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PUT IT IN PERSPECTIVE

By HELENE ELLIOTT
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David Davies, England’s press officer, visited the English cemetery in LaBaule on Wednesday. He stopped to pay tribute to English soldiers killed in the German attack on the steamship Lancastria in 1940 and used the occasion to take a not-so-veiled jab at the hooligan fans giving England a bad name in France.

“Such a place humbles me,” Davies said as he placed a wreath on a grave. “We owe the fact that we are participating in this world football tournament today to the courage of those who gave their lives to defend our freedom.

“Those who put our nation to shame could do well to think about that.”

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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