News that Andorra’s national anthem was mistakenly played as Albania’s before the Albanian Euro football qualifying match against France, delighted me, specially when to compound the blunder, the French Emcee then apologised to, – wait for it – the Armenian team.
It brought back memories of a 1972 Commonwealth light-welterweight championship bout in Wellington between our Joey Santos and Ghana’s Joe Tetteh.
I’d organised it in my role as the Wellington Boxing Association’s matchmaker. There was no problem portraying a Ghanese flag on posters etc, such info’ readily obtainable from any atlas. But what of the anthem? Joe was a taciturn type, unlikely to complain about anything, nevertheless I took no chances. So I had the Emcee announce his name and that the Ghana anthem was to be played (some esoteric classical music) while I had Joe come out after it was over. No‑one was the wiser, indeed the fans were happy as the best thing about bloody anthems at sporting events is when they end, so I kept it short.
