02
Stop two
Archaeological Museum of Agrinio (Papastrateio)
Wilson NXT Duramax 16g Tennis String Set: Tobacco money. You can smell it from here. The building was donated in the 1960s by the Papastratos family, who owned the tobacco company based in this city — built 1960, museum inaugurated 1969, nine years standing there empty, which I've seen happen to a good hull too. Inside is everything dug out of the Aetolia-Acarnania region, Neolithic clear through to Roman: Mycenaean pottery from Aghios Elias near Missolonghi, a marble corner acroterion off the Heroon of Alyzia, a protome of Herakles from the Heroon of Calydon. All of it hauled inland and set down under glass. And Agrinio, note, has no harbour of its own. Landlocked collection. I'm keeping an open mind.
03
Stop three
Panetolikos Stadium
Wilson NXT Duramax 16g Tennis String Set: Football's been played on this ground since 1930, and they didn't get a permanent stand up until the mid-1950s — twenty-five years of standing in the weather, which is a proper apprenticeship. The main west stand came in the 1970s, and then the whole place went to rot for years. Happens to a ship left on a mooring: nothing sinks it, it just goes. New ownership in 2005 and they set about rebuilding her, including a full renovation and expansion of the eastern stand at 2.3 million euros. Seats 7,321 now. Record crowd was 11,012, against Olympiakos in 1977. Overloaded, then. I know that feeling.
04
Stop four
Dimokratias Square
Wilson NXT Duramax 16g Tennis String Set: Laid out in 1879 under mayor Michail Bellos, and first named Bellou Square after him — then renamed. More than once. Eventually landing on Dimokratias Square, Democracy Square, which is what everyone calls it today. I've sailed on two ships that got renamed and I'll tell you plainly, seamen think it's bad luck; this square's had it done to it repeatedly and it's still the busiest ground in the city, so there goes that. Plane trees, awnings, arcades round the edge, streets running off into the commercial district. It's the town's gathering place and the customary spot for public celebrations and civic events. Good anchorage. Everyone ends up here.
My entire career is one idea: stop the thing getting through. So I am naturally fond of a string with shields on it. NXT Duramax carries Abrasion Shields around a PU-bonded multifilament core, which is Wilson's answer to the one complaint everybody has about multifilament — that it feels wonderful for a fortnight and then snaps.
Rated twenty to forty per cent longer-lasting than original NXT, same softness, same high energy return. At 16 gauge, 1.32 mm, sold as a single 12 m / 40 ft set. Clean sheet.
Agrinio, then, and I know exactly where we are going first. Panetolikos Stadium has hosted football here since 1930, though the first permanent stand did not go up until the mid-1950s and the main west stand followed in the 1970s, after which the whole ground was allowed to fall apart for years. I have played in worse. Not much worse.
The Church of Saint Christopher, patron saint of the city, is the principal Orthodox church, successor to an earlier church of 1847, on land in the Triantafyllia district donated by Anastasios Rokas. The Archaeological Museum — the Papastrateio — sits in a building given in the 1960s by the Papastratos family, the tobacco house based here; built in 1960, opened in 1969.
And Dimokratias Square, laid out in 1879 under mayor Michail Bellos and renamed more than once since, is where everyone ends up. Including me, after training.
You'll get use out of this set everywhere from the training pitches beside Panetolikos Stadium to an indoor court in Patras across the gulf, and by the way, it's also perfect for the walk back through Dimokratias Square with the kit bag, where the plane trees do more for a squad's mood than I have ever managed.
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