If what happened to me yesterday afternoon is not the definition of telepathy – macabre telepathy at that – then words and concepts have apparently lost their meaning…

I saw on TV a documentary produced by NOVA in 2018 to mark the 50th anniversary of AEK’s triumph in the Cup Winners’ Cup and the hosting of the Final 4 of the Basketball Champions League in OAKA…

While I was watching Lakis Tsavas and Vassilis Georgiou talking to Dimitris Karydas, my cell phone started ringing…

What were Giorgos Anastasopoulos and Panagiotis Antonopoulos, good colleagues and friends from Patras, up to?

Our mourning for “Vembo”

When I answered the calls, I was shocked: Vassilis Georgiou had died, while I saw him alive in the documentary…

He is gone, forcing basketball to wear black again and mourn for the third time in a month, after our mourning for Giannis Ioannidis and Paris Kalimeridis, each of them appointed…

So the “Sofia Vembo” of Greek basketball, as Syrigos called him…

By the way, it was the two who brought basketball into homes all over Greece, and for that we must remember them and be forever grateful to them: Georgiou on the radio and Syrigos on television.

To make Caesar Caesar and God God, along with everything that is appropriate, there is certainly a third pillar: Phaedon Konstnatoudakis, who took the baton from Vangelis Fountoukidis and Ari Melissinos and brought it in with his impressive, terrible and lexiplastic pen our houses brought into “Fos ton Spor”.

Georgiou’s voice, the Phonara

So “Vembo”…

In the 1940s, during the Greco-Italian War, Sofia Vembo became the singer of victory…

25 years later, Skagiopoulio’s former player Apollon Patras (to whom he later returned as coach), Triton and Panachaki shook Hellenism through the airwaves…

She made him sway with her voice, she just caught the attention of Luciano Kilaidoni in the ballad in which she sings.how it connects us and how Diakogiannis’ voice makes us vibrate»…

The premiere on television

Not to be unfair to Vassilis Georgiou, in addition to radio, he was the pioneer of television broadcasts, a decade before Syrigos took his place in front of the microphone…

It was September 5, 1969, in the middle of the Colonels’ Junta, and Greek television, which had first broadcast in February 1966, was still operating at an experimental level with two channels: the Hellenic Radio Foundation (EIR). ) and the Armed Forces station, which was later renamed YENED and after years evolved into ERT-2.

TEuropean Summer TimeEvent for the International Exhibition

On Saturday, September 6, 1969, Greek television was scheduled to cover the opening of the International Exhibition in Thessaloniki and an event was sought for this purpose. be used as a dress rehearsal.

Thessaloniki had a television station, while the OTE’s facilities operated where an antenna was installed at the exhibition site (next to Alexandrio Melathros).

With these meager resources, which would nevertheless be sufficient to satisfy the basic needs of a television broadcast, the decision was made (as already mentioned in a previous tribute by my colleague Angelos Mendrinos) to broadcast it live and use it as a… test event, that very last game of the Balkan Basketball Championship between Greece and Yugoslavia.

The game was recorded by two cameras and the image was sent from the Palais de Sport via a transmitter to the armed forces station so that the signal could be processed.

It was just broadcast the second half

It is even noteworthy that not the entire game was broadcast, but only the second half, with the announcer Vassilis Georgiou, who worked on the radio and had thrilled all of Greece the previous year with the broadcast of the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup between AEK and Slavia Prague Kallimarmaro Stadium.

This historic final, which gave Greece its first European trophy, was tentatively broadcast by the Armed Forces TV channel, but without picture.

Since there were no external broadcasting teams at that time, those responsible came up with the following patent and implemented it: They put a photo of AEK on the screen and broadcast Georgios’ radio description!

broadcast

On September 5, 1969, there was a live picture of the national team’s game against Yugoslavia, but Vassilis Georgiou’s radio description was used again.

A film camera “captured” the close-ups and some interviews that were broadcast on “Epikira” in the following days.

As a reminder, this game turned into a thriller and Yugoslavia emerged victorious with a score of 72:70. The coach of the national team that received the … television virginity was Missas Pantazopoulos and the squad consisted of: George American 10, Thanasis Christoforou 20, George Trontzos 2, George Kolokythas 13, Vassilis Goumas 17, Christos Zoupas 6, George Barlas 2, Kostas Parisis, Thanasis Peppas, Nikos Sismanidis.

Ranko Zeravica sat on the “plavi” bench and the team consisted of: Krezimir Cosic, Ivo Daneu, Nikola Pletsas, Vinko Jelovac, Rato Trdic, Damir Solman, Ljubodrag Simonovic, Trajko Rajkovic, Dragutin Cermak, Dragan Kapicic, Vladimir Cvetko Witch and Zoran Marojevic.

“My dear listeners”

Of course, Vassilis Georgiou’s journey began several years ago, more precisely in 1962, when he said for the first time: “my dear listeners».

