They Won With Typical English Reserve

English tourists beat their German rivals, 5-4, in a recent battle to reserve deck chairs around a hotel pool at the Spanish resort of Torremolinos, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday.

With pictures documenting the peculiar rivalry long waged between Britons and Germans at resorts in Europe, the paper awarded one point per tourist.

England led 2-0 by 7:28 a.m. before the first German chairs were reserved, and they took a 5-3 lead by 8 a.m., when one bare-chested Englishman put towels on 10 chairs. A German woman made it 5-4 by reserving the seventh German chair at 8:15 a.m. By then, five Britons had 32 chairs.

Britons complain that Germans rise early to put towels on the best chairs. Germans say when they arrive at the pool after breakfast their towels have been moved.

“Dear Englanders,” Bild am Sonntag wrote. “We’re happy to let you win this one. But in soccer, it would have been a different story.”