Ole! Ole! Ole!

Now you’ll have to bear with me on this one because the facts are a little hazy, but believe me the memories will live long in the heart.

Like most boys during the 1970’s the absence of todays technological advances meant that football to me was everything, in fact it consumed me. In my mind no one could ever begin to understand the joy I felt when I had a football at my feet. What’s more it didn’t matter whether I was playing for my local team, in the playground at school or playing on the local park with my mates, I just had to play at every opportunity. 

Cue memories of jumpers for goalposts and ‘rush’ goalies!

It was at the age of about 9 around 1973/74 that I first started to feel an affinity with a professional club. Up to that point I was actually a bit of a neutral as my dad was Spanish and to be honest due to his work commitments (he was an entertainer, but that’s another story!) we didn’t really see a lot of him and so there wasn’t really that traditional hand me down father/son football club allegiance thing going off.

With that in mind this is where it could have all gone wrong for me as a fan, you see one of my ‘Uncles’ in the absence of my father decided he would take me to a game, a Nottinghamshire County Cup Final between Notts County and Nottingham Forest. The problem, which I was blissfully unaware of at the time, was that my ‘Uncle’ was a Forest fan.

So there I was at my first ever football match, stood in the Kop at my now beloved Meadow Lane watching Forest run out 4 – 2 winners in what was a highly entertaining game surrounded by several thousand jubilant fans adorned in the red and white of the winning team. Yet somehow it just didn’t feel right.

Back then my Grandmother had not long passed away and my Granddad had come to live with us, in fact he shared a bedroom with me and my brother (I don’t think that was too unusual in those days?). I remember him being in bed when I got home and asking me all about the game to which I replied “Well I suppose it was a good game Granddad . . . but Forest won”.

It seemed that my lacklustre and non-enthusiastic response left him somewhat confused especially knowing that surely it must have been a truly enjoyable night for me given my obvious love of football.

“Well that’s good isn’t it?” he replied.

“Yeah, I suppose?” I answered, not wanting to upset him, but deep down I knew that even though they were my local team I just didn’t think I could follow Forest, it just didn’t feel right.

A few weeks later my Dad returned from one of his ‘trips’ and shocked us all by declaring that we were going on holiday to Spain, in fact we were going to stay with the family in Madrid. It was during this trip that one of the most unbelievable footballing experiences of my life was to take place, an experience firmly etched into my memory.

We were nearing the end of our stay when I was informed that tickets had been acquired for me and my dad attend an upcoming Spanish Cup match (Copa Del Rey) between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona. I could hardly contain myself!

Now the odd thing was that whenever my dad spoke of Spanish football, being from Madrid he always talked about Real Madrid so to have tickets for a match at Atletico Madrid was a little confusing but exciting none the less, especially as Barcelona boasted a certain Johan Cruyff in their team.

Even now in the deepest most cynical reaches of my memory the evening of that game still reveals itself to me as something truly magical. We set off quite early as my dad walked me through the city backstreets and suburbs, stopping occasionally to regale me, sorry I mean bore me with stories of the misdemeanours of his youth, stopping on route to show me the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, the home of his childhood hero’s Real Madrid. I was impressed.

What seemed like a very long bus ride later we found ourselves at our next stop, a typical small, smoke filled Spanish bar just a short walk from the stadium. I was plonked on a stool, near the door with a bottle of coke and a small bowl of nuts for company whilst my dad enjoyed what appeared to be a very large brandy as he chatted away to the dark haired, olive skinned and heavily moustachioed patrons of this truly authentic establishment synonymous with a bygone era. Apparently my bright red hair and matching sunburnt complexion was a bit of a talking point!

To cut what is becoming a long story short we eventually arrived at the stadium where we were furnished with somewhat exquisite embroidered cushions to park our backsides on. Obviously we were not in the cheap seats!

The game got underway and it was like nothing I had seen before. The ball would ping from player to player, the crowd cheering in unison and in time with the ball. “Ole! Ole! Ole!” It was like I was lost in a human pinball machine.

The two teams finally played out a 1-1 draw with Cruyff scoring the equaliser for Barcelona with an unbelievable strike from some 40 yards out, the keeper never moved. The anticipation of a replay at the legendary Camp Nou shimmered appealingly on the horizon like the Spanish sun at daybreak.

I remember making our way back after the game, completely lost in the magic and authenticity of it all. And it was this authenticity, the feeling of being part of a community with a common love for something real that seemed to stay with me.

Seeing the Bernabeu was great and I was obviously impressed with the grandeur of it all, but the emotions I experienced before, during and after the Atletico game appeared to have had a profound effect on me. It was obvious I was not one to follow the trending masses (my fashion sense over the years would no doubt confirm this).

One weekend a few years later, a school friend and me decided we would spend our hard earned paper round money on going to see a match. At this time we had no allegiance and just wanted to see some football and experience a match day for ourselves. It just so happened (as luck would have it) that Notts County were playing at home this weekend against Oldham Athletic.

It was a cold, wet October day and we witnessed probably the worst display of football from both teams we could never have hoped to have seen. We even managed to go in the wrong gate and ended up on the Kop with the handful of travelling Oldham fans until a nice police officer realised our mistake and kindly lumped us into the main stand for which we were extremely grateful!

I’m sure many lads would not have been too impressed with the way the day played out, but I was far from disappointed, I felt something that day that I last felt a few years earlier. It was a feeling of raw authenticity, community and indeed history that from that point took an unfathomable hold of me, I was hooked, I was a Notts County supporter and it felt great!