continues. “We loved our team and we wanted to see them win. Football was very important during that time, it brought people together and was good for morale.

“We would still sing and make a lot of noise through the bombs,” he reminisces.

We order another beer and Tuan explains how the players of the The Cong, who were all soldiers, would often play their games on weekends and then during week be sent to the frontline. Some great players in the early 1970s were sent to train and play in communist North Korea, Hungary and Cuba. Others were not so lucky: dozens of The Cong players died in the dense mountains of Vietnam at the hands of American GIs. Tuan proudly talks about Pham Ngoc Khanh who played for The Cong between 1962-1964. He was described by a newspaper report at the time as an ‘exotic’ player and hard worker. Retiring from football in 1964 because of an injury, he enrolled in the army with the same fervour. “In football I learnt to become a good player,” he reportedly stated. “So I will learn to become a good soldier out on the front with the bravest; not to flinch in the face of adversity, the suffering or sacrifice.” His thoughts were prescient: on the 12^th June 1968 he died fighting in one of the most violent and protracted battles in the Vietnam War: Khe Sanh, an American Marine base that was sieged by the NVA for 76 days. The government reports how, badly wounded, Pham Ngoc Khanh ran towards a machine gun placement, ripped out the pin on a grenade in his teeth and blew up the installment before being killed. On the 15^th February 1970, the quick striker from Hanoi was officially awarded “hero” status.

North Vietnam went on, of course, to win the war when the final US officials were airlifted from the roof of the US Embassy on 30^th April 1975 in Air America Huey helicopters. 1,100,000 Vietnamese soldiers had died along with 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians  (some say millions more). 58,209 US armed forces personnel were killed in action, 1,948 are still missing.

A year after the war ended in 1975, north and south were united under the red banner and yellow star designed by Ho Chi Minh as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 1980 North and South also merged their national football teams and domestic leagues.

After only dropping one championship between 1968 to 1979, The Cong continued to perform well in the newly formed V-League winning five tournaments between 1981 and 1998. By 2000 the team was suffering and in 2004, the year of its 50th anniversary, The Cong was relegated. It shocked the military which quickly brought in new sponsors in the form of Viettel, the Army Electronics and Telecommunication Corporation (now doing a very comfortable sideline in mobile phone sim cards). The Cong have never captured the form of the war years, and the present season has been particularly bad. A match earlier that week against T&T – a new Hanoi team owned by one of Vietnam’s richest men – saw The Cong lose in the last minute, much to the fury of the fans. “The new coach Le Thuy Hai was never a soldier,” war veteran Tuan argues. “The man who leads The Cong must be a soldier, and players must fight like soldiers.”

Hai Phong Cement are in a much better position, particularly with the remarkable signing of 31-year-old Denilson. After several incarnations depending on which wealthy multinational company decided they wanted a football team, in 2007 the team became Hai Phong Cement. During the war, as Hai Phong Police, they won the A1 North Vietnam league twice, but success in the V-League has eluded them, with an exception in 1992. Yet this season, Hai Phong are resurgent.

It is 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon and the streets surrounding the stadium are filled with suporters, chanting, singing and drinking beer. Tuan Anh, a 28-year-old Hai Phong fanatic, has made the 60-mile journey from Hai Phong in a minibus, flying flags with the blue dragon logo of Hai Phong Cement company set against the blood red background. “We are the most passionate fans in Vietnam,” he proclaims. “Everyone is scared of us. The fans have a reputation of fight the police wherever we go. That is why there are so many here.”

Three giant water cannons groan slowly around the narrow streets around stadium while nervous police confiscate flags, firecrackers and even flowers as the horde heads in to the stadium. Inside, under the glare of a 40C sun, the noise is thunderous. Everyone slams two inflatable balloons together to impressive effect. “The Cong Down! The Cong Down!” they scream, taunting the smaller group of supporters on the other side of the pitch. The Cong are third from bottom, and with 11 games to go, under immense pressure from supporters. Hai Phong on the other hand are giddy with the unexpected arrival of one Denilson a week earlier. But for the second time Denilson remains elusive because of an injury – leading some to wonder whether it was a less than astute signing (it turned out to be a folly: he left after half a game and one goal two weeks later). Despite the missing superstar, Hai Phong start brightly with Leandro heading home within six minutes.

