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.
Word spread quickly among the Northern Ireland fans on the platform of Nice train station, men holding sports bags with their belongings, men wearing green shirts, casual shorts and flip flops or trainers which exposed their sun-burned legs.
“A Northern Ireland fan has died in Nice,” one said as he swiped through his phone. The others asked for details.
“Who? Do we know him?”
“Where?”
“How?”
There were few exact details.
“Seems to have fallen near the beach …” was as much as they knew at 9am on a Monday morning as the sun streamed through the high glass roof of the station.
Football fans are filling France’s transport network.
The TGV from Nice to Lyon via Avignon was packed with them – mostly British.
There were four Dundee United fans in tangerine club shirts, Scots travelling around sampling games – a football holiday.
The vast majority of these football fans are British.
If they are not following their own country then they are taking in other matches.
By the time the train arrived at Lyon in mid-afternoon, the sun had disappeared, the temperature was a few degrees cooler and people wore long trousers and light jackets in the streets rather than shorts and T-shirts. France’s second-biggest city had a more business-like feel to it than the south, though the mood was brightened by the thousands making their way to the new Grande Stade on the outskirts of Lyon.
The 60,000 capacity stadium is the home of Olympique Lyonnais, France’s most dominant team of the noughties, the club of Karim Benzema, Juninho P ernambucano and Eric Abidal who won seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles.
More from Euro 2016:
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• Talking points from Italy v Belgium: Antonio Conte gives glimpse of Chelsea future with Italy's winning system
• Gallery: No good enough for Sunderland, but Emanuele Giaccherini helps Italy beat Belgium
They played at the Stade Gerland, a 44,000 capacity stadium with a ferocious atmosphere for big games such as the 2008 Uefa Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United, which was decided by a Carlos Tevez goal.
Lyon wanted a bigger home with more corporate facilities, a huge club shop and 16,000 extra seats. They wanted a new training ground and Euro 2016 gave them the perfect excuse in this one-club city.
A modern tram takes most fans to the stadium. Volunteers helped manage the queues, which included Ed and Rob, two Manchester United supporters from Manchester who arrived in Lyon after car-pooling from Lille, the mode of transport saving them €60 (nearly Dh247) for the €90 train fare.
They had a spare ticket and hoped to recoup some of the €145 face value.
Ticket touts worked the crowds between the tram and the stadium, but it was a buyer’s market, with scores of spare tickets around. The ticket was sold for only €30.
Ahead, the new silver hulk of the stadium was set against the rain clouds, which soon unleashed a storm.
The Rhone River which runs through Lyon, was already high like many in France after the recent floods.
Fans ran for cover past a wall of Lyon legends to get inside the stadium early.
Most of the 20,000 Belgium fans stood together in a vast block of red, optimistic about the fortunes of their team who had climbed as high as to be ranked world No 1 last year.
Once the Euro mixes from French DJ David Guetta had abated, once the public address announcers had stopped trying to stoke an atmosphere, a loudspeaker countdown began.
Counting down to kick off is not needed as Uefa pushes the Disneyfication of their tournaments, but with the majority of the tickets along the side of the pitch costing €145, they are hardly at a price which the working class people, who have long provided the bedrock of football support, can afford.
The Belgians behind the goal paid a little less, between €55 and €105 for their Category 2 and 3 tickets.
They politely applauded the stirring Italian national anthem and the mood was positive as the teams were read out, where, in circumstances previously unimaginable, Belgium’s national team now have more household names, more world-class players, than Italy.
The two group favourites would have to be at their best in what looked like the toughest group alongside Ireland and Sweden.
The Italian fans will be the least numerous, the least vocal in their group, easy going fans showing little of the passion seen at huge Serie A games.
Italy, managed by soon-to-be Chelsea manager Antonio Conte, did an Italian job on the more creative Belgians, suffocating and stifling them with what could be the tournament’s best defence.
They went ahead when Bologna midfielder Emanule Giaccherini clipped in a superb finish after 32 minutes.
It was a fascinating encounter but big-name Belgians Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku disappointed, as Belgium did not take their chances.
Exhausted after four days of non-stop travel, I left the game in the 90th minute and ran towards the exit with hundreds of others. At the bottom of a stairwell, the exit gates were closed.
Behind those gates, a stairway which thousands of people were about to pour down. An Englishman shouted across to a steward on a neighbouring stairwell, who shrugged.
The urgent message was repeated to him in French. The steward got a superior, who advised the fans to give the fire doors a firm kick. A boot to the door and one flung open.
Outside it, a volunteer steward staring raptly at his mobile phone, unaware of what could have happened had the doors stayed closed.
A roar went up as volunteers directed fans back to the tram. “But! But! But!” a screen flashed. “Goal! Goal! Goal!”
Both sets of early leavers looked up in hope. “Belgium 0 Italy 2”, the screen said, the news prompting cheers and cursing. Southampton’s Graziano Pelle had made it 2-0, the repeats of which would be broadcast around the world for an hour or two.
“I can’t believe we’ve missed another late goal,” said a frustrated man in his mid-20s in English, one of many judging by the number of George Crosses and flags from English teams inside the arena.
“Better not tell anyone that back home. One hundred and forty for a ticket and we missed a goal.”
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