Football Matters

By Ken Foster

Euro 2004 may seem a long time ago but quite a few Spireites attended the tournament and for two weeks we'll hear some views, anecdotes and general reflection. First Ken recounts several unreported heart warming facts and John Taylor will add a different dimension.

38 Years Of Hurt...

In most respects I'm a fairly normal person, or so I like to think.Like you all I follow Town and I'm pretty rational about our prospects.Last year, like most of us, I thought we'd just about stay up and that's what we did.This year - who knows?Personally, and this might be defeatist, I'd settle for a nice quiet finish in mid-table with nothing to play for in the last few games.It'd make a change, at least.

Where I'm irrational, or not normal, maybe even sub-normal, is when the England team step on the pitch.I'm convinced of two things - firstly that England supporters are nice people and secondly that one day we'll win something again.Something important, that is.Not something like the FA Summer Tournament against Japan and Iceland, though, for the record, we did win that.No, a big one.I'm getting on a bit now but the upside of being old enough for Saga insurance is that I'm also old enough to remember every detail of "The Day" in 1966 - an experience I wouldn't swap with anybody.

So, armed with an unstinting belief that 2004 was "The Year of the Three Lions" we headed off to Portugal.Not for sun, sea and sand, though there was plenty of sun.More like sun, stress and sweat - sweat because it was 40C and about 99% humidity in Lisbon for first game.You'll have seen it all on the TV, of course, so what can I tell you about watching Sven's boys there in the stadiums?

Well, it was a great experience in every respect, apart from the results, and in all honesty even the defeats weren't that bad - in hindsight, if not at the time, hence my earlier reference to stress.Three games in the Estadio Da Luz (that's the proper Stadium of Light, the one where Eusebio played, not the imitation one at Sunderland) and one in the ancient university city of Coimbra and all of them were quite simply amazing.Around 40,000 England fans for the France and Croatia games made it seem like we were at home and judging by the number of people milling around outside the stadium five(!) hours before kick-off I think we could have filled the 30,000 capacity Coimbra stadium ourselves about three times over.Even when we played the hosts the stadium was at least half-full of England fans.And everybody behaved themselves!Well, some prats in the Algarve who couldn't handle their beer didn't, but the important point is that everybody at or near the matches themselves did.

Ten years ago, even five, I don't think the average England supporter would have been well disposed towards the French after losing to two goals in stoppage time.In fact (hope you're not offended, Tcham) I don't think the average England supporter would have been well disposed towards anything remotely French in any circumstances whatsoever.This time around where were the yobs and the fights? Nowhere that I could see, but I could see England and France supporters shaking hands and saying things like "see you in the final".

Well, events subsequently proved that this wasn't to happen, but hopefully you get my point.It was the same when we lost to Portugal - after the game a few locals who started crowing got a bit of verbal in return (and for that I plead guilty as charged, m'lud) but that was as far as it went.The Portuguese people liked the English, even more importantly the Portuguese police liked the English, and as a result the English liked the Portuguese and everybody got along just fine.

There is a reason for all this peace, love and understanding.The England supporters club englandfans and various regional supporters groups (like 4England in our part of the country) tried incredibly hard, for months beforehand, to build up an expectation that it would be a good tournament, not one blighted by the brain-dead.So, for instance, England supporters held a beach party in the Algarve, but then cleared up the beach afterwards!England supporters went to schools in Lisbon and helped the teachers and kids in English classes.England supporters "twinned" with Coimbra and held charity events to raise money for an orphanage there. They produced t-shirts that said "More Football, Less Exams", in Portuguese, and gave them to Coimbra university students.I could list loads more examples...

Did all of this get any publicity in the papers?What do you think?If you read the Daily Mirror you might have seen articles by Oliver Holt that reported some of this.But did you see it anywhere else?I can't be certain, because I was out of the country, but I'm pretty sure not.After all, England supporters behaving themselves and having a good time isn't newsworthy is it?

Having said all these good things it did amuse me somewhat when Peter Schmeichel said something on BBC TV about it being a "superbly organised tournament".Now, any BBC pundit would have travelled to all the games by chauffeur-driven car and would have partaken of the official hospitality.In reality, for us poor plebs, travelling on the Lisbon metro and the Portuguese motorways and paying hard-earned cash for tickets and accommodation there were plenty of aspects that weren't that well organised and my good friend John Taylor will tell all next week.