Madness in Guangzhou

For reasons unknown to me, Guangzhou has a team in the Hong Kong Premier League.  They are a big budget club, so their presence in the Hong Kong league isn't entirely welcome with the local Hong Kong fans.  Over the last few years, I've started going to Kitchee games with Charlie.  He has brought a level of passion to the games which is astounding, transplanting the English style of fan support here to Hong Kong.  It's been successful too as the crowds for Kitchee have steadily grown and even the local fans becoming more vocal.

Charlie and Andy both decided to bring another element of English (and more broadly European) football culture with them and decided that we should all do a true away day when Kitchee played in Guangzhou.  This was something I had never done before, but it was appealing enough an idea for me to agree.  We booked tickets on the newly built fast rail and sped off for Guangzhou.  In true English fan fashion, the beers were out already as we waited for the train to arrive.  The train ride itself was incredibly fast, less than an hour.  The Chinese fast rail system is a wonder of the world and its ability to connect the country to an absolute marvel.  By the time we arrived in Guangzhou, I was already feeling very buzzed.  The day had barely begun and we were in a taxi headed to our hotel. our good sense now gone as we argued all the way there about some nonsense I can't even remember anymore.  At the hotel, Charlie managed to convince the girls running the club room to give us more beers (a terrible idea) as we dumped our bags before heading to the game.  We arrived at one of the ugliest sporting grounds I've ever seen.  We weren't meant to take drinks into the game, but that didn't stop almost all of the Kitchee fans from sneaking their own drinks into the game.  A wide area of seats had been set up to keep us away from the Guangzhou fans and there was a large police presence which seemed to focus only on ensuring the Kitchee boys didn't cause any problems.

The police looked at us nervously.  There couldn't have been more than 150 of us (probably less to be honest) but they seemed to fear a riot could start at any point.  We screamed at the other fans and we had a drummer keeping up a constant banging drone.  Kitchee quickly went up 2-0 and the abuse from the Kitchee fans towards to the Guangzhou fans was relentless.  They tried to ignore us, but as Guangzhou clawed its way back to 2-2, something clearly snapped with them as they finally started to yell back at us.  The wives and girlfriends of the Guangzhou fans seemed particularly annoyed at us, as they led the screaming.  It was then, near the end of the game that Kitchee broke their hearts with a late winning goal.  We roared and all charged towards the field, the police were smart enough not to stop us, and the Kitchee players came running to us as we all celebrated what would be the winning goal.  Then we ran towards the barricades keeping us from the Guangzhou fans and started to yell at them.  They looked sullen as they responded with some meek yells, but they knew it was over as well.  The score finished up 3-2.  The Kitchee players came over to us and thanked us for making the trip over.

Things weren't completely over though.  The police may have thought separating the fans during the game was a good idea (it definitely was), but they hadn't given any thought to how things would be AFTER the game.  Both sets of fans were still leaving out of the same exit, and so there was an inevitable confrontation.  The Kitchee boys whooped and cheered as they walked past the sullen looking Guangzhou fans.  For some of the Guangzhou fans, this was too much as they started to itch for a fight.  They started screaming back and challenging the Kitchee fans to a fight.  One Guangzhou fan even pulled out a retractable nightstick and started to threaten the Kitchee fans.  At this point, Andy casually walked over, all 6'4" of him, and just started to look at the guy.  Very quickly the nightstick was put away and the loud screaming stopped.  As a final insult to the Guangzhou fans and players, as Andy, Charlie and I drove away in our taxi, the driver just happened to drive us past the players entrance to the stadium.  We opened the windows and screamed "KITCHEE" at the Guangzhou players and their families as we went by, with retaliatory screams from them following us as we left the scene.

We made our way back to the hotel in time for the happy hour in the club lounge.  Charlie had planned everything well, and we had worked out that paying slightly more for the room meant that we had the unlimited food and drinks on offer in the club room.  We made ample use of this, adding to an already drink filled day until we decided we wanted to go out.

We made our way into the Guangzhou evening, starting out in a party area, before finding some dive bars to continue the night.  The night continued to descend into anarchy and it was only by a miracle that I managed to get at back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning.  Even then, it wasn't without some resistance.

I'm not sure how we managed to wake up the next day, but we did.  We dragged ourselves over to the club room where the manager was seated at her desk.  A smile ran over her face as she saw the three of us enter looking for food.  We must have looked terrible.  Later, as we checked out of the hotel with her, the smile crept back across her face as she commented to me in Cantonese: "the three of you went very hard last night didn't you?"

Yes.... we certainly did....