Pic: Stephen Chipp, Flickr
On the sixth anniversary of Liverpool's fifth European Cup win, BBC Radio producer SIMON CLANCY looks back at a piece he penned just after Istanbul - the greatest football match ever played...
I REALLY need to do this as a form of catharsis, to sit and write this all down so that it is clear in my mind, so that all the thoughts and feelings raging in my head, that are fighting for recognition, have a place to speak.
My mind is numb with what I saw. Four days on I still don’t believe it. It seems like a dream that we were there and that it actually happened.
Anyway...I picked Ket up on Tuesday morning and we drove to Gatwick Airport to catch our flight. We talked at the time about it and neither of us really felt like we were embarking on a trip to the Champions League Final.
To be honest it had been such a struggle to get tickets, to get flights, etc. etc. that it was almost a relief rather than anything else to be finally going. We chatted about the game, about our team, about how the next four days of our trip would play out, but never once really talked about the impossible.
We flew out to Antalya in Turkey and waited on the ground for an hour before flying to Ket’s father in law’s in Cyprus. During the re-fuelling, we started chatting to two Reds in the seats in front of us. We talked about the last minutes of Olympiakos, of the atmosphere for Chelsea and Juve.
In the papers on Sunday there had been a lot of stuff about potential violence and “stab squads” of Turkish men attacking Liverpool fans, talk of “18-inch cleavers”. We joked. Made some very poor taste gags, more to break the mood of what we were all worried about. We thought of Chris Loftus and Kevin Speight, the Leeds fans stabbed to death in Istanbul five years earlier.
I had even written a note to my wife in the event that something happened to me. Ridiculous I know, but still.
We arrived late in Cyprus and had one of those never-ending meals where the food seemed to come and come and come. We drank a bottle of whiskey between three of us and the restaurateurs, knowing where we were heading told us to “beware of Shevchenko, Shevchenko”.
Even then neither of us were overly excited. We had less than two hours sleep before a 4am check in at Erjan for our flight up to Istanbul. When we landed, we got our passports stamped with a special CL Final stamp and walked through an empty airport, looking at the banners and the red carpet that welcomed us and heralded the dawning of a very special day.
We caught a cab to Taksim Square, quiet at 7am and then to our hotel, just two streets or so away where, after some to-ing and fro-ing, we sat, exhausted in the lobby for three hours, waiting for our room to finally come free.
At near 11am we finally got our heads down. On awaking we discussed shirts and scarves – old school or new? The consensus was new. On entering the streets the atmosphere was hugely different than seven hours previously. You could hear a noise, a hum from the distance, getting louder with every step.
The streets, which looked like the streets of Paris, were full of Reds – Reds with banners, Reds with hats, Reds on mobiles, Reds with beers. Red everywhere. We walked out of one of the side streets to a truly mesmeric sight – literally 15,000 Liverpool fans filling the square as far as the eye could see. We were trying to hook up with friends by text but to no avail. As we walked across the street and up the stairs by McDonalds to where there were Reds thronging, banners out, ‘Fields of Anfield Road’ as loud as I have ever heard it: “And could he play...”.
Up to the Mastercard section where there were mini games of football and “Beat the Keeper” penalty competitions. We bumped into people we knew, we posed for pictures, still texting, amazed at the sights and the sounds. This was it. NOW it felt like we were part of something special.
We walked for beer and I engaged in a conversation about the game with a Turkish man outside what was a hole in the wall off-license. He talked Gerrard, Alonso. I talked hopes and fears. For the next hour or so it became a mad procession of Red – all around the square we went – meeting other friends, faces from Anfield that we barely knew, but who, just for that day, became firm friends.
We were getting texts – “get to the ground ASAP, queues are huge”. So at 4pm local time we walked up to the road to get a taxi or to find one of the free buses that were on hand. The square was even fuller than before – there must have been 20,000 Reds. It was stunning. I was also blown away by the locals. Men, women and children who should really have been pissed off at the interruption to their lives, the clogging of their thoroughfares, were exactly the opposite.