In both stands, fans cheer on every completed pass and half chance – it seems a little naïve coming after the cynical crowds of England, but it makes for a rousing atmosphere. Brass bands compete from opposite ends of the stadium and the dancing throng continue despite the heat wave. Firecrackers and smoke bombs continued to rain down, despite the increasingly heavy handed police intervention.

Then expectations from both ends, The Cong equalise in the second half and then the lead a couple of minutes before the final whistle. The The Cong Ultras are joyous. But in the away stand, under the beady eyes of Ho Chi Minh, chaos ensues.

Riot police harry fans, dispersing them at all costs. One fan is beaten by seven police officers (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPfLbOBrp9M). The trouble continues into the evening, fans throwing bricks and flares at police.

CLOSURE HERE -

The next day Vietnam Football Federation’s Disciplinary Board chief Nguyen Hai Huong bans Hai Phong fans from games indefinitely, saying: “Problems related to Hai Phong Cement fans are systematic so imposing monetary fines is not enough. Tougher punishments are needed to deter hooligans.”

The condemnations continue throughout the following week, and lawyers from Hai Phong try to get the ban lifted citing the disastrous loss of gate receipts. But the authorities are keen to stamp down what is another blight that is in danger of damaging the integrity of Vietnamese football especially after the high profile corruption scandal (SEE BOX) in 2007.

Yet as the occasional violence remains low key and focussed, and the corruption scandal is petering out, it could be argued Vietnamese football is about to be resurgent. In the last few years the domestic scene has enjoyed an influx of foreign players, particularly from Brazil and West Africa, a trend that is improving the quality of the football. Tellingly however, no one in the ASEAN Football Championship winning national team plays abroad, but the support is coming. Former Arsenal star Steve Morrow regularly travels to Vietnam to oversee an Arsenal academy in the centre of the country. “There are parts of the game that can be improved,” he told Four Four Two from the Emirates. “But it is fast and very athletic, and the Vietnamese are very passionate about football.”

As the crowds disperse from the stadium, red shirts fill the streets. As ever smiles return to their faces and the songs and drinking continues long into the night. Football is a passion in Vietnam, and refreshingly it retains a certain innocence of celebration and fun, far from the cynicism of the European game. And after so much war and strife, who can blame them.

PLUG

Cathay Pacific operates four flights daily from London Heathrow to Hong Kong International Airport with onward connections to 118 destinations worldwide, including 40 Asian cities and over 20 destinations in China (through its sister airline, Dragonair). Flights to Hanoi cost from XXXX. The author stayed at the Movenpick Hanoi (www.moevenpick-hotels.com). Rooms available from XXXX.

ENDS

BOX –

“Vietnamese football is for losers, unless you put some money on who is going to win,” a guide who would only be identified as ‘Tommy’ laughs. In an unusually candid conversation at a bia hoi with some Hanoi travel guides, Four Four Two is given an insight into a scandal that recently almost kicked Vietnamese football into the gutter: gambling and corruption. Gambling is illegal in the socialist state, but is widespread from the streets to the internet. “We support the national team, but Vietnamese football is controlled by a few people at the top – in the one party government – who are making a lot of money.” It is an incendiary statement and not unsubstantiated, but believing the national team is not implicated is naïve. In 2005, former vice captain Le Quoc Vuong imprisoned for masterminding a thrown match against Burma during the South East Asian Games in December 2005, in which some players were paid 20 million dong (£1,300) by bookmakers for not scoring more than one goal. Eight more players were given suspended sentences.

As news of the scandal spread around the world, a movement initiated by the Vietnamese Football Federation to wipe out gambling related corruption on the domestic scene, called ‘clean hands campaign’, has been investigating allegations of match fixing by players, officals and coaches. So far government officials have not been implicated, but Bui Tien Dung a transport minister, was jailed in for bribery and corruption relating to his own gambling addiction on European football.

Sat around with Tommy and other guides, is their older boss, a very wealthy man with a beautiful girl on his arm. He admits to making a lot of money through gambling, and recites the adage: “It’s not what you know, but who you know”. Then he picks up the tab, and speeds off on an imported motorbike, girl hanging on behind.