Let us leave aside those football lovers who prefer peaceful turning from side to side on the couch and taming the TV remote control to a trip to the stadium. This is the most numerous, but at the same time the meekest, category of fans. The limit of their emotional expression is arguing with themselves or their neighbors in the stairwell while taking the elevator down to the yard the next morning. They are boring and of no interest to anyone. These are football philistines.
Far more interesting to observe is that part of the football-loving population that does not sit still. They like to move, loudly express their emotions among their peers, jump up in the stands in moments of joy and shake their fists indignantly when it is time to be upset. These are fans. Admirers loved by football players, creating that inimitable festive atmosphere in the stadium without which football would not be football, hockey would not be hockey, and basketball would not be basketball.
The most radical part of the fans is not limited to attending the stadium of their hometown when their favorite team plays there. The 'ultras,' as these mostly young guys unburdened by the complexities of family life are commonly called, also attend training sessions. But that is not all. They travel across the country following their favorites, and in the best, most glorious times for the team of city N, they travel abroad, often taking pride in this for decades. This is what we will talk about.
The fan movement is not simply the desire of certain idlers to roam around without any particular need, as was sometimes portrayed in Soviet times. The fan movement is far from isolated outbursts of fan activity. Veteran fans will, not without pleasure, tell a mass of entertaining stories about their past escapades and adventures in pursuit of their team.
Take, for example, Kyiv fans. You could write dissertations about them, the old fans of the 1980s. You only need to get one of those about whom legends were told to talk. The famous Paramon, for instance. Or another fan known in football circles by the name Yura-Petya. It is said that he managed to find himself in the Urals almost for free, where the hockey team Sokol was to play matches, and before that, with roughly the same financial losses, to attend the game of Kyiv Dynamo in Alma-Ata against Kairat.
The game of hide-and-seek with conductors in the luggage compartment under the lower berth (this was Paramon's specialty), traveling after clashes with petty thieves who left fans without shoes or outer clothing, was fully compensated for true fans by the joy of personally seeing their favorite team play.
Traveling fans became more and more numerous every year. Belonging to the fan movement became honorable in cities where teams showed good results and the city itself had good traditions. Naturally, young people were attracted first of all by football, for which guys were ready to rush to the ends of the earth. Then hockey and basketball. Fans of other sports who collected trips to other cities were unanimously considered in our country to be people not of this world. Although abroad all sports are equally honored.
But let us return to the specific manifestations of fanaticism thanks to which this kind of activity acquired its fame. Quite recently I happened to witness the trip of two fans of Moscow CSKA together with the delegation of Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro to the game of the first round of the UEFA Cup against Hamburg on German soil. The two guys, who have their own decent business in Moscow, did not make much of an impression, but their slightly tipsy eyes early in the morning and beer bottles in their hands clearly distinguished them from the rest. Closer to noon, already during a tour of the ancient German city, one was sleeping in the back seat of the bus, while the other was still drinking beer, slowly but surely approaching the same state as the first.
The most interesting thing happened late at night - when police began knocking on hotel rooms to find out who was not sleeping at such an hour and, accordingly, could have thrown an empty bottle out of a window, which, by a wild misunderstanding, landed on a car parked below. Both Russians were eventually evicted from the hotel.
But if anyone thinks that this really upset them, let them not hope. They spent the time before the football match cheerfully and did not disappear afterward. What amused the Muscovites most were the relationships between fans from one city who support Hamburg and St. Pauli. The latter came to the stadium specifically to support the Dnipropetrovsk team (though they would have supported even the Zanzibar national team if it had played against their disliked Hamburg). And when the Ukrainian club opened the scoring, a banner with text written in Russian letters rose in the stands where the St. Pauli fans were sitting: 'Goal! This is happiness!' The Russians were delighted.