People waved from buses, they leant out of windows to shout “LIVERPOOL” at the tops of their voices. They wound down car windows so that they could get their hands out to high five us. It was remarkable. We blew off a cab because it was too expensive and then regretted it because so many were full and we felt stranded. We walked to the top of the square and asked a policeman about these “free buses” and where the hell we could find them? “Down the hill, down the hill. Big green buses”.
So we did as he said, hundreds of us now, on the scent of transportation. All of us a little excited, a little concerned about the news of friends stuck on delayed flights. We bought flags and scarves as we walked the mile or so to the buses and watched lads shin up lampposts to rip down the huge CL Final banners that adorned the place. A group of 50 something Turkish men on the opposite side of the road, cheered them on as though watching Besiktas or Fenerbache or Galatasaray winning the big one.
All of a sudden a single decked green bus roared past us, packed to the rafters. People banged on the doors and the ceilings, leaning out of the windows, cheering. Shit. This is it. We hopped on. Like the others, it was standing room only and the rest of the 75 or so passengers were in high spirits. No one cared about this rickety old ride taking us out of the city, all we wanted to do was sing ‘Fields of Anfield Road’ and ‘Steve Gerrard, Gerrard……”.
Hundreds of Turks stood by the roadside, like a mountain stage of the Tour De France, waving at us, bemused by this incredible sight of bus after bus, taxi after taxi packed with cheering Reds. Guys came to the doors of their garages with hastily scrawled signs written on cardboard that read “LIVERPOOL 5, MILAN 0”. Another guy with a “MILAN 5, LIVERPOOL 0” banner was held back. It was madness. Still the singing continued. Kids waved, traffic moved to the side as finally the buses hit the dual carriageway and were able to make some speed.
Ket talked to a fellow passenger for the duration. I half listened, lost in the moment, staring out the window at the high rises and the degradation, wondering how in the world the IOC could ever contemplate hosting an Olympics here? Still hundreds of people lined the roads. Men leaned out of half built buildings. Guys and kids stood on verges high above the road and waved at us, waved flags. Huge Fenerbache flags hung from windows, a sign of their League win at the weekend.
A girl at the front of the bus kept singing “De de de de de da dada” the Ring of Fire opening. The songs started to peter out as the journey continued for what seemed like hours. I needed to pee. I wasn’t the only one. Guys were peeing in bottles and in the bus doorway.
All of a sudden I saw the stadium in the far distance, rising out of nowhere, miles away from anything else. I tapped Ket and we looked. There was silence. This is it. It seemed so near and yet so far. It must have taken another hour to get there as this ridiculous procession of buses and cabs was turned away from one dual carriageway to another. Way down in the valley below us, the road, snaking to the Ataturk was rammed. Traffic was at a standstill. Green buses. Yellow taxis. That was it.
Dumped
So we turned round yet again and headed for another road, as cars and buses drove the wrong way up the dual carriageway. “And we’re gonna go beserk, when we win at Ataturk”. Finally we were dumped about a mile away and a huge procession of people got out to pee in a field zig zagged with unfinished drainage ditches.
Thousands upon thousands of Reds were marching to the stadium which now stood before us. We complained about the entry route – a ridiculous yomp across a muddy, clay-based track and then over another drainage ditch. Crazy. What the hell are we doing here? We tried calling Chris who was in the food queue. We wondered whether friends on delayed planes were close? One look at the queue for the programmes at the first stall and it was obvious we’d have to go somewhere else, join another queue at one of the others. But there were none. Again, ridiculous. Food? One place. Toilets? Not good. I was nearly sick at the smell.
Pete Wylie was playing too loudly on stage, and bursts of Ring of Fire came through too loud and too clear. There was a shout-out for Crazy Horse and John Peel. Huge cheers at both names, You'll Never Walk Alone ringing out. But it hardly placated us. We moaned about how piss-poor it all was and how we felt cheated. Surely it had to be better than this? Didn’t it? We decided to queue for a programme. I wasn’t happy. Within two minutes we were moving at a rate of knots. But then two Reds came past and said that the place was shutting. All the programmes were gone.
