Owl stops play

Now, I've never seen this before.. obviously something in the stars for this week's round of football internationals. This time it was the game between Finland and Belgium. Referee Mike Riley has probably seen quite a lot of things during a career in the English Premiership, but I wouldn’t mind betting he has never encountered the situation he faced after 19 minutes of the first half. A majestic eagle owl (Bubo bubo), which apparently lives in the Olympic Stadium, clearly felt the Finns needed to play the ball out wide more, and flew down from its perch atop the main grandstand and sat on the grass. He was in acres of space, and in a sort of right midfield position. Nobody passed to him, but the game ground to a juddering halt.

Lest you think that one of the players should have trotted over and shooed the bird away, it should be mentioned that the eagle owl is not a pigeon or a gull, it is a BIG beast, nearly as large as a golden eagle, with a wingspan of up to two metres, and this one was playing at home, remember. I’m not sure any of the players DARED tangle with it, and Mike Riley certainly wasn’t showing it any yellow or red cards. Obviously Graham Poll would have done, but he wasn’t there.. :-)

The ref called time out, the players - especially the Belgians - stood and stared, the crowd roared in delight, and the owl responded to their cheers by performing a few leisurely low-level laps around the arena, with pauses in between when he perched on the crossbar at each end. Thirty thousand voices boomed out a new chant - “Huuhkaja! Huuhkaja!” - the name of the species in Finnish.

After making its point, the big bird sat down quietly on a wooden construction behind the Finnish goal and watched the proceedings for a while, as the press photographers snapped away at it. Security staff kept a wary distance. Play recommenced after a six-minute delay.

After Johansson scored for Finland a few minutes later the owl presumably figured the match was a done deal and disappeared. You can see the action at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPOS64vVo10&NR=1

Apologies if you don't give a hoot...