They hadn’t a hope in hell

Vorskla 3 Glentoran 0 (5-0 on aggregate)

What do I know? I thought the Glens might have had a chance, though just before kickoff, the most optimistic prediction I could muster was 1-1. The man sitting in front of me, seeing my Northern Ireland top, predicted 3-0 and we made a friendly gentleman’s bet. Oh well.

The scoreline flattered Glentoran. This was clearly a case of men against boys. As it was, many of Glentoran’s best players didn’t even make the trip (this is not an excuse, I don’t think their full-strength side would have fared any better). Their captain was on holiday, another player on honeymoon and, just to reinforce their part-time status, four players couldn’t get time off work. Priorities clearly weren’t with the football. I think they were content with getting into the 2^nd qualifying round, the manager even saying this was ideal pre-season training, and not much more.

I’m not sure if this was a case of Vorskla being a much better side or Glentoran being far worse. So one-sided was the match that Glentoran didn’t even come close to attempting a shot on goal until the 82^nd minute, and that was a ghastly effort that went some 30 metres over the bar on a shot-cum-cross from the left (the official statistics show 2 attempts off-target, which is being generous).

But enough with the football talk

The highlight probably came earlier in the day when I was buying my ticket.  Having no idea how many Glentoran supporters would be making the trip, I sauntered up to the ticket counter and asked whether it was possible to buy tickets for the away supporters’ section. This clearly flummoxed the ticket clerk, who had to phone headquarters for confirmation, while I waited patiently. After a few minutes, a man came along and escorted me to an air-conditioned office in the bowels of the stadium – though he took me on a rushed, informal tour through the stadium, onto the athletics track surrounding the pitch, past the changing rooms - where I was sold the most expensive seat (100 hryvnas, or $12.50) right at the halfway line, just above the tunnel where the players come out. Odd place for the away supporters, I thought, who are normally tucked away in an obscure, out-of-the-way corner of the stadium. Turned out I was the only supporter sitting in that row, though it appeared that the row had been set aside for any supporters who might have showed up unannounced.

I was one of just eight Glentoran supporters in attendance, and the only one who hadn’t travelled from Belfast. The other seven had special VIP passes in the press seats a few rows above me. The only other match I’ve ever been to that had so few away supporters was a Uefa Cup qualifying round match, Austria Vienna v WIT Tbilisi. As far as I could tell, the Georgians had zero supporters in attendance, but this was understandable considering that just a few weeks prior (this was August 2008), they’d been invaded by Russia and understandably had more serious matters on their mind, not to mention that getting visas would have been downright impossible.

I spent the day in Poltava sightseeing (they have a wonderful museum) and visiting cafés. Twice I saw groups of players walk past me whilst at one café, and on both occasions I shouted ‘good luck tonight, lads’ in my best Belfast-accent (which means it came out more Scottish/Kazakh), to be met with a thumbs up and ‘cheers.’ Good thing they didn’t actually come over to me, for I would have been exposed as a fraud. Their hotel, the Palazza, was actually just round the corner from that particular café, as a supporter I later ran into informed me. Right next to the stadium was the Europa Hotel, and I thought it would have been an amusing irony if the players had stayed there. The famous Europa Hotel in Belfast is known as the most-bombed hotel in all of Europe (and the world?), having been blasted 28 times during the Troubles. These days it’s the hotel of choice for heads of state and various VIPs.

As tends to happen in Ukraine whilst stumbling down the road looking typically foreign in a small provincial city, I was spotted by some locals sitting at a roadside café near the stadium and was immediately called over to join them in some pre-match festivities and a bit of light-hearted banter. These four men treated me to a beer and a couple of vodkas and firmly told me to meet them back there after the match. Despite having nearly 4 hours to kill before my train was due to depart (at the ungodly hour of 1.50am), I wasn’t feeling so hot after the match and instead meandered about the dark streets for an hour or too, taking in the Vorskla victory celebrations, before heading to the train station.

 

 

 At least they were level for a while