Someone kicked a football high into the sky, one of those lightweight garage balls and I wondered why today was turning out so badly? We decided to go into the stadium as there was nothing left to do. No alcohol was being served which was fine, as UEFA wanted to avoid fighting, but yet we walked past lumps of concrete and there were metal poles laying around by the portaloos. Enough ammunition for a small army. It made a mockery of everything.
In the background, armed guards looked on from afar. We were frisked and I told two Milan fans that they were in the wrong end before handing over our prize tickets to the man at the turnstiles. It was a new machine which tested it’s authenticity. For a split second I thought he was going to say it had failed but it was fine. He then tried to get the computer to rip the tag off, but it wouldn’t work so he did it manually. I asked myself whether ANYTHING would work in this dump?
We went to get food, but two Turks working behind a counter trying to serve 100 Reds seemed pointless. Ket pointed out a less busy, more well manned one so we waited there. And waited. And even when we got served we waited some more as the guy tried ripping us off despite the prices being in English behind his head. I was really annoyed. I got a text from Tony saying that Kewell was in, Didi was out. This only added to my fury. Didi out?? No way. Who’s going to sit in front of the back four? Who’s going to shut Kaka down? I didn’t believe it.
Finally, I stood above the North end and looked down at the field. The wind was strong and I immediately thought two things: 1) That my view across the running track wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. 2) That Xabi and Stevie’s passing game might be seriously thwarted by the wind. We went to our seats. Brilliant. We saw Chris in the East stand and met him through the fence, moaning about the increasing cold, about the shitty stadium, about how typical it was that we were in Turkey and not Barcelona or Seville or Porto or Paris.
Then we sat and got colder and colder as the place slowly started to fill up, two hours left till kick-off. I was shaking, but not through nerves. We saw Michael’s granddad and then killed some time talking to Michael himself, sitting some 20 rows behind us. I stood on my seat as it filled up, a place I would stay for the next four hours. I looked at the Milan fans on the opposite side of the field and how their end was full and yet we seemed to have very few in and kick-off was just an hour away.
We walked back to the top of the block and looked across at where we had come in and I have to admit to doing a double take – there were still thousands and thousands of Reds pouring over the hill. It was like a wave of Reds as far as the eye could see. Like that scene in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials about hell and the thousands of dead people entering it, looking for a way to heaven.
All of a sudden the Italians went crazy – their boys were out for a walkabout. We sang, the songs getting louder each minute as more and more Reds filled their seats. I nicked the seat cover from the back of my chair – a priceless memento. Then all of a sudden Stevie was out, then the rest of the lads. Jerzy walked towards the goal, Stevie waved, Xabi too. Rafa was out and a “Rafa Benitez” chant went round. As we sang, more and more banners were hung to the left and above us, to the right and now onto the running track. Red after Red walked down the stand to hand their banner to stewards who laid them out on the track.
A group of stewards from Anfield walked behind us and we exchanged nods and hellos. Then the pre-game started and the place was full. We were packed onto our seats like sardines. Atmosphere was unreal. I thought Juve was good. This was incredible. The temperature had risen, the cold had gone. The ridiculous sound system that was so loud and which had made my head pound had finally shut down and UEFA were allowing the atmosphere to do the work. To their credit the Italians for a while were rousing. They moved as one, chanting “MILAN, MILAN, MILAN”. I looked at the stadium and saw that that was it – Milan at one end, the rest was us.
Surely not? But it was. And the noise. My God it was incredible. And kick-off was still ten minutes away. I watched in awe as the Milan fans rose and I saw their colour co-ordination – red on the outside two rows of seats in each block, white in the middle and black on the end. It looked amazing. Then they started waving these huge white flags. Not flags of surrender. These were powerful, attacking. It looked marvellous and I was shaken by the power of it. Then they unfurled the huge demon, the length of the South stand. This was impressive stuff. Imperious. But we weren’t to be outdone. All of a sudden the PA system started playing You'll Never Walk Alone.
