Indonesia in the final

Sometimes the truth is stranger than friction. Indonesia have been in the World Cup Final. I joke not. In an article about Jack Taylor, the Englishman who refereed the 1974 World Cup Final between West Germany v Holland, there is a picture of one of the souvenirs he has kept from the day. It is none other than the coin that was used for the toss-up before the game.

So my (rhetorical) question is: Did you know that the coin used for the toss-up in the 1974 World Cup Final was an Indonesian rupiah coin? That is the truth, knowledge is the bomb and I thank you.

Never mind the shoddy exchange rates we have at the moment (to buy US$1 today you will need a whopping Rp.9,400), this gives Indonesia's currency and mintage a bit of credence. Without that coin, the game would never have kicked off. For those few seconds it took for the referee to ask the captains to choose heads or tails and spin it in the air, Indonesia was the origin of the most important coin in the world.

I don't know how much that coin could have bought you at the time. It was probably Rp 500 at the most, which is a bit of a joke these days. If you go to the shops and they don't have enough coins to give you your change, they give you sweets instead and everyone walks off happy. To be honest, I sometimes ask for the sweets instead. I bet that coin is worth a bit more than one or two haribos now though. Maybe it's more like a Mars Bar or something now. Or Ferrerro Rocher. Ooh, Ferrero Rocher. We would have hit the big time then.