Exporting the spirit of sport to Cuba and beyond

Published in the January 13, 2016 edition

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

LYNNFIELD — The spirit of sport and the culture of goodwill is helping to thaw relations between the United States and Cuba this week in Havana.

The man behind this historic effort is none other than Lynnfield resident Spiros Tourkakis and his Boston Braves Football Club, a senior-level team of North Shore area veteran amateur soccer players.

During these historic times, when the relations between the United States and Cuba are on the verge of normalizing, the Boston Braves are the first soccer team ever – amateur or professional – from the United States to be officially invited to play against the veterans of Cuba’s national championship team known as F.C. Sporting, according to Tourkakis.

The entourage of 26 on this cultural and athletic exchange includes 15 members/players of the Boston Braves Football Club and 11 wives or guests of the players. They left Boston and arrived in Havana last Saturday on a chartered flight from Tampa, Florida, after receiving their visas just the week prior to allow this exchange to take place.

“We are staying in a very historic hotel which used to be the headquarters of Fidel Castro at one time. It is probably the most historic hotel in Havana – Hotel Melia Tryp Habana Libre,” he said.

They will play two games in the University Stadium of Havana. There will be a pre-game ceremony, followed by the game and a post-game luncheon, when gifts are exchanged. The Braves planned to bring T-shirts for the players as well as medals engraved with the logos and names of both teams in an exchange of friendship, he said.

“The team there is the champion veteran team. It is former professionals who recently retired and they had won the championship in Cuba,” he said.

“Soccer is the secondary part of it. But of course, athletics is our purpose, otherwise, we would not be able to go. We are going to see how things are visiting a different world,” he said, adding that they are excited to be visiting Cuba now. “We want to go actually now, not 10 years from now, while it’s authentic from the previous system,” he said.

Goodwill ambassadors

The trip to Cuba would not have been possible without the goodwill that Tourkakis has engendered throughout the world of international senior-level soccer during the past 15 years since creating the Boston Braves.

“We are actually the only team in the world, professional or amateur, that has associated and played with all of the top teams in the world,” Tourkakis said.

“There are some professional teams, like in Europe, that have played with the best European teams, but they haven’t played with the top South American teams, and there are some South American teams that haven’t played the European teams,” he explained.

But the Boston Braves have played against all of these teams. “We have played with every single top team in the world that has won world championships or European championships or South American championships,” he said.

The list of the veterans from these storied clubs who have competed against the Braves continues to grow and includes teams from England, Italy, Spain, Russia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece and Argentina, just to name a few.

If you were ask Tourkakis how many of the nearly 50 games his team has actually won, he would struggle to tell you. At last count, after hosting F.C. Bayern Munich on Halloween and posting an historic 2-1 victory at Pioneer Stadium, the Braves were up to maybe five career wins and perhaps three ties, with the rest being losses.

However, he is quick to point out that the actual score is not important to the Braves. What matters to Tourkakis is the human experiences that they share, the bonds that develop and cultural exchanges that take place between his players, who are amateurs competing against the veterans of these former professional and/or national and international-caliber championship teams.

It’s also a thrill for the members of the Boston Braves to compete against the players they grew up admiring and the teams they have followed for decades, often since childhood. Think of any dream team an American fan obsessed with baseball, hockey, football or basketball could assemble. Then picture creating a showcase where it would be possible for such a fan to compete against these players as well as socialize with them, both here and abroad.

Tourkakis and the Boston Braves F.C. members experience that nirvana during each of these exchange trips.

“A brave man”

Great things can happen when adversity is overcome. The Boston Braves Football Club was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorists attacks back in 2001. Tourkakis, who is a native of Athens, Greece and has been a resident of Lynnfield for the past 25 years, had planned his first international senior-level soccer trip to Athens with fellow members of the Melrose Good Guys. After the arrangements were made, 9/11 happened and the world changed overnight.

“The team that I had organized to go, quit and didn’t want to travel, so I reached out to the community and because times were difficult and no one wanted to travel, I said ‘whoever travels will be a brave man.’ So we called the team the Boston Braves.”

Eventually, Tourkakis was able to assemble a group of players from the North Shore, mainly soccer players who were natives of Greece, Italy and Russia “who were less afraid to travel and we patched a team together.” Within a few weeks of the 9/11 events, the newly minted Boston Braves flew to Athens for the October 2001 tournament.

The commemorative plaque he was presented from his Greek hosts in October 2001 is still proudly displayed in the trophy room of his Lynnfield home. The testament to the Boston Brave’s legacy exists in this collection of gifts presented during many pre-game and post-game celebrations.

This memorabilia has taken over the finished basement of his home, which he shares with his wife, Anna, and their college-age son, George. What used to be George’s childhood playroom has now turned into the ultimate man cave. Tourkakis believes it is the largest collection of professional international soccer memorabilia in existence.

The walls, bookcases and tables are filled with team flags, signed posters, trophies, photographs, plaques and team jerseys.

Tourkakis is a goalie and one of his most prized gifts is a pair of gloves presented to him in 2003 during a visit to Barcelona, Spain. These gloves were worn by the goalie of the Spanish National Team which had won the European Championship in 1962, he said.

Another prized gift is a special edition commemorative poster created in tribute to the members of the Manchester United team that perished in an airplane crash in 1958.

“Manchester United is a very famous soccer team. They had the so-called Munich crash back in 1958. The plane that was bringing them back after playing in a tournament crashed taking off from Munich to Manchester, and most of the team died,” he said. Only 140 copies of this poster were created. The poster is designed with the names of each deceased player embedded along the side which can only seen from a specific angle.

Trips to places like Cuba are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and Tourkakis and the club members work hard to make it possible. “Everybody understands that these are good things that can help human relationships,” he explained. “The invitation came from Cuba for us to participate there in this sport event,” he said.

Tourkakis said the Boston Braves intentionally do not do a lot of activities.

“The reason being is because I like to keep the Braves something only for special occasions and because it’s a lot of work, too. All of us are involved in other teams, so to give it the special character, we only do special things like this thing that we are doing with Cuba; like playing with world champion teams like Bayern and Barcelona, or going to places to export cultural things along with sports.”

The past nine months of tournaments have been very unusual for the Braves. “We had Barcelona here, then we went to Italy, in Rome and Florence. Then we had Bayern here, and now we go to Cuba,” he said.

“We have been invited to go to Paris on April 5, when we play against the French champion team. Then we are going to northwest Spain. And then we have been invited to go to England. We are going to do a tour of London, Manchester, and Sheffield. The National Veterans Team of England has invited us to play an historic game on the ground where the first-ever soccer game took place in 1872 in Sheffield!”

His wife, Anna, adds that the players who visit America with their families also have enjoyed their experiences just as much as the Braves and their families have when traveling abroad. “When they come here, especially lately, with the town facilities and the reception they’ve been getting, the hotel accommodations, they’re just so impressed and thrilled that they walk away saying “Wow!” she said.

Team members visiting from St. Petersburg, Russia were “thrilled. They loved America,” Anna said. She added that the members of Bayern Munich who had traveled without their wives said they would be coming back with their wives. She also recalled being told by members of the German team who had gone to play golf at a local course that when they were finished, they inquired at the pro shop about getting a taxi back to their hotel in Wakefield. The person they asked insisted on driving them to their hotel himself. They told her that never would have happened in Germany. “The openness of the people really impressed them,” Anna said.

Her husband agrees. “We are exporting the spirit of sport. The win-loss record is not important,” Tourkakis said.