Things you were shockingly old when you learned

That's kinda crazy. And looking into it, the 1969 NASL year was really nutty. First the teams played a regular season schedule with presumably their own North American players and that was followed by an "International Cup" with each team being replaced by a real English or Scottish team. Aston Villa played as the Atlanta Chiefs, West Ham United played as the Baltimore Bays, etc.

Atlanta Chiefs were represented by Aston Villa
Baltimore Bays were represented by West Ham United
Dallas Tornado were represented by Dundee United
Kansas City Spurs were represented by Wolverhampton Wanderers
St. Louis Stars were represented by Kilmarnock F.C.

Wolves won it too.

"that the Wolverhampton Wanderers once also played an offseason season in an upstart North American 'soccer' league, but they were rebranded the LA Wolves. as were other European teams who played, masquerading as American teams under pseudonyms."

My word. I was not aware of this. But it happened:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Soccer_Association

"Without any players of its own, (the new league) opted to import whole teams from Europe and South America. It was intended that these teams would represent the franchises during the inaugural season, giving them time to build their own squads for the following season. Wolverhampton Wanderers, who had won promotion to the English First Division at the end of the 1966–67 season subsequently represented the Los Angeles franchise."

The idea of Wolverhampton Wanderers suddenly decamping to Los Angeles in 1967 is faintly surreal. Decamping to Los Angeles to play the Washington Whips, e.g. Aberdeen. It must have been an incredible culture shock. Britain in 1967 was still almost entirely black and white and football back then consisted of kicking a massively heavy ball around a field made of mud.

That leads me to learn about Victorio Casa, "the first player in American professional soccer history (and only player in NASL history) to play with one arm; he had lost his right arm in a freak shooting accident before coming to the US". By 1970 he was making $15,000 a year, the equivalent of $115,000 today.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b9/79/1d/b9791df703df720a5827cd46c9f9f107.jpg

Oh right, there's two different competitions there in two different years - and Wolves won both of them!

not only does florida look like a penis. it is a penisula. and the first letters of that? it's penis

I have heard Florida referred to as "America's wang," but I think it's more accurate to call it "America's lower intestine."

> St. Louis Stars were represented by Kilmarnock F.C.

Today I learned that Kilmarnock, Virginia USA where my mom grew up was named after a place in Scotland and is not an Algonquin word, like the Rappahannock River, which it is close to.

Atlanta Chiefs were represented by Aston Villa
Baltimore Bays were represented by West Ham United
Dallas Tornado were represented by Dundee United
Kansas City Spurs were represented by Wolverhampton Wanderers
St. Louis Stars were represented by Kilmarnock F.C.

(xp) lol. Somehow I can imagine Virginia being full of people from Ayrshire.

Indeed Rappahannock is probably a scotiatization of whatever they heard the native Americans call the river.

Kudos to two-time North American trophy winners Wolverhampton Wanderers

The idea of Wolverhampton Wanderers suddenly decamping to Los Angeles in 1967 is faintly surreal. Decamping to Los Angeles to play the Washington Whips, e.g. Aberdeen. It must have been an incredible culture shock. Britain in 1967 was still almost entirely black and white and football back then consisted of kicking a massively heavy ball around a field made of mud.

Would rather watch this TV series than Ted Lasso, tbh

Plenty of scope for comedy Black Country accents there too.

There's a huge man-made cave complex in London (Chislehurst Caves). Why didn't I know this when I lived there?

Apparently Hendrix played a gig in there!

oh i missed the Wolves's mad American tournament chat. great videos

Queen of Canada is a separate title from Queen of England and theoretically Canada could have a different King or Queen than England

Well, to be accurate, there hasn't been a Queen (or King) of England since 1707.

Yeah, I guess I should have said Queen of the United Kingdom.

I guess I just assumed there was some "Queen of the Commonwealth" title or something that applied to all countries which have to put up with having this
old woman's profile on their coins.

a question, because I've just realised i don't know. Elizabethans, Edwardians, Jacobeans. but for Charles?

i like to consider myself part of Charles Nation

Carolingians?

Carlists?

Charlatans

Carolines perhaps? North and South Carolina both named after Charles I.

That it’s Alain Delon on the cover of the Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead

that there's another one called Prince Edward

My entire life I've heard about Charles & Anne, and more recently about Andrew.. but there's a sleeper prince who doesn't seem to attract much attention

I had no fucking clue

My brother thought the Queen Mother had been queen directly before QEII. He's in his 30s and has lived in England his whole life.

prince edward was big on spitting image back in the day.

I would imagine most people under 30 in the UK have no idea who Prince Edward is.

Chuckleheads

My brother thought the Queen Mother had been queen directly before QEII.

I mean he's right but it's queen as in king's wife, not as in monarch.

He asked how long her reign had been so he definitely meant 'monarch'! We weren't brought up to have any interest in the Royal Family at all.

I remember this lad called Leonard at junior school getting sent to the headmaster's office for the strap for saying The Queen was Satan! He was just repeating what his Rastafarian older brother had told him.

rastafarian older brother otm

absolutely. I still remember It's A Royal Knockout being on and thinking why are they ruining this great program. Well obv it wasn't a great program and the presenter was a child abuser. But it was popular in my house, apart from that one-off.

They basically stuck Prince Edward in an attic after that and only dragged him out occasionally to stand somewhere in the back row on public occasions.

Was he the one in the can?

No, that was Prince Albert. Never mind.

the funniest scene in The Crown (apart from Mountbatten getting some IRA justice) was where Charles dismisses Andrew + Edward as "fringe" and of no interest to the British public. And no-mark twerp Edward says "well that was impressively cunty". I wonder if netflix will be busting a gut to get the last season out ahead of schedule.

a british person I know said it was weird to think of having to use "god save the king" and it never even crossed my mind that this would be the case

saw someone noting that after 70 years all the 'queen's counsel' lawyers have suddenly become KCs; i'm sure there are many more weird things like this

Hopefully the thought “it just feels wrong to say ‘god save the king’ and ‘his majesty’” will lead naturally to the realisation that yes, it should always have felt wrong and take a fucking look at yourself you abject lickspittle cunt

Gonna be weird calling that state above New South Wales, "Kingsland."

saw someone noting that after 70 years all the 'queen's counsel' lawyers have suddenly become KCs; i'm sure there are many more weird things like this

The King's English, for one.

i think it's time to move to a gender-neutral anthem - won't need to keep changing it every few decades that way, and it'll piss off all the people i enjoy pissing off.

last night of proms cancelled as well. ha ha.

God Save the Qing

if we could abandon the dirge entirely, that would be ideal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolean_era <- charles ii was carolean

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_era <- charles i was caroline

so one of those, or something else. truss used carolean in parliament today but i wouldn't trust her to tell me the time of day so...

Mail-in ballot for "Caroliner Rainbow era"

wow that's a deep reference.. I saw them a couple times

Chaotic and living out a retrospective dream that makes sense only to them?

Or at least that's what I gather from the couple of interviews I've read.
Pioneer/frontier fixation that belongs in the 19th century.