The Raging Racer (Part 5)

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Oldbury United on 21st October 2008.

Good to see you here at Townsend Meadow once again! Regular readers of this column are no doubt gagging for further tales of my football watching exploits that took place after our final home game of last season so here goes…

Tuesday 10th June – Greece v Sweden, Euro2008

I just love International football tournaments don’t you? And when I say love I really mean it. My love affair started in 1986 with the Mexico World Cup (6 games attended) followed by Euro88 in Germany (4), Italia 1990 (4), USA 1994 (7), Euro96 (14), France 1998 (2), Euro2000 (7) and more recently 4 games at the World Cup in Germany in 2006 - fantastic trips and memories to last a lifetime. So when UEFA knocked back my application for tickets for Euro2008 last year because they had received thirty times more applications than they had tickets, as you can imagine, I was heartbroken. Imagine my surprise and delight therefore when I received an email from UEFA in March telling me that I’d been wait-listed in case of any returns and that I had 48 hours to decide if I would like to purchase three Category A tickets at 110 Euros each to see Greece play Sweden in Salzburg, Austria. No opportunity to buy one or two you understand: I had to have none or the lot. Of course I simply had to have them!

The task of interesting a few mates in making the trip was harder than you might imagine (or perhaps not if you’re not as infatuated as me) and over the next few weeks I worked my way down a list of half a dozen people who were, in turns, up for it and then couldn’t make it for various reasons. My advice is never buy tickets on spec because it always turns into a headache. In the end however my ground-hopping World Cup 2006 travelling companion Les (you may have met him at a Racing Club away game at some novel but obscure location such as Ashville) and my old school chum John agreed to make the trip (who said I didn’t have any mates?). I was in charge of the arrangements and scoured the internet for the best deals before settling on Lufthansa flights from Manchester to Munich on Sunday 8^th June with a car hired until the following Wednesday. I even managed to secure us some decent hotel accommodation in Salzburg itself (albeit the outskirts) for the princely sum of 155 Euros each, although we had to share. Just like a proper football trip!

The flight to Munchen proved to be uneventful and the German authorities had obviously banked on Munich being used as an interchange for the football because they had set up a mini fan zone at the terminal for the travelling hordes to catch a match live on the big screen on their way through. The journey from Munich to Salzburg lasted barely an hour and a half and, thanks to internet directions, we found our hotel on the outskirts at the first attempt. After a quick wash and brush up we caught the trolley bus into the centre of Salzburg and made straight for the Fan Zone located in the main square. Fan Zones are a relatively new invention as far as I’m concerned – I saw my first one at the World Cup in Germany in 2006 when the authorities there took the enlightened decision not to try to discourage ticketless supporters from travelling. In Salzburg the Fan Zone consisted of three giant screens, the opportunity to purchase plenty of (weak) beer and grub plus the entertainment put on by the various concession stall holders (Mastercard, Vodafone etc). The capacity of the Fan Zone was 25,000 apparently and it seemed pretty full to me on the Sunday night as we drank in the atmosphere provided by a game on the giant screens involving the hosts who promptly lost to the Czech Republic. Wunderbar nonetheless!

The Monday before the game involved an arduous round of sightseeing and souvenir hunting in Salzburg including a visit to the magnificent castle that dominates the City. If you’ve never been then I’d recommend it but it does help if you’re familiar with local boy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as his fizz-gog appears around every street corner. On this particular day it was a case of Rock Me Amadeus (!) as thousands of Swedes and Greeks turned Salzburg into a party town with their songs, flags and colours – in the inimitable words of Russ Abbott “I love a party with a bit of atmosphere” (there, how many times have you seen Russ Abbott and Mozart mentioned in the same paragraph music lovers?). A small band of travelling Swedish musicians had me in stitches with their rendition of a song with the lyrics: “I love you. Ich liebe dich. Zlatan Ibrahimovic”. And there was you thinking that you’d never get that name into a song!

The match itself was located at the Stadion Wals-Siezenheim, home of Red Bull Salzburg and a short bus ride from the City centre. The bus dropped us at a rather large out of town shopping centre about half a mile from the stadium and, in view of the fact that the Greeks were due to play all of their games in Salzburg, the shopping centre owners had decided to erect a Greek Village for the fortnight at which you could try all things Greek. I can confirm that it was ALL Greek to me! Numerous free tee shirts and baseball caps were hoovered up by Les and, if he appears at a Racing Club match later this season, do get him to translate what the Greek writing on his tee shirt means (he hasn’t got a clue). The stadium can hold 30,000 although the attendance was announced as being in excess of 31,000 apparently due to the addition of the numerous members of the media. The stadium was highly colourful (yellow for Sweden and blue-and-white for Greece) by the time kick-off came around and it was great to see Greeks and Swedes sitting side by side without a hint of a problem – for me that’s the joy of International football in neutral venues without England in attendance – a carnival atmosphere and none of the vaguely threatening undercurrent that is (hopefully) beginning to die out at England games.

Did the TV coverage of the tournament get on your wick? It did mine! It was seemingly impossible for the commentators to cover a match without continual references to the Premier League. It was as if we couldn’t possibly enjoy a match involving foreigners without being constantly reminded that so and so plays for one of our top clubs. Personally I couldn’t give a flying fig about whether Ronaldo was to stay or go and “Big” Phil Scolari’s role at Chelsea should have been a subject for another day. Was it me or were all the best players on show at Euro2008 pretty well unknown to the British footballing public – I give you the magnificent Russians as evidence – all bar one of their squad plays in Russia – how fantastic was it to see them take the lead against Premier League packed Holland in extra time of their quarter final and then, instead of taking the ball into the corners to waste time, they went and scored another one? – we’ve got a lot to learn!

Back to my match and the Greeks were applying their successful Euro2004 formula and keeping it exceptionally tight and being seemingly quite happy to play for a draw. Sadly for them, fresh out of retirement Henrick Larssen and the aforementioned Ibrahimovic combined beautifully on the edge of the box allowing Ibrahimovic to unleash a corker that thundered into the net. It was a goal worth travelling a long way to see unlike the scruffy Swedish second that was scored a few minutes later. It finished 2-0 and the Swedish party was just getting started. I’m already planning a trip to Poland and the Ukraine for Euro2012 if anybody’s interested….

Keep the faith!