Off to the Football

At long last I’ve done something I’ve been itching to do for the past two and a half years. The Pyramids and the Sphinx have been done to death, the Khan el Khalili and the Mohammed Ali Mosque have been seen and wondered at too. A couple of times we even ventured as far afield as the Birkash camel market. These were all well and good but what I’ve been dying to see for ages is a decent Egyptian football match.

Football is very popular here in Egypt. I don’t mean European football either. Through most of Africa and Asia, if you ask someone what their favourite team is they will probably say Man Utd, Liverpool or Barcelona. Not in Egypt! Although Egyptians take an interest in overseas football, and are especially proud of their overseas contingent (including two plying their trade in the North East at Middlesborough!) their real passion is for their local sides. Of these, none is as big or as successful as Al Ahly. Their red shirts with Vodafone splashed all over the front look at bit like the 2006 Man Utd team. That, however, is where the similarity ends. In terms of success they knock spots off anyone. For two years after I arrived here they went undefeated in Egypt and on the African continent. They have won the Egyptian league three years in a row and the African Champions league twice in a row. They celebrated their centenary by winning their hundredth major trophy. These guys might be in a smallish pond but they are very big fish indeed!

What better occasion for my first football match than a crucial final group stage match in the African Champions League against Asec Mimosas, champions of Cote D’Ivoire. The tickets were ridiculously cheap (or is it just that UK tickets are stupidly expensive?) at 30 Egyptian Pounds (less than three quid) each. Wanting to look the part we all bought a shirt each for about the same price.

We’d been warned to get to the stadium very early- this was a major match and a high attendance was likely. The police therefore could well stop off access some time before kick off. We parked on the main road, just over from where former President Sadat was assassinated, and made our way through the police barriers. The first impression I had was how closely this resembled an English match- lots of supporters all making their way in a never ending column towards the stadium. The next impression however was that actually this was ever so slightly different. The level of police coverage was massive- hundreds upon hundreds of black clad riot police, horses and heavy duty vehicles. Even at a Millwall match there are not that many police- and they certainly are not armed to the teeth as they were here. I wondered what the police were there to prevent- surely there were not going to be more than fifty Asec fans making their way to Cairo?

The Cairo National Stadium is most impressive. It is a typical Latin American style bowl- the pitch is some way from the seating separated by the athletics track (upon which a variety of policemen and special forces types were sat). At first it seemed fairly empty but, as expected, it filled up fast. By about 7 o’clock the place was rocking- an hour before kick off and more noise than you’d find anywhere in the Premiership. As expected the stadium was a sea of red- there seemed to be more Asec players warming up on the pitch than there were Asec fans! Still, that didn’t stop the hundred or so of them being given an entire end of the stadium (sad as it made for a half empty stadium in what could have been a sellout match). These fans must have had a reputation as supermen as they were surrounded by a two thick cordon of police!

The Al Ahly end........

.........and the teams coming out to face the army of Asec fans (or should it be the army and the Asec fans?)

Kickoff was at 8 o’clock and the match was pretty anodyne for the first part. In part this was due to nerves on the part of both sides- a draw would suit both if results went the right way elsewhere but defeat would be a disaster. In addition to nerves, the Egyptian tactics were rather bizarre. A team of small, skillful players were trying long, high balls against the biggest guys I’ve seen outside of a basketball team! As the match progressed, the crowd started getting less enthusiastic- just as anywhere else I suppose. In Egypt, however, this is simply not allowed! From nowhere a huge bloke, employed I think by the club started running among the supporters and, in traditional sergeant major style both insulted them (pretty sure I recognized the Arabic for “dumb beasts”) and exhorted them to get singing. At once everyone started singing and cheering again! I wondered what this guy could achieve at the Molineux!

As the game headed towards a draw, Al Ahly’s star player, Mohammed Abou Trika, who had just returned from injury, came onto the pitch. This seemed to unsettle the Ivorians as they fairly quickly managed to concede the first goal of the game- a messy, scrambled affair. With five minutes to go, Abou Trika capitalized on a goalkeeper error to make the score 2-0. The ref eventually blew for full time and the crowd went wild- Al Ahly, once again were through to the semi finals, to play al Ittihad of Libya.

As we trooped out of the ground, my Egyptian friends kept reminding me of how wonderful Al Ahly were, conveniently forgetting, as any good fan should, that for most of the match they were actually rubbish!

What an experience. The match itself was pretty poor but then that was not the point. Walking to the ground, bantering with other fans, singing football chants were things I’d really missed since I was last at Molineux. On the other hand being in a stadium which, even though only half full still had over 50,000 watching meant an atmosphere I’d never experienced before. The best bits- the fireworks, drums, standing on the seats etc- which have now been banned in the UK led to a football experience you’d never find at St James Park, Old Trafford or even Molineux- and all for three quid!