After receiving, I'd imagine, one too many spam emails in their inbox proclaiming the importance of substantial length and girth - UEFA have finally given into anxious feelings of inadequacy and decided to "embiggen" the Henri Delaunay trophy.
The new UEFA European Championship trophy is 18cm higher and 2kg heavier than the original designed by Arthus Bertrand in 1960 and named after Henri Delaunay, the former president of the French Football Federation…It has been brought up to date to reflect the scale and size of Europe's most prestigious international tournament.
Though there was, I suppose, something rather dainty and delicate about the original cup - particularly when you saw it being raised aloft by the brawny arms of big strapping lads like Jürgen Klinsmann…
…its incongruous, throw-together quality lent it a charm that was hard to resist (looking more like the kind of endearingly naff prize one might win in, say, a regional cribbage tournament).
Yet who are we to question the wisdom of UEFA's autocrats? Maybe there has always been something not altogether satisfactory about Delaunay's silver urn. Take the below image (of a triumphant Michel Platini in 1984) for example:
I'd previously imagined it to show a man on top of the world (well…Europe at least). A man wholly satisfied with his lot. A man enjoying a perfect moment. Looking a little closer, however, I now detect a slight (but perceptible) trace of disappointment. "I can't help wishing", his eyes seem to say, "that this thing was about 18cm taller".
24 years later, of course, and the man himself (being UEFA's current top banana) was in the perfect position to make this dream of an embiggened trophy a reality.
"Check it out, lads", he beams, "It's huge!".
I preferred the smaller one. After all, it’s what you do with it that counts.
I wonder what they’ll do with the old one. Put it on sale on eBay perhaps? It’d be a great conversation piece:
“What’s that?”
“Oh that, it’s The Henri Delaunay Trophy”
“How nice! Do you ever put flowers in it?”
“No, we plan to place the ashes of Michel Platini in it, when his time comes”
“Oh”
June 6th, 2008 at 12:16 amI forgot to mention a few other changes - so preoccupied was I with matters of size.
According to UEFA:
I don’t ever remember seeing this small ball-juggling figure. He must have been tiny (almost invisible). It sounds a charming detail, though it obviously doesn’t fit in with the sleeker, bigger, badder UEFA corporate aesthetic.
Having not read the press release all the way through I’ve only now realised that the base has gone too…
The fools! That was the best bit. I loved seeing each successive wining captain trying to figure out how best to grasp it. It was delightfully clunky and non-ergonomic.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:52 amPlatini insisted on having it done so that he no longer looks so fat next to it.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:49 amHis waistline is, indeed, beginning to “reflect the scale and size of Europe’s most prestigious international tournament”.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:37 am