Lausanne: Chez Richard

I was wandering about town later that same day that I visited the Olympic Museum. I misread the bus schedule and found myself a small ways from where I wanted to be. I got off the bus and began walking toward the train station when I passed the open door of an empty bar. The barkeep sat by herself at a table. I kept walking, but it occurred to me that a beer was the perfect thing for a wayward lad. Something about the place called me back.

I ordered a draft and started taking in all the soccer club flags on the wall. I chatted briefly with a young man and the barkeep. They were kind to tell me how to say a few things in French. After my second beer, I began to leave when the star of the show appeared. It was the "Richard" of Chez Richard. I stayed longer as he spun tales of his playing days. This was no den for fans, as I had thought, but the keepsakes were personal tokens of Richard Duerr's playing career. He'd been an important figure for Lausanne during their glory days in the late fifties-early sixties. He'd also played for the Swiss national team during both the '62 and '66 World Cups. (They went three and out both times.) I discreetly pumped him for stories about those days, and he discreetly told them, as well as showing me an album of photos, which included a thorough accounting of the Swiss team's adventure to WC 1962 in Chile. After they'd been eliminated, they behaved like star-struck fans heading to the training site of Brazil and capturing photos of Garrincha, Pele, and all the Brazilians.

He offered me a few more beers as we laughed for another hour or so. He gave me a souvenir, a Swiss cigarette lighter, and encouraged me to cheer for his boys once Euro 2008 began. After our goodbyes, I walked out into the spring night, full of wonder at such a spontaneous visit producing a motherlode for a soccer-addled brain like mine.