The feral like creature stood at the top of the escalator of platform K at Lyon’s Part Dieu train station as football fans poured off the special train from St Etienne at 1am. He spied four men wearing kilts and pink Scotland away shirts.
“I hate the British,” he muttered in a hostile zone to one of the Scots, while maintaining eye contact. Then he disappeared into the concourse flooded with gun toting police and security and into the Lyon night.
Euro 2016 is not good for the bigoted French man by the escalator. His country is teaming with British football fans who are largely receiving a friendly welcome from their hosts. You see them at every single game, groups of lads from all over Britain.
You see their flags at games not involving England, Northern Ireland or Wales. They are only superseded in numbers by those of the teams who are playing. You don’t see groups of men from Madrid or Rome or Amsterdam, yet you see British everywhere in France, thousands of football fans happy to take in the tournament.
Fans like Peter Clarke and his mates making up an unlikely alliance of Mancunians and Liverpudlians, the former who just want to speak to real Frenchmen about the genius of Eric Cantona. Fans like the four Scots in kilts. David Grant, Chris McLauchlan, Andy Reynolds and Andy Cowie are from Stirling. We meet on the train back from St Etienne, another train full of British fans.
More from Euro 2016:
• Euro 2016 daily five: Iceland freeze Ronaldo and Co; Pogba carries the hopes of a nation
• Andy Mitten's Euro 2016 diary: Price of football is not cheap ... especially if you miss a goal
• Greg Lea's Euro 2016 talking points: Low scoring opening round does not detract from fine spectacle
“We follow Scotland and booked the trip because we thought we’d qualified,” laughs McLauchlan. “We actually had a song about Scotland qualifying and having a party. We used it to taunt Republic of Ireland fans.” His voice trails off. “Then we lost to Georgia. My girlfriend is from Dublin and her brother has been giving me stick about it for nine months, but we still decided to make the trip and we’re having a great time.”
Well, not quite. The four don’t have any accommodation for the night and their various plans have come to nothing. There was no accommodation in St Etienne and in Lyon, a budget hotel which normally charges €59 (Dh244) has rooms for €279. The Scots are non-plussed. They talk of sleeping on a (non-existent) night train to their next destination, Marseille. Of asking to sleep in the house or hostels of the various people they’ve met along the way, the Americans and the Irish.
They even broach the idea of whether there might be space for four in this writer’s Air BnB room (a cheaper alternative to hotels), though it’s unlikely the couple who own the diminutive apartment would appreciate four new guests in kilts at 1am.
While they think, they rested their hands on their sporrans and slept for 10 minutes as the train edged over the Rhone into Lyon.
Grant, a semi-professional footballer in Stirling, is loving the trip. “We went to Russia against England in Marseille, though we decided against wearing kilts to that one. We did celebrate the Russian equaliser though.”
The trip is more than just the football, though they are pleased with the game they have just witnessed: Portugal 1 Iceland 1.
The Portuguese, with far superior individuals went ahead before Iceland, the smallest every country to qualify for the finals, equalised. For a country with a population of 330,000 to reach the finals was an incredible achievement and their fans appeared very happy before the game in Lyon and St Etienne, taking in their stride the train delays which came as a result of another national strike.
Over 12,000 Icelandics — four per cent of the entire population — were in St Etienne. If those numbers were translated to Portugal, there would be 400,000 Portuguese travelling around France following their team.
The Icelandic national anthem produced a glorious image of brotherhood as the fans joined arms and swayed in unison in the sheer sided stands of one of France’s most renowned football grounds. For a ground rather than an arena it is, with four stands in a working class town where football matters and Allez Les Verts is as popular as Bonjour.
Portugal went ahead. Nani, playing up front with his former Manchester United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo, scored. They boasted a calibre of individuals unavailable to the Icelanders. Pepe, Ricardo Carvalho and Andre Gomes, the driving, balletic, Valencia midfielder set for a fine future in football.
On the bench they had emerging stars to help counter the ageing experience in defence. They deserved their lead and pushed for a second goal, but while they had superior individuals, they didn’t have the team spirit of the men from the North Atlantic.
Iceland equalised, prompting another rhythmic thump from the drum among their fans. They held on, surviving a late wave of Portugal attacks and an injury time Ronaldo free-kick where the Icelandic defenders paid as much attention to the referee’s 10 yard line as their compatriots did to the British suggestions about fishing rights during the cod wars.
The frustrated Ronaldo, who missed several chances, was livid and claimed that Iceland had a “small mentality” and would “do nothing” in the Euros.
On Wednesday morning, Iceland fans milled around Lyon’s main train station. Their next game is against Hungary in Marseille on Saturday.
“Last night was like a win for us,” said fan Sumarlidi Jonsson, who is travelling to their three group games with his wife and four children, aged 5-16. “Ronaldo did nothing and now he’s crying. He says we are small and can do nothing, but we did something last night. Football is about tactics and you play to your strengths. When you’re a smaller team, you play defensive. Ronaldo was disrespectful to us. He’s one of the best footballers in the world and he’s not a good role model when he cries like this.
“We have to play to our strengths and one of them is our support. There were more Portugal fans than us but we were like man No 12. We influence the game, we do everything we can and I think we will qualify from the group.”
Jonsson had slept so well that he had missed his train south and his wife was trying to organise new tickets for six. The kilted Stirling four?
“Hats off to the Ulsterboys for letting us kip on their floor,” tweeted Mclauchlan on Wednesday morning at 7am.
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