Three sides of the stadium rose as one, flags, scarves, shirts, banners all raised. Never had I sung so loudly or heard it sung like that. Never. Then the teams came out. They applauded us, we sang. They shook hands with Milan and still we sang. They warmed up and we sang more. Then it was kick-off time. Ket and I hugged and shook hands. I screamed “COME ONNNNNNNN”. This was it. Jesus. The European Cup Final and I was there.
The guys behind leant on my shoulders to stop themselves toppling over. The noise was staggering. I was there. Free kick. Djimi helping Kaka up….I watched him trot back. Goal. I saw the ball go in and then saw the Milan fans rise as one a split second later, the noise seemingly miles away. I screamed “f*ck off” loudly. I wasn’t the only one. It looked like Maldini had just caught a special one and I thought immediately of how Ancelotti had talked of scoring inside three minutes.
Could this day get any worse? Seconds later the singing started again, a little more desperate than before but if we could get the lads back into it, then by God we would. Guys around me screamed. We all screamed. Stevie crossed for Sami…..IT’S IN….no saved...when will we get a chance like that again?
I glanced up at the TV boxes and wondered whether Sky would be slating us already. We won a corner and Gerrard ran to us lifting his arms in the air as if to say “COME ON, WE CAN’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU”. The intensity level lifted. Nothing seemed to work. Kaka and Seedorf were imperious. Flicks, one twos, we didn’t have an answer. Then Garcia cleared off the line from a corner. Everyone was anxious, people were losing their rags. The game ebbed and flowed – Baros almost got to a ball ahead of Stam – we screamed, as if hoping it would suck him to the ball first, but Stam prevailed.
Then it looked like Djimi had given a penalty away. I held my breath. Suddenly Milan scored again – Shevchenko. I was stunned. I looked at Ket as if to say “this is terrible”. Suddenly he shouted “NO GOAL, NO GOAL”. The relief around us was palpable. “COME ON THE RED MEN” people screamed and the singing got louder. People screamed abuse at Riise for trying to go round people and then they whistled Kewell as he walked off.
“Not Vladi I said to Ket, surely not Vladi?” as Smicer came on. Then Garcia broke into the box, a drag-back to set himself one on one and….. “HANDBALL, HANDBALL, HANDBALL” we screamed as one. Penalty! Penalty? People screamed abuse as it was clear: ‘no penalty’. I looked behind just as someone screamed. Looking back at the pitch and Kaka was flying….there was an overlap…..2-0. No offside this time. The decision stung badly.
Again we lifted ourselves up, again the Milanese screamed “MILAN, MILAN, MILAN”. Again we out-sung them, dragging our team up. What seemed like seconds later it was 3-0. I watched Gerrard give the ball away inside right and then get done by a nutmeg from Kaka that was delicious. As soon as he ‘megged him I knew we were in trouble. The pass was stunning, even from our angle. It looked for a second like Carra was there, but then we were right behind Crespo’s flick...3-0.
The Italian bench was on the field again. It’s over. The half-time whistle went. I cried. I stood on my seat shaking my head with tears in my eyes and on my cheeks. In front of us, just two rows in front, two guys were getting into it, arguing about Gerrard, Kewell, Carragher. It was getting heated. Michael came and stood by us but I couldn’t look at him. Gutted. Then all of a sudden down 15 rows or so, it really started kicking off. We were fighting our own. Still standing I heard a noise away to the right in our section and there were a group of lads at the front, bald guys, bemoaning us, screaming that we should be singing, where was OUR heart, where was OUR fight?