Yes, listeners, in the clearing house, as was the norm back then: the listeners, the players, the coaches, the referees and so on on the radio and in sports vernacular!

Vassilis became famous on April 4, 1968, when he broadcast, in an epic, lyrical, laudatory, unprecedented and unsurpassed manner, at the Kallimarmar Stadium, the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup between AEK and Slavia Prague, which gave Greece its first international trophy at an official event.

The dreamy opposite of Trondzou

Three weeks earlier, on March 14, 1968, the second semifinal against Varese was decided by the basket of Giorgos Tronzos, who scored 72-52, covering Masnagos 60-78…

Contrary to his habits and to the surprise of the Italians, the injured Tronzos did not score with a fantastic return, but with a fantastic jump shot.

The phrase “dreamy backwards” was very common in Vassilis’ vocabulary, after all, at some point in the 1968 final, he said: “After Giorgos Tronzos scored this dream basket, we won’t lose, gentlemen…”

The 45 rpm disc

It says a lot in this legendary, shocking, historic and indelibly imprinted on the hard drive and in the national collective memory…

In fact, they are his socks!

I was five years old at the time and remember the radio broadcasts in my neighborhood on the highway: I don’t remember much of that night, but since I developed a taste for sports and journalism, I listen to the same broadcast on many occasions Guess it’s already been released on 45rpm CD, so I know it inside out!

The American comes, he kisses me

I collect some of his sayings and answer them in drafts, and I have no doubt that even after 55 years they evoke the same feelings and the same coldness…

• Watch out Zidek, what kind of hand is that, my child…

• Well done George, well done America…

• Here comes the American, he kisses me…

• Laugh my user…

• A dreamy inversion of Tronzo…

Thousands of fainting spells, thousands of flares

• Zupas moves in the bedroom…

• AEK is Queen of Europe…

• Hundreds of thousands of Greek sports fans cry…

• Thousands of faints, thousands of flares, thousands of moments…

• The God of Greece, the God of AEK…

• It’s Easter, the candles are lit…

• Me too, me too, forgive me, I cried…

• The race comes to an end…

This race was indeed coming to an end and yesterday afternoon his own race also ended…

The priceless will and speed changes

In recent years, and despite having already lost his wife, he suffered from health problems and lived in a nursing home as his only son, his colleague and friend Sotiris Georgiou, lives in Athens…

Yesterday, at the age of 86, the thread of his life was severed, but the legacy he leaves behind in the basketball and sports caste is truly priceless…

In all his years of broadcasting races on the radio, Georgiou had a unique style, especially when racing up and down hills.

First second, third, fourth and tumble!

I will never forget his transmission in that memorable game between Apollon Patras and Heracles, when of course his needle got stuck due to the crescendo of two players…

“Ingram’s basket, Pettway’s basket”!

Petropoulos and “here, in Patras”

Since he was from Patras, he was often seduced in his broadcasts into believing that he was in his beloved city…

Pagrati-Apollo 55-55 here in Patras!

Yes, but God,”here in Patras“, he said, even if they played in Metz!

I think it’s unnecessary to write how melodramatic his speech about Kostas Petropoulos was, after all, in an interview with “TRIPONTO” he said: “If “Nureyev” hadn’t had so many injury problems, he would have surpassed everyone.”

It goes without saying that his career did not end that night in Kallimarmaro, on the contrary, his highs began right there!

He reported on all subsequent major competitions on behalf of ERT radio. At the 1991 European Basketball Championship in Rome, he even coached the journalist team in a mini-tournament outside the PalaEur.

“Go into the cave”

He also called out to the pardoned Stratos Kostala and Yannis Karalis, just like he did back then…

“Go into the freezer»!

By the way, Bernadiera was the bully, he used the Italian term he heard from Aldo Giordani.

It was an honor – and it could not have been otherwise – Vassilis was present at all of AEK’s following great moments: the Final 4 of the 1998 Champions Cup in Barcelona, ​​​​the Final of the 2000 Saporta Cup in Lausanne, the Final 4 the Basketball Champions League 2018 in the OAKA…

Hatzis made, American!

He was there, standing at his meter, broadcasting or commenting, setting his own inimitable tone…

I have a nice little story from the final with Kinder Bologna on April 11th 2000 in Male and I’ll end with that…

On the crescendo of Nikos Hatzis, Vasilis blossomed.Well done George, well done America»!

Some were surprised, they said he had lost it…

“What do you say? I said it intentionally so that my words would resonate, like they did in 1968. That’s why I made Hatzis, an American»…

Five years later, on September 24, 2005, in the semifinals of the European Basketball Championship between the national team and France, when Antoine Rigondeau said something similar to my speech after Dimitris Diamantidis’ three-pointer, in order to calm things down and not gobble up the basket. ..

“Jovaisha, like back then“And whoever understood understood.

Surely Vassilis Georgiou understood it anyway…