AT THE END OF THE DAY THERE’S GONNA BE MORE NIGHT
Europa League Quarter Final Second Leg
Lyon 0 West Ham 3
So said Rialto in 1997.
‘We can dream another dream tonight.’
In all the time I have followed football and West Ham United, I have never before had to wait until the next day after a game before the stewards at a ground let me out. But let’s start at the beginning.
A trip to Lyon, a place I had never been to in my life, despite a few close romantic calls. The success in the last sixteen issued a challenge at the quarter-final draw stage which meant the decisive leg against Lyon would be away. After the misery of playing a half with only ten men, Hammers could at least be pleased that they were starting the second leg with the tie all square.
Back at the draw stage I had sworn that after a lifetime’s expenditure on a return flight to Seville, I would not be caught out with the oncoming return journey to Lyon. I knew the challenge would be to have a series of options that could be addressed within nanoseconds. The flight options were limited so we chose to get there by train. Eurostar to Paris the day before and then across town to Gare de Lyon.
The queues at St Pancras sausaged their way around the concourse like a course of sleeping Zs. Despite arriving an hour ahead of departure time, it was clear we would be on the platform after it had departed. We were reassured that it would wait until we were there, and it did. Hurrah.
The second stage of the French elections was a week or so away and Paris was awash with cartoon devil posters of Macron and Le Pen, the statues in Republique and other squares we passed across all adorned with Ukraine drapes and flags. The contemporary backdrops you’d expect that we’ll remember when we look back at the photographs 20 years from now.
We arrive late at the hotel which is an Ibis, along with three other nearby establishments, the roads around them cut up by the local travaux. Each hotel room brims with plastic and MDF surfaces, but none of the kettles, tea bags or condiments to remind us of home.
The next day we spend in Lyon, the main square wide open except for the statue of Louis VI, and the distant road up to Lyon cathedral and its green surrounds. We meet a couple in town in their West Ham livery, starstruck with the European shops and restaurants. We learn that they have no tickets for the game, just there for the craic. The food is great, the sangria refreshing. It’s a heaven sent preparation for a game that offers a quick humiliating exit and a miserable ride home the day after. We have a 7am train to Marseille and a near midnight plane back to London. At least we’ll have a day to drown our sorrows.
We return to the hotel and head off to the game after a quick change. Lyon have put on local trams direct to the stadium, and we sit meekly at the back, draping arms covering our ‘West Ham Are Massive’ tee-shirts. The tram takes us to a square outside the ground which is filled with packs of seething gendarmes, already regretting signing up for the overtime shift. The Ultras are in force, setting off noisy fireworks and yelling out angry slogans. It is sufficiently chaotic for me to lose contact with the two I have made the journey to the ground with. I end up in the homers part of the ground, where I buy another half and half scarf for posterity. ‘Olympique Lyonnais’ it says, the longer name chosen for its ability to occupy nearly three quarters of the scarf.
Eventually I find a steward who directs me to the away end, and after climbing several flights of stairs, I head towards a silver corridor along which, James Bond-like, I march alone. At the end there are a couple of gigantic bolted doors and after pushing timidly at them, I feel the awning give and find myself back with the West Ham fans, heading up to the seats where the rest of the party are already waiting, watching the red, white and blue smoke trails billow up from the home terraces below us.
The smell of sulphur and caged walls in front of us suggest the vision of a prison yard, but when we squint into the distance we can see out there, quite definitely, the Lyon football pitch, surrounded by this impressive 65,000 strong stadium, half full of thuggish half-conscious Lyon fans.
And yet it doesn’t feel like defeat. You know this instantly as a West Ham fan. You understand as you absorb the atmosphere in an away stadium what kind of result Hammers are likely to get. The familiar deadly stomach churning helps you prepare for a disappointing journey home, wondering why you bothered. But I’m not feeling it this evening. In fact I have not felt it at all this season when we have been on the road. Even the Sevilla reverse promised another leg to put things right. Tonight we start the tie level, and scoring first should make the task of going through a lot easier.
As it is, Lyon start confidently with their fans yelling out and urging their players forward. As early as the 5th minute Karl Toko-Ekambi sees his angled shot come back off the post with Ariola beaten. This seems to inspire West Ham who settle quickly and begin to knock the ball around with confidence.
A 38th minute Fornals corner sees Dawson’s well timed run dispatch the ball powerfully into the back of the net to put the Hammers ahead. Up in our netted lofty corner of the ground almost 100 yards from the play, we yell our delighted response.
West Ham are massive, everywhere they go
West Ham are massive, everywhere they go
Everywhere they go
Pretty soon it’s two with Rice joining the attack and firing in a shot from just outside the area into the corner of Pollersbeck’s goal. Two nil. I yell loudly, in celebration you understand, not because I’m having my feet trodden on by those dancing around me. Everyone in this section of the crowd is in their twenties or sixties, either at the end of your working lives or at the beginning. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t be travelling across Europe midweek without a care in the world unless you didn’t have a family or career to be worrying about.
The half-time break is spent in a state of euphoric stupor. How did this happen? And how do we stop them getting back into the game after half time? The second question is answered in the first few minutes of renewed action in the second half, as Jarrod Bowen forces his way through, one on one, to fire the ball past Pollersbeck.
And that is that, apart from the hour and a half we have to wait before being let out by the local fuzz. We couldn’t care less. We are still singing. Thankfully the locals have put on a slew of coaches to nurse us back to central Lyon, from where we walk the necessary twenty minutes home. What a night.
The nature of our journey requires us rising the following morning at six o’clock to get the taxi to the station from where we head off to Marseille. The Friday only requires nursing through a couple of meals and glasses of wine before heading home in the evening. There is a lengthy delay before getting the final plane home – on a Good Friday no less, and a night bus to cover the underground route that ‘engineering works’ have sabotaged over the Easter period, but all is well in David Moyes’ West Ham world, where we are now in the semi-finals of the Europa League and facing Eintracht Frankfurt, who have unexpectedly scored a tie-securing away win at the Nou Camp, Barcelona.
13 Alphonse Ariola, 31 Ben Johnson, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 23 Issa Diop, 41 Declan Rice (c), 15 Craig Dawson, 28 Tomas Souček, 8 Pablo Fornals, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 22 Saïd Benrahma, 24 Ryan Fredericks
Goalscorers: Craig Dawson, Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen
