On Saturday, one of my dreams came true. That is, I was able to attend a proper English football match (to avoid any confusion in the following account, I will using soccer's true English name, football--so when I say football, I'm not talking about the Packers).
Thursday night at supper I happened to sit with two guys from Eau Claire and one of their English neighbors that I hadn't talked to all week. I mentioned I wanted to go to Southampton that Saturday (a nearby bigger city connected to Winchester by a twenty minute train ride). Will, the English guy, mentioned that the Saints (the Southampton team) were playing that weekend, and I pretty much freaked out. "Really? Can I go? Can I get tickets? Are they really?" Will the proceeded to give me a bit of a lecture cautioning me about attending these football games, and that you had to be careful.
Little football education for you all... Football, or "soccer" as we call it, is huge in England. Actually, I huge pretty much everywhere except the States. Anyways, in England you have the premier league, in which you find teams like Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, etc, and you have the Football League, which is the league right below the premier league. Within the Football League, the highest division is the Championship League, which is where the Southampton Football Club (aka the "saints") play (wow I hope I got that right). Basically, it's kind of like the major and minor leagues, and sometimes they switch teams from one to the other, depending on how their doing (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Each team has what is called their Firm. Now, the Firm is essentially a fan club, but it's really so much more. A team's firm (or firms, some have more than one) is their most dedicated and loyal fans--the real hardcore ones. England takes football and the football teams' firms so seriously, that at times the firms are pretty much gangs. They fight, they riot, they destroy the other team's buses or the other fans' cars, etc... It's intense.
So, back to last week. That night Will told us (Micah and Alex from Eau Claire, and me) that if we were serious about going to a game that weekend, he'd take us, but we should watch the movie "Green Street" first. So we headed up to his room and watched it (interesting movie by the way), still wanted to go, he bought tickets, and that was that.
On Saturday then we got to experience the complete English football experience. It started up with a walk down to the train station in Winchester at about half ten (they don't say half past ten, they just say half ten here) and riding the train to the City Center of Southampton. Even that morning you could see people boarding the train in Winchester with Saints jerseys on, heading to the game. When the four of us got to Southampton, Will, a Southampton native and a huge Saints fan, took us to his traditional pub where he sat for a couple hours, had lunch, some beer (for the record, the legal drinking age here is 18, and I am being very careful), and talked football. Then, with plenty of time, we joined the other fans migrating to the stadium. Micah and I bought jerseys (BOGO, so 20 pounds each), so now I feel like a true Saints fan.
Where you sit is very important at a football match. It's probably also one of the only events where the seats sell from top to bottom. That is, the firm(s) sit behind one of the goals at the top, and the rest of the fans fill in below. That end (not sure which) is completely packed. As you spread out around the stadium, the seats are less filled. We were about seven rows up behind the goal, below the firms. Excellent seats. We could hear all the cheers but weren't right in the middle of the action. One corner section is designated for the away visitors. Three columns of seats are covered between the visiting and home fans so that they cannot sit next to each other. That would be chaotic. It's kind of hard to tell, but here's a picture:
One of the sweetest thing about the whole event was the cheering. Each team has their own songs and cheers that all the fans know and sing together. Throughout most of the game, we were on our feet singing "Oh when the Saints..." or "Red Army! Red Army!" or whatever it was they were saying. So great. There is security all over the place though. There was even security at the Southampton train station to make sure no fights broke out. Also, after the game home fans aren't allowed into one of the parking lots so the visitors can leave without a fight. Crazy.
They ended up losing 3-2, but I loved every minute of it. Brilliant. Here are a couple more sweet photos and I'm off to bed.
Left to right, Micah, me, and Will
Alex, Micah, meRandom Fact #4: Instead of getting food "to go," it's "for take away," and it's usually cheaper.
2 comments:
Sounds like fun!! It would be so cool to visit you! I hope that you're enjoying yourself and I'll talk to you soon. P.S. I saw a girl walking across the bridge toward Haas wearing your coat and it made me miss you. :( Saddness... Oh, and P.S. I love you is a very good movie in case you haven't seen it. I cried through just about the whole thing... Later love!
Well, that blog was rather informative. I learned a lot about the way real football is done. I've always thought that while soccer is a blast to play, it was pretty boring to watch, but that's just because the other spectators aren't reacting right. I would pay to see a PTA meeting as long as there were soccer hooligans watching it with me. And beer.
I loved, Loved, LOVED your freak-out quote. You really captured the essence of Danielle Ryan: Excited Girl. I could picture you almost jumping out of your chair.
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