Outside the ground

I drove into Asturias from Cantabria and immediately I felt at home. Different customs, different people, different architecture …. I’ll post more about this later.  It is an amazing place.

I came to Gijon, a city about the size of Brighton.  it’s got a university and culture and is built on a peninsular, so water on 3 sides.  There’s 3 surf breaks right in the centre of the city.

I found out that the cities football team, Sporting Gijon were playing at home last Sunday and bought a ticket. They got relegated from La Liga last year, so play in the 2nd tier, similar to Brighton.  It was a great experience. Although the ground is old, it is really set up in a way that UK clubs should be.  There are good quality bars and restaurants under the stands and they are open every day of the week.  There is also a top class gym/fitness centre open to the public in the ground.  Rather than serving crap that you have to queue for and pay high prices for, in awful surroundings, they give proper food and drink for normal prices in good quality bars and restaurants.  The staff are well trained, so there is minimal queueing.  My accountant is finance director at the Albion and i need to send him over here to look and learn.

In the ground, the atmosphere was excellent, with a particular area of a stand I was in allocated to the ‘Ultras’ who sing all of the way through the game.  There’s a guy with a microphone facing away from the game and starting all of the chants.  There was a guy with a drum and another with a trumpet following his lead.  .. see below. superb! I’ve always wanted to go to a game like this, as seen it on TV  in South America but never been.

Gijon went one nil down against the run of play with 10 minutes to go.  They immediately went up the other end from the kick off and equalised.  Then in the very last minute of stoppage time, they got a winner .. 2-1 .. everyone went wild … superb!!!!

Good quality bars and restaurants.

Old schools ground

Proper set up with guy and a microphone and speakers in front of the home supporters. His only job is to get the home crown and atmosphere going .. just like south america … we should definitely have this in England.