Message Stick

Despite my Dad’s great disappointment Mark and I are not great followers of ‘the beautiful game’.  It would however have felt rude to come to Buenos Aires, home of Maradonna, and not visit his first Club, Boca Juniors.  Unfortunately the area of Boca makes Hillfields look like the land of the Telly-tubbies and everyone warns against coming here even in the day.  Despite this however Mark, myself and our friend Dave decided we would venture there alone, with very little Spanish between us and try to buy tickets for the evening match. After being shouted at by the police that there we no tickets available we thought we’d just stand around and wait for the touts to approach us.  Some of the dodgiest looking people ever tried to convince us to buy there highly inflated and probably fake tickets.  We resisted and decided we’d head for a huge group of people which we assumed were the ticket queue.  Unfortunately for us they were no queue, but what we now think were the crowd of the Barra Brava (Boca hardcore fans).  Suddenly they started to surround us and I can honestly say that was the most edgy thing we’ve experienced on our whole trip.  Grateful that we escaped with everything in tact we hot-footed it to the nearest cab and got drunk at a local expat bar that actually served beer in real pint glasses!

Mark, Not wanting to be beaten by this experience decided we would try again to buy tickets for the World Cup qualifier of Argentina v Columbia.  It was far more successful this time at the River Plate stadium on the nicer side of town.  Here the guards were super friendly and within 5 mins we walked away with 2 tickets for the match, paying the same as all the locals.

Mark had never seen a live a footie match before and this was certainly a great choice to ‘pop his cherry’.  Although the football was pretty crappy there were loads of aggressive tackles and an amazing atmosphere both in and out of the stadium with drums, chanting and the occasional flare being let off in the Columbian colours.

We were both put slightly on edge by the enormous flags in the popular (Standing) area with images of the  Malvidas with a union Jack on them and “Somos Argentina!” (”We are Argentina!”) brandished everywhere.

I was far more interested in watching the tiny dot of Maradonna (he’s the one hugging a Colombian player in a crowd of Argentina players on the pitch) than the match. He jumped about and got more irrate than anyone I have ever seen, especially when Argentina scored.  It was really good fun and we’re really pleased we persevered in seeing a game.  We even ventured back to Boca in the daytime with our own cabby that waited while we took some snaps of the ground and surrounding buildings.