Grass puts football out to pasture

Lai See has been tracking the latest developments in the Euro 2000 tournament. She's quite a footie aficionado really.

And there have been some classic moments in Dutch sports.

Clad in his trademark sunglasses and a No 8 jersey, football player Edgar Davids knocked the ball to Bergkamp, who fired it into the goal.

'Moo' said Davids. Ignoring him, Bergkamp ate some grass.

Oh, sorry . . . did we forget to mention that all the players were cows? A farmer called Erik Wijers has set up his own bovine version of the Dutch team.

Like their human counterparts, the animals all wear numbered orange shirts.

Erik the Farmer's field, complete with wobbly goal posts and an oversized ball, is just a stone's throw from the real thing at Gelredome stadium.

Lai See feels a little sorry for those cows.

While their bovine peers just stand around being milked, members of Farmer Erik's squad are forced to spend their early mornings in training.

Mr Wijers and his wife Caroline put the animals through their paces.

The actual games begin when the human Dutch team is playing, or if there's a game at the Gelredome. That's when the cow owner furrows his brow, eyes his athletes appraisingly, and picks his team.

Bovine Oranje players are then pitted against an opposition squad which is clad in black and white.

And not all players are created equal.

Cow No 8 wears orange-tinted sunglasses just like midfielder Davids.

Reuters reports that there have even been cases of 'prima donna' behaviour.

Don't the animals object to being stuffed into shirts? 'For most of the cows, it's no problem but I'll take the shirts off if the weather gets too hot,' the farmer told Reuters.

The celebrity animals even have a one-minute spot on local television.

Doesn't Erik think dressing cows up in jerseys and sunglasses and making them play football is a tad . . . odd? Apparently not.

'Everyone does something to support the team,' he said. 'This is just my way of backing Holland.' Well, yes, but those other people just put on orange jerseys and cheer, which isn't quite the same thing.

And you don't see this sort of thing going on in any of the other Euro 2000 countries.

Lai See blames cannabis. Football playing cows are the sort of thing you expect to see when drugs are too freely available. Of course, normally they wouldn't actually be real.

Still, there is something good to be said of the narcotic weed's role in Euro 2000.

We're told it saved Holland from the ravages of footie hooliganism.

A senior Dutch police officer claims cannabis was behind the relatively good behaviour of England fans in Eindhoven on Monday.

Ready availability of the drug 'may have helped relax them', Johann Beelan told the British Press Association on Wednesday.

Scores of ticketless England fans gathered in the misnamed 'coffee shops' in Eindhoven to watch the game. Normally, these people are the worst troublemakers.

But cannabis is legally sold and smoked in those shops. Before long, the normally unruly fans had succumbed to a gentle stupor.

There was no trouble as they watched England throw away a 2-0 lead to go down 2-3.

We're told the hooligans greeted the defeat with mild disappointment . . . and gentle applause.

'Even the hooligans enjoyed the party, and they told our officers.' 'There were lots of things for fans to do and everybody had a good time,' Mr Beelan said after the event.

Hmmm. We're willing to bet ol' Erik smoked a lot of that stuff before deciding his life just wasn't complete without a team of football playing cows.

It's the only explanation really.

Either that or he's got Mad Farmer's Disease.