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Liverpool, England

There has been much speculation about my underpants during our Euro 2008 road trip and whether, with 18 days to the end of the quarter-finals, I would have enough pairs to see me through without having to resort to hand washing in the hotel basin.

Thankfully, the potential crisis was over before it even began. Not only did I bring the requisite figure, I also managed to do so without resorting to the couple of pairs I normally wear just before going on holiday or the bri-nylon brown and orange y-fronts I last wore in 1978.

I mention this because I managed to turn up at the sporting a fresh pair of jeans.

The event, a breeding ground for up and coming talent, is staged in the city's Calderstones Park, which was the inspiration for the Beatles "".

Our initial plan was to cash in on the many nationalities competing, but Ilie Nastase (Romanian) had already gone home and (Swiss) was relectant to talk, fearing questions on her two-year ban from the main tennis circuit after testing positive for cocaine.

Our day, therefore, became a tale of two Czechs: Jana Novotna, the 1998 Wimbledon champion and passionate supporter of her national football team, and Milena Grenfell-Baines.

Lady Grenfell-Baines, as she is now known, has been living in England since 1939, when she was one of 700 Jewish children saved from the Nazis by , a stock exchange clerk who earned the nickname "Britain's Schindler".

Milena was one of the lucky ones. Her parents also escaped, but many of the others, like her friend Uta, who accompanied Milena to watch Novotna on court, lost their entire families.

Now a sprightly 79, Milena still takes in Czech students at her home in Preston to help them settle in the area, mirroring the hospitality an English family showed her 69 years ago.