Both Muscovites are very telling figures in the world of football fans. They are bright representatives of that cohort of fans who are ready to go even to the ends of the earth, but at the same time get a wealth of impressions. Adrenaline, you know, is produced in such a situation much faster than in the pose of a TV viewer lying on the couch. The fan movement is a whirlwind, a force of nature. It is impossible to fight it. For example, recently in England, fans were publicly recommended not to go to Turkey for the upcoming decisive match on October 11 of the Euro 2004 qualifying tournament between the Turkish and English national football teams. They say that a few years ago there were unpleasant incidents in the same Turkey with stabbings and fatal outcomes as a result of clashes between two groups - Turkish and English. The authorities even threatened to restrict the right to leave the country for those who dare to violate this instruction. But you can't beat sense into these fans. They couldn't care less about any warnings.
How the standoff between fans and law enforcement will end in this situation is hard to predict. But it should be noted that in the war declared on unbridled fans in the West, the state is gradually driving those supporters who like to overstep the bounds of the law into a corner. Particularly significant successes have been achieved in England, where football hooligans who identify themselves with fans have suffered serious damage. One could talk about the fight against hooliganism for a very long time, but we will confine ourselves to stating the fact and return to football tourism.
To uphold the honor of the flag, to prove that they know how to support their country (city, football club) is a sacred matter for every self-respecting fan. Often attempts to assert the superiority of their favorites escalate into fights, which now make it somehow difficult to imagine a large group traveling to a match in a foreign city. There have even appeared warring firms preparing strikes against opponents, intimidation actions, real battles with the most genuine combat tactics and the use of weapons.
For example, in 1987 a grand brawl took place in Kiev between the “sworn friends” — fans of local Dynamo and Moscow Spartak. Two years later, on the banks of the Dnieper, anticipating events, the railway station was cordoned off, all the “myasnye” (the nickname of Spartak fans) were gathered and taken to Trukhanov Island. There a match took place that Kiev fans recall with great pleasure: Dynamo fans beat Spartak fans with a score of 4:2.
A fight is something every self-respecting fan must be ready for. It is what may await him in a “faraway land.” In addition, he must be able to take in a good deal of alcohol, limit himself in food intake, and be prepared to spend the night anywhere. And, of course, he must possess great imagination, intuition, and enterprise. Because otherwise it is simply unrealistic to reach the destination by one’s own means (and this is the main mode of travel for a football fan). Especially if that place is somewhere abroad.
Traveling through foreign lands is the height of perfection. People who managed to make several trips (not first-class organized ones for the so-called “suits”, but spontaneous ones) acquired considerable weight in their circle, and their names gained additional significance. The most interesting thing is that, setting off, fans often still do not know exactly how they intend to reach their destination, and act on a whim. Although the simplest way is to turn to a travel company, which recently consider it a rule to organize tours to the cities where domestic teams are to perform. Football matches of European cups, matches of the national team, world and European championships in football, hockey and basketball, and Formula 1 stages are especially popular nowadays.
These trips, despite the carefully calculated time allotted for certain procedures, can also be interesting and memorable in their own way. I heard about a fan of Kiev Dynamo who saved money for a long time to go to an away match in one of the beautiful western cities — his unattainable dream. But the poor fellow went and got dead drunk on the way there. He came to his senses only on the way back, after which he cursed everything in the world.
Organized by travel firms, fan trips become more and more attractive every year. First, the well-being of citizens is gradually growing. Second, the experience of organizing such trips is increasing. Third, both of the above points lead to the fact that the sports tourism business is becoming a very profitable business. This means the fan business, not the organization of trips to ski resorts.
The romanticism inherent in the era of the early 1990s, when fans reached their destination for weeks, changing from an electric train to a long-distance train, from a train to a bus, and so on, crossing borders in places not intended for this, getting lost and meeting again in the most unexpected points, cannot be brought back. Although such pilgrims have survived to this day, far more fans prefer organized trips to unorganized ones. Especially at a time when club leaders and national federations began to pay increased attention to the so-called 12th player — the fans. The freshest and most large-scale examples are trips of Shakhtar Donetsk fans to Kiev for matches against Dynamo, in which tens (!) of thousands of fans take part...