Andy Mitten, The National's European football correspondent, is taking the alternative route around France for Euro 2016. While most journalists will be packing French press boxes, Andy will follow the fans and the buzz to bring you an alternative take on the tournament. He'll tell his story in a daily diary – Part 3 is below.
NICE, France // A young face looks away from the game in wonderment towards the majority of the 15,000 Northern Ireland fans during their opening Euro 16 game against Poland in Nice.
Across three tiers, they're singing what's known in English football as the "Kolo-Yaya Toure" song. The fans in green have adapted it to Jonny and Corry Evans, two brothers from Belfast in Northern Ireland's squad. Both left for Manchester United and a life in England at an early age with their family, both made it as professional footballers at big clubs, Jonny winning league titles with United.
“Jonn-y, Jonn-y, Jonn-y,” they hollered with their arms in the air, followed by “Corr-y, Corr-y, Corr-y” with their arms down low.
And now their younger sister, Katie, who will return to Manchester for an A-level exam on Tuesday, is enthralled by the sight of thousands of green shirted supporters singing about her big brothers. It’s a magical, watching her jaw drop then a smile envelop her face.
Either side of Katie sit her parents, Jackie and Dawn. They’re watching a man known in football as Jonny. To them, it’s always Jonathan. They’re tense, excited and immensely proud. Jonny and Corry are two men drawn from a population of only 1.7 million, of which half are female and of which a huge number prefer Gaelic to Association football.
Northern Ireland have reached their first international tournament in 30 years and Jonathan Evans, 28, and coming off a season in which he was named West Brom’s Player of the Year, is doing a fine job containing Robert Lewandowski, one of the top five strikers in world football.
More Euro 2016
• Mitten's Day 2 diary entry: Dark mood lingers over beautiful port city of Marseille
• Mitten's Day 1 diary entry: Jingoism, ultras and a bit of Erasure in the melting pot of Marseille
• Full coverage: Visit The National's dedicated Euro 2016 microsite
The men in green have their work cut out against a physically stronger and technically superior foe who can draw players from a population 24 times as big. Michael O’Neill’s side are a goal down and their defensive formation means they are creating only half chances which they fail to convert.
Their fans, who’d spilled into France’s fifth most populous city and mingled happily with the even more numerous Poles on the promenade overlooking the Mediterranean, know their winning run, the longest of any of the 24 competing teams going into the tournament, is under threat. Fans like Michael and Ross, trainee doctors from Portadown who are travelling around watching their team.
They'd also bought tickets for England's game against Russia in Marseille, but the reports of hooliganism put them off attending.
Their luck was hardly in as their train from Marseille to Nice was cancelled on Sunday morning as part of a series of strikes across France, meaning fans piled onto packed later trains, their seat reservations useless on the standing room only express which skirted the brilliant blue waters of the French Riviera, stopping in Cannes, St Raphael and Antibes – Cote D’Azur towns associated with the rich, the wannabe rich and the famous.
They then made their way to the new triple-tiered 36,000 Allianz Riviera stadium, 10 kilometres to the west of the fanzone set up by the glamorous hotels in downtown Nice. Fans queued patiently and in high spirits for the shuttle buses as a seller for the Northern Ireland fanzine “Happy Days” hawked his wares for €4 (Dh16.52) per copy and an Englishman offered to paint faces in the colours of the two teams. The surface was sticky underfoot, the air smelled of sun cream, sea salt and body odour.
After a 30-minute queue, fans boarded buses. Ours bounced to strains of “Everywhere we go, it’s the Ulster Boys making all the noise” and “We’re not Brazil, we’re Northern Ireland”.
Sitting behind the driver, Andrew and Glenda Johnstone were singing along. Andrew, a 40-year-old warehouse operative from Carrickfergus, is wearing a frog’s head, his wife a witch’s hat. They were the first couple to be married on the centre circle of Northern Ireland’s Windsor Park and travel home and away supporting their little country.
“Azerbaijan, Israel, Montenegro, the Faroes ...” listed Andrew of the places the couple have visited recently following football. “We’ve not seen 95 per cent of the fans here in Nice before, but I hope they do go to games back at Windsor after the tournament.
“It was after we won in Greece that I started to believe we could reach the finals,” said Andrew, who had high hopes that his team will win the competition and for striker Kyle Lafferty to finish the tournament’s top scorer. His wife started signing songs and waved a green flag.
Like the rest of the fans dropped off by buses, they walked the final 2km to the shimmering stadium, a lengthy march in the mid-afternoon heat. Fans mingled happily, singing a song about Georgie Best and a disparging number about Lewandowski. There was no need to do that, for Jonathan Evans, sold by Louis van Gaal as part of the Dutchman’s failed two year purge on the DNA of England’s most successful club, had him in his own pocket.
“I’m no more proud than all the people sitting around me who have a family member in the squad,” explained Jackie Evans, who was an apprentice footballer with Chelsea and lived in London when Northern Ireland reached the 1982 World Cup finals. “I just count myself extremely lucky to have two.”
Jackie is going to stay in France and watch all his sons’ games.
“There have been so many highs and lows,” he said of watching his two internationals. “I didn’t see Jonathan’s debut [a 3-2 win against Spain when he marked Raul] but sat at home in Sale, Manchester. My wife and daughter went, while I couldn’t get a reception on radio, my computer kept freezing and it was a frustrating night.
“Corry’s debut was in Pisa in 2009. They got beat 3-0. It was a tough evening and he was playing against Genarro Gattuso. He came off the pitch in bits. That was great for him, to play against a top performer.”
Do the parents watch the game or their offspring?
“Most parents watch their kids,” Jackie said. “But I was a coach at Man United so I try to keep an eye on the lads and also watch the game. There’s a great sprit in this team, a belief, and with that, expectation.”
Jonny’s wife Helen, a television presenter at Manchester United television, left their two-year-old daughter in trusted hands back home in Manchester.
“She’s not seen her dad for three weeks and keeps saying: ‘Daddy play football today?’ She really misses him and vice versa. I told her that I was going to work rather than say I was going to watch daddy. ‘Mummy play football?’ she asked. Facetime and Skype are invaluable to keep in touch when he’s away.”
Helen is from Northern Ireland and tried to see the bigger picture of the whole match.
“I really try, but I focus on my husband,” she admits, “I’ve watched him in big Champions League nights and Manchester derbies. That was special and so is this. I’m optimistic. I get my confidence from what he tells me about the manager and the team spirit.”
That spirit has carried Northern Ireland far, but it couldn’t overcome Poland. They’ll get two more chances – against Ukraine in Lyon on Thursday and world champions Germany.
By then Jonathan Evans will have seen his family and Katie Evans won’t have any more exams to think about.
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