Theme of fans is very active in football and since the childhood I have seen very original fans of football. This time, I do not talk about concrete people but about culture of support, their attitude toward their country and stadium. I have been to three cities of Ukraine during Euro-2012. I attended 7 matches and I saw many fans of different countries.
About 10000 fans arrived in Kharkiv. Most of them lived in tents in Zhuravliv square. I can say only positive words toward Dutch fans. They did not make incidents in the city. Ukrainians took pictures with Dutch fans who drank beer. Dutch fans arrived at the stadium two hours before the start of the match. They sang their own anthem. In my opinion, anthem of Dutch fans is the best among other anthems.
In spite of that, Holland did not win a match in the group, the fans did not protest it. They cheered up players and tried to support them. After the end of the match against Portugal, journalists were interested in the opinion of the fans. They answered: “Never mind. World Championship is ahead in Brazil”. During the matches of Ukraine, many Dutch fans came to the fan-zone with the jersey of Ukraine. Before they left Kharkiv, Dutch fans made a placard to thank the city for such warm greeting.
German fans arrived in Kharkiv one day before the match and at first, they did not seem many but a lot of Germans came to the stadium. Germans are considered as coldblooded people but you cannot say it in the match against Holland. In spite of that Dutch fans were more than Germans, Germans did everything to support their team. Germans drank much beer but they did not cause incident.
I have heard a lot about English fans and in 1996 I saw them in the qualifying round of World Championship in Tbilisi. I have seen for the first time that about 1500 British covered voice of the hosts. Georgia lost 0:2 and Georgian football players were insulted and thrown with bottles of “Fanta” and “Coca Cola” from tribunes. While the match between Ukraine and England, English fans covered the voice of Ukrainians. But sometimes, “Ukraine, Ukraine” was also heard. The locals mentioned that Ukrainians must learn culture of support. According to them, when the team loses, they insult the team instead of cheer it up.
Spanish fans are known all over the world. They have not broken any rule in the city. They took pictures with the locals. I have seen three fans who were naked above and had a lot of tattoos. They greeted woman driver of tramway. There are a lot of woman drivers of trolley and tramway. Before the match Spanish football players did not sing anthem. I got interested in this fact and tried to find it out. As there are some players from Catalonia and Bask, players agreed not to sing anthem. But fans did this job. Before the final, Ukrainian singers were invited to sing anthems of both teams. But the mentioned singers did not sing the anthem of Spain. But the fans did it.
I have not seen fans of Irish team but what I have seen on TV really impressed me. I wished Georgian national team had such fans. During our matches there is silence on “Dinamo” and “Mikheil Meskhi” stadiums. But we are having progress lately. Our fans try to go to the stadium more organized. It would be better if their number increased. I wanted to show you all culture of fans with this article.
During the final match, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian and Polish fans shouted names of their countries. Suddenly, one Russian cried: “Russia, Russia”. Unlike the previous matches, no one started crying “Russia, Russia”.
Lasha Tabagari