But my heart wasn’t in it. I felt tears well up in my eyes again because I knew Steven wouldn’t be lifting the cup, that he’d leave, that we’d be the laughing stock, that people would say we embarrassed the Premiership, etc. etc. I was all sung out. I turned to the guys behind and asked rhetorically “Why the f*ck wasn’t Didi playing?”. They just looked at me and nodded. They knew. I said to Ket “This is going to get really ugly mate. This could be five, six, seven."
I wondered why I had spent £400 on a ticket and £400 on a flight for this? For this. Then there was Didi warming up on the pitch? What? 3-0 down and you bring on the defensive midfielder? Ket and I were stunned. No Cisse? All of a sudden, a life changing, mood altering moment occurred. I truly believe that what happened next helped in some part to win the Champions League. From the same section of crowd where the bald bemoaners had been, a small splinter group starting singing Youl'll Never Walk Alone. Almost as if on automatic pilot, all three sides of the stadium rose in unison. Flags went up and we sang our hearts out.
Stewards at the front turned and stared, not believing what they were seeing. The Milan fans were silent, as if to say “You’re 3-0 down. You’ve lost. What’s going on?”. Then the players re-appeared and Alonso and Traore looked around, almost stunned. The singing grew louder. Somehow, somewhere, from someone, there was a belief. Within seconds Vladi looked imperious and Didi was doing exactly what he should have been doing from minute one.
Suddenly Kaka and Seedorf were strangled. Suddenly Xabi had time on the ball. Suddenly Steven was further up the field. I watched the ball float out to John Riise. More than a few around us, including me shouted “BOX IT”. The first ball hit the defender and I thought to myself “Get it over”. Suddenly Gerrard rose highest and scored. 3-1. Captain Fantastic of course. Get in. The celebrations were muted, but the singing grew.
I didn’t dare believe. I really didn’t. Then all of a sudden Vladi scored. I saw the shot leave his foot, but the next thing I saw was him wheeling away. I couldn’t believe it. 3-2. The stand we were in went absolutely mental. Guys hugging each other indiscriminately, people falling off seats, people going crazy. Then the noise was louder than ever. All of a sudden I believed. We all did. We screamed, we shouted, we were attacking, this was Juve again. Little flicks were coming off.
I watched Gerrard play the ball and kept my eyes on him. I watched him as he ran through the hole and as Garcia (it turned out to be Baros, but I thought it was Garcia) flicked him the ball. All of a sudden, he’s down. Then I’m down. Someone has knocked into me and I’m into the guy in front. “PENALTY!!!” people are screaming. I’m back on my seat and no-one knows what’s happening. The wait is terrible and we can’t see whether it’s a Milan free kick, a pen, is he sending off Gattuso, is he booking Stevie? All of a sudden it is a penalty, but the ref’s dicking around. Carra’s screaming and suddenly the people around us say no penalty.
But Xabi has the ball. IT IS A PENALTY!!! I honestly felt as though I was hyperventilating. 20 or so of us, mostly strangers are holding onto each other. I’m yelling COMEONXABICOMEONXABICOMEONXABIPLEASSSSSEEEE. Saved. F*ck. It’s like the air has been let out of this end. The Milan fans are cheering. Then they are silent. Why? Oh God. It’s 3-3. Never in my life have I witnessed what happened for the next 30 seconds. The whole ground seemed to shake. Jumping on the seats, on to other seats, on to people's backs, hugging strangers so tightly that it hurt. People everywhere screaming.
I looked at the rest of the Liverpool fans – utter, unadulterated bedlam. Incredible. I still am not doing it justice. I don’t think I can ever explain the passion of those seconds. (I’m reading this back in 2011 and my skin prickles as I read this paragraph. Amazing.) The next 30 minutes seemed to fly by. Alonso, Hamman and Gerrard were unreal. Xabi is so composed, Didi is so strong, breaking up attack after attack and Gerrard at right wing back was mind blowing. Tackle after tackle.
The full-time whistle seemed a blur and I remember the PA announcer say that there would be five minutes break. At that point I turned to Ket and said “What if we had decided that £400 a ticket each was too much, like we nearly did and then had missed THIS?”. We laughed, not daring to contemplate. The atmosphere was incredible. Again, like the first half we lost the toss. Again like the first half it was all Milan. I really don’t remember much about extra time apart from four moments.
