The Archive

Red Star at night, fans may fight

Well, I didn't mention that last night at the clubs I left early (early in this case being about 3am) and missed out on a number of rounds of drinks, which was exactly what everybody needed at about that time, I'm sure.

Consequently, when I woke up fresh as a daisy the next morning (albeit a daisy you might find in a bunch of petrol station flowers), everyone else was out for the count.

So I spent the day wandering around the streets of Belgrade getting a feel for the place.

So imagine my surprise when I bump into Sturgeon. That's right, in a city of a million and a half people, I run into one of the only five people I know in a five hundred mile radius.

Of course.

So, I stopped for a coffee with Sturgeon, his wife and her (very hot) sister.

See, God loves me.

Anyway, Sturgeon had to take his sister in law to the airport, so I continued my wanders until I though the rest of the crew may have emerged from their respective comas.

Thus it was about dinnertime when we all finally regrouped and left the hotel, heading for a delicious pizza treat.

But what to do after that.

Then we had a genius idea. What do the people of Belgrade do on a Sunday evening? Go to a Red Star Belgrade game of course.

So we arranged to meet up with Vukos and Almurrayov at the stadium. Which is where we discovered that the people of Belgrade actually don't go to the game on a Sunday evening. Well, most of them don't anyway, which is why the stadium was largely empty.

But not totally empty. One end of the stadium was where the 'faithful' gathered to support their team. Now I don't know much about scary football fans, but I have been to a couple of Millwall games, and I have to say, there were 2 things that frightened me.

1. The sheer number of riot police in full armour at the event and
2. The astonishing organisation of the Red Star fans. These guys sang song after song to a largely empty stadium (and a truly dreadful game of football, for that matter) as one voice. More than that, they are apparently organised into military-style divisions. Plus, when the second half began, they all lit the fireworks they had brought at exactly the same time. It was really quite impressive.

See...



Of course, once they were all lit, the fans thought it was a good idea to then throw them at the stewards. So now you understand why we chose to sit, as you can see from where I took the picture, a long, long way away from that lot.

Still, those fans were so entertaining, all of us Brits were watching them and it was a few minutes before we even realised the second half had started.

Good job really, because the standard of football was rubbish. Apparently the team they were playing was owned by a local gangster. I was informed this sometimes made the games more interesting because you were never sure which players had been threatened with a kneecapping before the match.

It did not, however, make for enjoyable to watch football.

So much so, that we left early and went for a civilised drink (it may surprise you to hear that most of the group were still feeling a bit fragile at this point).

So, here's us having a civilised drink...



And if you didn't believe me about Almurrayov, here's the proof...



See?

Anyway, a civilised drink or two, then off to bed. For tomorrow, we are Bosnia-bound.

posted by Peter The Great @ 12:51 PM