Sunday Blues

So I've just returned from a quick tour round the area after the crowds have disappeared into the ground. Cops are everywhere, as usual, and tooled up to the hilt. Every available space on road and pavement is taken up with parked cars. Extremely tough looking men are walking around, and you can't tell if they are the goodies or the baddies. Old blokes selling badges, t shirts and paraphernalia stand about on street corners - their patch - calling out to no one in particular, smoking tabs. Bootleg gear of all sorts is doing a brisk trade. The smell of burnt charcoal burgers fills the air, and all the women seem to be very overweight. Broken bottles are strewn all across the main road, and mounted police patrol up and down, their horses leaving a trail of dung pressed into the tarmac. I'm taking pictures of everything I see, and the police are giving me a second look, making sure I'm not sizing up the area for some terrorist activity later. A group of small boys, scruffily dressed, have gathered round the main entrance to the ground, and are harassing the Gateman. He waves them away, but they don't go far. As daylight gives way to dusk, the floodlights beam out from over the main stands, and we can all hear the roar of the crowd inside, as play hots up.


When you take a good look at all the people going into the match, you can see how much it costs them. Most are 'low income bracket' people, and yet it is at least £25 a ticket, and over £1000 for a season ticket. Whole families go, small children in tow, everyone dressed in their team's colours. When a football shirt is the most important thing you buy, you don't care how much it costs. Once the match has started, the atmosphere becomes a little more friendly. The police relax, as they know most of the troublecausers are inside the ground, and for a while at least, they can ease up. I see one copper devouring a bag of Macoys, and another eating a burger. But there is no escaping the fact that they are tooled up for a riot, should one occur. Very menacing. The whole time helicopters have been hovering overhead, in fact, they have been overhead all day and, along with the Budweiser Blimp, have got the whole place covered.


We make our way through the entrance towards the huge merchandise store, and have a good look around the front area of the ground. Even though I have lived here several years, I have only been inside this part of the ground two or three times. Of course I've never been inside the actual ground itself, but I used to watch matches from the overground catacombs in the nearby graveyard. If you stood at the far end, you could see the last third of the pitch, until they finished off the new stand, so that now you can't see anything.

Funnily enough, I've never been that much of a football supporter, but when you see it all close up, the people, the occasion, the atmosphere, it really is quite intoxicating. Shame it always ends up with such a lot of violence.

After the match has finished, I go for a short walk to the corner shop to get supplies, and am surrounded by rough looking young men with their girlfriends. Several of the men, [and a few of the girls], are shouting : 'BOOT RIGHT ROUND YOUR HEAD, GET A BOOT RIGHT ROUND YOUR HEAD', to the tune of 'Upside your head', the funk classic. I am ashamed to share the pavement with them. I pause as I turn into my street, and watch some mounted police on their huge horses gallop up the main road towards some 'aggro'. The sound of many police sirens fills the cool night air.