The first was the “OLEs” that rang out for a stretch of about a minute. We were taking the mickey. It was marvellous. Then I remember Stevie being beaten in the full-back position and someone running into Didi right on the edge of the box. Free kick. I had to sit down. I couldn’t watch. I thought if they scored now I would top myself. Then I stood up and thought how superstitious I was and that if I stayed sitting down they WOULD score and that if I stood up, somehow that would repel the ball. It did. The noise was...I’m sitting here and I can’t write anything...I don’t know a word or words for it.
The third moment was someone turning inside Stevie right by the corner flag and then Xabi coming across in the box and calmly winning the ball and laying a five-yard ball to Stevie who hit Cisse long. And finally my abiding memory was the most amazing save of all time. It took so long for that ball to come down. As it was in the air, I watched it but on the edge of my vision I could see an unmarked white shirt and I thought “This is it, it’s over.” I truly thought the header was in, and then as it bounced back to Shevchenko it seemed to take even longer to get back to him. As if time was in super slow motion. It was in. A goal. I don’t care what anyone says. I watched the ball go up over the bar and I TRULY thought it had gone in and through the roof of the net. It was quiet.
Ecstasy
Reds looked at one another. What happened? What? Jerzy saved it? No way. How? Why? Then the whistle went. I knew it was going to be penalties down the other end. I wondered if friends and family at home were watching. I wondered what Chris was doing. Ket and I hugged. Guys all along our row put arms round one another like the players did. Same on the row behind. Guys leant on our shoulders. Someone starting singing “WE’VE GOT A BIG POLE IN OUR GOAL, WE’VE GOT A BIG, BIG POLE IN OUR GOAL.” Unbearable. Serginho stepped up.
I looked to the sky to my dad and asked for more help. Any influence he had up there, please call it all in. I turned to the guys behind me and said “Over the bar”. The whistling was INCREDIBLE, the booing, amazing. Missed. Ecstasy. We gripped each other tight as Didi walked forwards. I thought Dida had saved it, but no, 1-0. We went crazy. Pirlo next……whistling again, so loud. Dudek saves. Bedlam. I mean it, absolute total bedlam and disregard for safety. Then Djibs. Holding each other again “COMEONEDJIBSCOMEONDJIBS……YESSSSSSSS”. The noise for Tommason’s penalty I still can’t believe. I had to put my hands on my ears because I thought my ear drums were going to burst from the whistling. I’ve never heard a noise so loud. Ever. But to no avail - goal. Then Riise. All the way to the spot we screamed “JOHN ARNEEEEE RIISE…OOOH AHHHH…I WANNA KNOOOOWWWW….” Saved. Bollocks.
But all the way back as he held his head in his arms we sang the same song and we applauded him. Stevie walked 10 yards out to meet him, hugged him tight, looked to ruffle his hair and he was joined by Carra. Stuff like this you don’t see on TV. Brilliant. Then Kaka. Goal. Not so good. Then Smicer. Ket said: “Not Vladi”. But I said that I’d seen him take a pen at Anfield and he was good to go. And he was. All of a sudden my exhausted brain made the connection: If Shevchenko misses, it’s all over. Is it? Am I right? I screamed that to the guys behind. They looked stunned. Then the realisation hit them. Shit. If…..well…..you know. I held the guy's hand two seats away from me. All of us, arms round one another…..there was HUGE whistling.
He ran up and I saw it hit Jerzy’s leg and it looked like it had spun back towards the goal. But I saw Garcia and Carra and Jerzy running……and that was it. I cannot put into words what happened next. I have sat here for 10 minutes and can’t. I truly can’t. I remember closing my eyes, arms raised ,shouting “YESSS, YESS, YESS, YESS, YESS” over and over again. Then I opened my eyes and found them full of tears, tears that were streaming down my face and that were almost choking me.
