Christian's Names

On the heels, as it were, of Djimi Traore and Amady (also reported as being called Amdy, and I don't know which is right) Faye, came the news of the signing of Christian Bolanos (above), a Costa Rican international, who, it has been proudly stated, was recently with Deportivo Saprissa, so, one assumes, he must be good.

Well, if they say so, and everyone seems to be very pleased about the new signing, as they are about the other two, though I have no more heard of Deportivo Saprissa than I had of Germinal Beerschot a couple of days back, and incidentally, than I have of Future European Champions (that'll be the day) Newcastle United's opponents, FK Ventspils, in some European competition or other this evening.

However I noticed one thing; in my fellow-blogger Nelson's piece about Christian, the name appears as Bolaños, not Bolanos. I know that to the average English-speaking reader, this is not going to make any difference, but Nelson lives in an Iberian Valley, as indicated by his blog name, and he will, as I do, know the difference. The letter Ñ is part of the Spanish alphabet in its own right as distinct from the letter N, and is pronounced as N+Y, as in Viva España, for example, and on Spanish keyboards it appears in its own right too, in that the small and capital versions have a proper key of their own. Most of the time, mis-spelling a word by using N rather than Ñ doesn't really matter as the Spanish are used to people doing that, although care should be exercised when writing someone a New Year card, as the word for 'year' (año) is very similar to the word for 'anus' (ano).

Christian's surname is a new one on me - in more than 30 years living in Spain, and almost 40 of learning and using the language, I have never encountered either version of the name, and Christian is not a usual name here in Spain, either, though the word 'cristiano', meaning a Christian, does exist.

Anyway, that's three more new names to conjure with when talking and writing about Charlton, and there is a general feeling that things are looking up.

Germinal Beerschot 1 Charlton 2



And this is Kelly Youga, another recent Charlton signing, who scored the winning goal in Antwerp. The Inspector has some of the details. Next, Utrecht. And then Upton Park.