Book Excerpts
The Football Tourist by Stuart Fuller
I woke up and tentatively opened one eye. Something didn't feel quite right. Firstly, I had to think about where I was. The bright light, the cold hard floor and a towel as a pillow suggested that I was in a bathroom. A hotel bathroom. A Dutch hotel bathroom. I carried out a quick assessment to ensure everything else was in some sort of order.
Trousers on?
Check.
Phone in hand (but dead)?
Check.
Money spiIt over the floor?
Check.
Temporary IJsselmeervogels tattoo on my arm?
Check.
It must have been a good night...
The sound of the Match of the Day theme tune started to fill my ears. I slowly got up, held onto the towel rail and peered round the corner into the room. Still asleep on the bed was Danny Last, fully clothed (including shoes) and clutching a bottle of Malibu.
Saturday night was all a bit of a blur. I do remember a man with a goat at some point and a taxi-driver called Willem who claimed he was once an extra in Coronation Street, buying a bag of bon-bons from Mavis Riley no less. I remember a school disco, a bloke dressed as the Pope, Stoffers walking around with 25 beer glasses on his head and finally, ‘Smullers Spicy Crockets'. It dawned on me I was in Utrecht, Holland's fourth largest city and home to the ‘Museum of Automatically Playing Musical Instru- ments'. Welcome to the world of European Football Weekends.
Danny woke up looking worried that John Motson was talking to him from the TV at the end of his bed. He scanned his attire, confused that his shoes were still in place yet he had no socks on. He looked even more concerned about the bottle of Malibu in his hand, especially as it was completely empty, he didn't drink spirits and it smelt faintly of wee.
We tried to piece together the answers to those questions in some sort of order. Motty was on the TV because BBC One can be received in Holland. He had no socks on because on the way back to the hotel he stood in a puddle that turned into a small swimming pool (although I have no idea why he then put his shoes back on). I had found the bottle of Malibu in a bathroom sink in a bar in the village of Bunschoten and gave it to him as a present.
Ah, yes, mystery solved. We're in Bunschoten which is, of course, the home of SV Spakenburg.
As a seasoned football watcher I have seen some of the biggest games in the world in my time. I've seen AC Milan annihilate Inter 6-0 in the San Siro. I've seen Brøndby fans set fire to Parken, home of FC Copenhagen whilst losing the “New Firm” derby. Back home in England I've seen more police than fans at a West Ham versus Millwall game. Even taking all that into ac- count and many more experiences I won't bore you with (yet), when Danny suggested we come to watch the Spakenburg derby I have to say I looked at him as blankly as I do when the Current Mrs. Fuller utters the words “a cracking craft fair”.
But then he showed me some pictures he'd been sent from a local journalist in the lowlands of Holland. Of course pigs painted in the team colours. Of course a twenty-foot inflatable Viking. Of course an airplane drop of hundreds of toilet brushes over the away fans. Welcome to the SV Spakenburg versus IJsselmeervogels, or to give it a more appropiate name - the spell-check derby.