I made some sort of guttural, base sound, arms aloft. The next few seconds are blank, then Ket and I embraced, the guy next to me and I did, and the boys behind all did, together, a group of five or six. I jumped from my seats to theirs and we hugged and I felt wet tears on my face from them. I jumped back down to my seat, the celebrations still as vociferous as the second that Jerzy saved it. We were going MENTAL. I looked down and saw Carra and Stevie in the stands in front of where Chris was. I watched Scott Carson and Jerzy jumping up and down and Riise below us.
Stevie was surrounded by hundreds of photographers and I watched him as he closed his eyes and held his hands to his face, Then he danced a jig. Then he punched the air. Garcia was going mad. I couldn’t see Rafa. Where was the boss? You'll Never Walk Alone was being sung…..everyone with any breath left was singing it. The players moved round and Stevie pointed towards the corner section of our stand.
Carra then walked past, going mental when all of a sudden a small girl of about five or six with blonde hair burst through the stewards and ran full pelt at him from about six yards. He opened his arms wide and she jumped into them and they embraced for 10 seconds. I was in tears again. That’s my abiding memory. He walked her over, still in his arms and then lifted her like the trophy and kissed her before running off. Then the Medjanis and the Kirklands came out and there was still more celebrating between the players. The stands were still going mad. On the big screen, Djibs and Djimi were funky dancing, Xabi was dancing.
Then Rafa came on the screen and I have never heard a noise like it. The “RAFA BENITEZ” chant started again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw our classiest act, Didi Hamann, the man who I think changed the final, shaking hands alone with the Milan players. Then AC were getting their medals and our singing stopped and to a man and woman we clapped them. It made me incredibly proud to be a Red. Yes we had won and it was easy to be classy, but thinking it and doing it are different animals.
They got a rousing reaction from us and it was deserved. They had been supreme at times. Then our supreme players went to get their medals and we watched the big screen……a chant of “woooooooOOOOOOOO” getting louder and louder, the noise building to an ear splitting crescendo as finally it was just Stevie. He leant forward and kissed the trophy and then suddenly it was in his hands. It had sunk in. F*CK ME, we are European Champions. I turned and hugged the guys behind. Hugged everyone, cried more. Phone going mad, calling my, wife, friends, brother, mum. We stayed and sung our hearts out for another hour and then all of a sudden, they disappeared, my heroes, the players.
Michael appeared in tears beside me and we talked briefly. I told Ket I wanted to stay longer and take it in. I turned and the guys behind us had gone, faded into my memory like ghosts. Like the night as a whole, it was almost as though they’d never existed. And then we were walking up the steps and out. An old guy sat in tears on his seat and I leant down and hugged him. At the top of the stairs I turned back and looked at the greatest sporting night of my life and, behind the birth of my daughter, the second greatest thing to ever happen to me.
The bus back was quiet. People silent with their thoughts, people on the phone. Trying as one to figure out what had happened. Four days on I still can’t do it. Friends texting and calling – my wife, my brother, friends - Dan, Dom, Hobbes, Geoff, David, Tony. 17 voicemail messages, hundreds of texts. Phone blowing up for two hours. Finally back to Taksim Square at 4am. Exhausted. We grabbed beer and grilled roadside chicken and French bread and headed for the hotel.
What a night. I was there. I’ve tried to give you a feel for what it was like. It’s long and rambling but I feel better for straightening it in my head. I’m now, on Saturday night, finally going to watch a highlights version of the game. Ironically, on the flight on the way out I bought i-D magazine. At the back of the magazine was a quote from Yoko Ono. I read it on Tuesday on the way to Turkey and thought, wondered, hoped... “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. But a dream we dream together is reality.”
On Wednesday May 25th 2005, in the North stand, in block 307, row 29, seat 366, I dreamed. We all dreamed together. And I don’t think I will ever, ever know a dream like this again. Ever.
Read more from Simon in issue 8 of Well Red, available to order now.
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