Richard Augood tells us what a Champions League night is like in Romania
Queueing at the Steaua Megastore to buy tickets. Should we go for the £20 VIP sofa? Last night's VIP table at Disco No Problem had come with a choice of a fight with a gypsy pool hustler, a 300% special foreigner tax and having to pick up the bar tab twice. So, second category tickets it is. Sector 20, right on the halfway line.
Dear WSC
Continuing on the debate about those heartbroken fans of Newcastle, one has to ask where these ‘devoted’ supporters were a few years ago. Commentators frequently reminisce about the dark old days of Newcastle when the club was on the verge of bankruptcy on gates just above 10,000. There is the same fickle element at Middlesbrough – at Ayresome Park back in 1993, matches attracted around 8,000. Now they’d expect 28,000 for a League match against Wimbledon! I can only have limited sympathy for the Toon Army, and even less for the tens of thousands of supporters on the season ticket waiting list. If they’d bought one in 1990, they would have one by now. If would seem that Newcastle’s chums Sunderland are the only ‘North East giant’ with fans of any loyalty: they brought 5,000 to Watford this year – and that was on a wet Tuesday night!
Will Ginster, Chesham
James Taylor watched Euro'96 in Prague, where local fans had plenty of oppertunities to toast the players health
Golden boys get silver was the newspaper headline as the Czech team arrived back to a crowd of 50,000 in Prague’s Old Town Square. How different from the beginning of June when most people were writing them off as no-hopers, lucky even to be on the map. A poor performance in the first game against the Germans did nothing to dispel this. Local papers concentrated instead on the Czech fans, who were surprised by the friendliness of the police and insisted on having their pictures taken with all the police horses Manchester could muster.
Cathy Cassell describes how Sheffield enjoyed danish company
For most Sheffielders, memories of Euro ’96 will be tinged with red and white. No-one had predicted the eventual size and impact of the Danish invasion on Sheffield. For two weeks, wherever you went there were there Danes. Danish families following their national team were taking up all the seats in McDonalds and filling the Peak District pubs at dinner time. There were Danish newspapers on the streets, ciggie prices advertised in krona and red and white flags for sale all over town.
David Tindall explains how Yorkshire took on a continental feel for Euro '96
Leeds was a happy host city during Euro ’96. With official banners adorning every lamppost, a gigantic football outside the town hall and the flags of the four competing nations flying outside the Queen’s Hotel in the city centre, it wasn’t hard to realize that something unique was happening.