Called to the colours: a French
fan in World Cup 1998 |
TO MAKE IT CLEAR from the start I am not a football fan. In fact, I hate it. I have never understood the rules and, more importantly, the passion football fans feel while watching their team play has always seemed ridiculous to me.
But my view about football changed when my hometown’s team, Bayer Leverkusen 04, met Arsenal at Highbury stadium in London. A friend from Germany encouraged me to attend the first football game of my life. “This will be a f***ing unforgettable and thrilling event, we will make history,” I remember him saying.
So I found myself packed with sixty other committed German football fans in a bus heading towards Finsbury Park. One German fan in the front of the bus took the driver’s microphone to get the crowd in a fighting mood to attack the English on the battlefield. “ If you like Leverkusen, clap your hands, if you like Leverkusen, clap your hands,” they chanted enthusiastically. I felt very embarrassed being born in the same city.
While I was looking for a way to escape from the bus, a girl with Bayer Leverkusen 04 earrings smeared her red lipstick all over my cheeks, matching the team’s colours. In addition, cans of beer were handed to me: no, unlike the others, I was not able to drink a can in one gulp. It is illegal to bring alcohol into the stadium, but ‘we’, the fans from Leverkusen, had a solution for this we got drunk before the game started.
The bus stopped somewhere near Finsbury Park. It was already dark when we got out of the bus and met up with some other unruly German football fans. “We have to go through the park without a police escort?” I heard someone saying. That was the moment when I remembered the stories of English hooligans who love to beat up German fans and vice versa.
My tall friend who had convinced me to attend the game came over and took my arm, saying: “Just in case, could you pretend to be my girlfriend? I don’t think English fans would harm you. Also, I feel responsible for protecting you!” Somehow, I wasn’t convinced, but what choice did I have?
After a 20-minute walk we reached the stadium and it was pretty difficult to get through the crowd of people, most of them souvenir sellers, who ran after you shouting: “Just a fiver for a scarf. Souvenir scarves. Just a fiver!”
Finally, we found the entrance to the stadium, I ran upstairs to the section for German fans, and for the first time I saw a stadium from the inside. The amazing atmosphere overwhelmed me the perspective was far better than what I was accustomed to at home, watching a game with my fanatical flatmates.
The game started and I was able to see every facial expression of the players and their exhaustion. I must have been affected because suddenly I realized that I was singing the chants and clapping my hands loudly. Yes, I wanted my team to know that I was here to support them, because I’m from Leverkusen! I was waving my souvenir scarf above my head and I heard myself singing: “If you like Leverkusen, clap your hands, if you like Leverkusen& ”
Now I understood that football is more than just a game, it’s a chance for fans to come together and support their team. You don’t need to know the rules to feel part of the experience: the beer, the noise, the grown men hugging each other after every goal chance. Leverkusen lost 4:1 to Arsenal, but two-and-a-half-thousand German fans kept singing while the police escorted them back to the buses dreaming of their next unforgettably thrilling encounter with history.
Stefanie Weber is a second-year journalism student at City University, London |
