A sign that I saw in one of the bars in which we sheltered from the winter drizzle amidst Bilbao’s mazy and narrow streets of the Casco Viejo (Old Town), said it all: “Dear Tourist please be aware that you aren’t in Spain, nor are you in France, you are in the Basque Country”. It […]
Just like the reported 800 to 1000 British football fans who travel to Dortmund every home game, I couldn’t tell you why or even what I expected, but ever since I witnessed in person the magical allure of the very special fans of “one of Europe’s last great romantic football clubs”, I was already hooked. […]
Back a few years ago when I was ‘celebrating’ the big ‘Four-O’ and contemplating the all-too-swift progression towards middle age, Mrs Football Nerd asked me what I wanted to do to mark the occasion. Never one that was likely to settle into a more sedate and relaxed way of life but definitely someone who could […]
Mrs Football Nerd and I consider ourselves to be seasoned football travellers having been to a significant number of the most iconic European football grounds, to the last two World Cups and a European Championships. Those trips are pre-planned in infinite detail to ensure that fixture dates and kick-off times have been confirmed, tickets secured […]
Part of being an utterly hopeless football obsessive means that the World Cup is absolute heaven; ever since immersing myself in Espana 82 while on holiday on the Costa del Sol, I absolutely relish every tournament when it comes round. In many ways I still retain the character traits of that nine-year old boy who […]
Over thirty years ago in the days before Channel Four popularised Italian Football in this country, a quite remarkable story emerged from the exotic seeming Serie A, one that captured the imagination of this at the time teenaged football obsessive. None other than Diego Armando Maradona, disillusioned after a 2 –year stint at Barcelona characterised […]
After all the fun of our breakfast time Arsenal watching (https://football-nerd.org/2017/09/22/football-in-a-soccer-world-reflections-on-a-weekend-in-new-york-city-part-1/), Mrs Football Nerd and I spent the afternoon wandering through Manhattan’s Sunday street markets and watching the dance skaters in Central Park, before undertaking the long subway ride from Manhattan down to Coney Island. However It wasn’t the funfair or Nathan’s Famous Hotdogs that […]
This adventure actually started back in March 2015 in Valencia when Mrs Football Nerd and I first encountered three kindred Norwegian football obsessives in an Irish Bar (where else?) watching the North London Derby. Bonded by the common language, humour and nostalgia brought out by our passion for the game; Hans, Nils and Evan became […]
For a few years now there has been a bit of a buzz around South London non-league side Dulwich Hamlet FC; whose (re)positioning of themselves as London’s ‘most hipster club’ has seen a significant swell in crowds with attendances regularly numbering in the thousands. Suburban London’s answer to Germany’s revered left-wing rebel club St Pauli; […]
This time four years ago, on a return journey from Madrid (having of course been to the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu to watch Real Madrid), in a conversation with a TV cameraman working with BBC travel journalist Simon Calder, Mrs Football Nerd for the first time described us as football tourists. Since that day we have […]
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