When I took Spanish lessons in Colombia, an English guy (Jacob) I became friends with gave me his Nottingham Forest jersey. That meant I was now a Nottingham Forest fan. Over the years we kept in touch and I knew as part of this trip I wanted to go to an English Premier League soccer (football) game. Preferably at Nottingham Forest’s home grounds.
Timing didn’t work out as they were scheduled for an away match the weekend I was going to be in England. However, they were playing Aston Villa, which just happened to be Jacob’s wife’s team. Perfect too since I happened to be staying with them.
The morning of the game, along with his wife and father-in-law, we jumped in the car for the 2 hour drive to Birmingham. On the way they asked if I wanted a Scotch egg, what’s that I asked? The answer…a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage. Uhh, yes please.
Birmingham is an industrial city which surprised me because I always thought Aston Villa was hoyty toyty (due to a girl to I knew back in my San Fran days). It made me more concerned now since I was sporting the visiting team’s colors. We’ve all heard the houligan stories.
When we arrived Jacob and I quickly separated from his wife and father-in-law as they were going to pregame at an AV supporters pub that was strictly no visitor fans allowed, ah houliganism prevention. Instead, we popped into a kiosk store, grabbed a couple of beers, then a couple more, and hung out on the sidewalk with 100 or so Villa fans. As we were about to walk towards the stadium one even shook our hands and said good luck. Maybe being a visitor isn’t so bad.
In the stadium we grabbed a couple more beers beforehand and I mentioned I wasn’t buzzed like I would expect after this amount of beers. He mentioned they water down the beers on game days as a preventative action. The seats were fantastic, although towards the end of the pitch (I’m in England) in the visitors section, they were only about 40 feet up. And cheap too. Evidently home tickets can be any price but away tickets are capped at 30 pounds. Try to get an NFL ticket for $40 lately?
Throughout the game the fans sang cheers and despite everyone speaking the same language as me, the language I am a native speaker of, I couldn’t understand a single word. The game was a back and forth affair with the good guys pulling it out with a late goal to win 2-1. Evidently this was Forest’s first win at Aston Villa since 1994. I don’t want to take all the credit but… This made me very popular with my mate, not so much with his wife and father-in-law.
On the way back to the car some Aston Villa fans congratulated us on the win. What’s all this nonsense about soccer houliganism? Then, right before we got to the car, someone driving by saw us and yelled out, “WANKERS”. That made me smile.
Life is good