I've not posted this up to now as the mood of celebration, rightly so too, has been great. We travelled up on Tuesday and it was indeed fabulous...mainly. Usually, we are on Row A in 102 with our 3 Seasoncards but we had to settle for 119, again Row A as we like the very front. It was right at the corner flag between Colin Bell and the South Stand. Just a few observations from the night.
When we got in, it was clear that there were plenty of Barca fans dotted about this area. One pair even sat there with a fucking Barca cap on, which I not so politely suggested he took off, which he did with some urgency. They were removed 3 minutes later and City fans took the seats. Odd. At this point, I asked a steward if they were planning to remove all of them, given that 'my safety is your priority' and that as I was with my wife, my mate and his wife, perhaps securing the area might be helpful. My view was and is that it could have kicked off and I am not really looking for that at a football match to be honest, despite suggesting to that lad that he takes his cap off! Anyway, we were 1 down. City won a corner and all the stewards stood up. There were 8 of them for a 10 yard stretch of touchline. They stood up 3 feet in front of us so we could't see the penalty box, the whole thing being totally obscured. Sue, my mates wife, politely asked the main bloke to stand aside as he was the main obstacle. He ignored her and we didn't see what happened on the pitch, She suggested that as she had paid £40 to watch the actual football, not him standing in front of her, why was that not a reasonable request? He said, 'Is it because you're getting beat?'. I suggested that Sue had been ever so polite and all he could do was come back with that and try to incite us. I told him it was unprofessional and ridiculous, he gave me the big stare. He might well have looked embarrassed, the fucking stinking Rag. He spent the rest of the evening glaring at us, us being a group of 4 middle aged normal people, 2 couples that must have looked less like a challenge than anything else in the stadium. He'd then fiddle with his earpiece because he's a Secret Agent with the CIA, the dickhead.
So what about these Barca fans? How did they get tickets? We had to relocate despite being Seasoncard holders and so I kind of expected the opposite of this. I'd say about 20-30 were in that block and after we equalised, I asked the very Spanish bloke behind me if he enjoyed that? 'Of course', he said in his very Spanish accent. After KDB had scored, he even troubled himself to offer me a, 'Wow'. I noticed that after the 3rd, him and his mob had fucked off. Odd that. At half time I spoke to the very nice lady on the end of our row, clearly a regular. She reckons they have that issue all the time and against Everton she said it was worse. Really? How? How do they get in?
I wouldn't say the above spoiled the night and if anything it pumped me up a bit more and helped it along. I was captured on TV shouting and yet I am usually reasonably quiet at games. Tuesday was like stepping back in time and I really caught on with the whole thing, like the shouty Kippax days. It was visceral. I loved it, all said.
Kind regards,
Michael.
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