But team selection was the last thing on The Faithful’s minds. Travel plans were paramount. Even a ticket for the game took second place. Travel agents were swamped. Internet sites crashed. Airlines simply buckled under the pressure. The Mayor of Seville pledged that not a single Celtic fan would go without a bed when the great game arrived. They’d be found somewhere to sleep. Fool. The man had simply no conception of what happens when the Bhoys go backing their team.
Two weeks before the match every bed within 200km of Seville had sold out. Estimates were that up to 80,000 fans were heading for the Andalusian capital. But that only accounted for those that could be counted. It didn’t take into account those who had booked a week’s holiday on the Costa del Sol or the Algarve, determined to make their way to Seville overland, having found air travel to Seville impossible. It didn’t account for those whose only option was to drive: it was a 3,000 mile round trip from Parkhead but with four driving it was still possible to get there for kick-off, even if they didn’t have a ticket between them.
It didn’t account for the five guys who hired a camper van at Calais and drove it south. It didn’t account for the six guys on a building site who couldn’t hire a minibus and ended up with a coach. Result? The other 15 guys on the site got on it.
“Tell them they’re all fired if they close this site down,” said the agent. “I did,” said the ganger. “They know and they’re going.”
It certainly didn’t account for the guy who went there dead: he’d thrown a heart attack in the middle of the Boavista game and his pals took his ashes on the bus to sprinkle on the park.
The Bhoys from Barra in the Outer Hebrides went in a minibus. Tickets? “Och nooo. But we’ve plenty of drink,” lilted their organiser, who declined to say whether he’d be sharing the driving.
An Australian Bhoy bought a round-the-world ticket from Sydney, spending 68 hours in the air and covering 10,000 miles to get there. It was the cheapest and most sensible option, he said. Intercontinental and transatlantic travel bookings rocketed. Estimates suggested that 1% of the planet’s airline capacity would be carrying a Celt to Seville, by whatever tortuous route, the day before the match.
