In Coatbridge the talk was of nothing else. Whole families were leaving the country, ticketless. The trip from Texas was a breeze compared to that from Coatbridge. You couldn’t get a flight to anywhere even near Spain, never mind Seville, from Glasgow.
The Faithful resorted to desperate measures. Routing through Liverpool and Charles de Gaulle could get them to Barcelona where they could always catch a train. Except the trains had sold out weeks beforehand and car hire just got pricey as Spain woke up to the fact that this was the trip of a lifetime for travelling Celts and they were quite willing to be ripped off if it got them on site. Pity the Bhoy who made it to Barcelona on the Wednesday and got stranded with a ticket in his pocket.
Glasgow airport was under siege. Airlines joined forces to set up an exclusive Celtic check-in desk. Actually, they set up an exclusive desk for anyone not travelling in green and white. Business travellers were advised that Glasgow was not the smartest point of departure for crucial meetings of a non-footballing type.
Glasgow airport’s bar traditionally has its busiest day of the year on Fair Saturday, the beginning of Glasgow’s annual two-week holiday, when factories used to close for their yearly break. Its highest takings so far had been £10,000 for the day. In the 24 hours leading up to the exodus an astonishing £100,000 went across the bar, threatening to melt the tills.
The historians at Strathclyde University did the math: it was officially the biggest airlift since World War Two. For most, getting to Seville was enough: enough that they were there and their team was in the final. For others, the prize of a ticket was all.
Celtic had been allocated 25,000 tickets, Porto something similar. Quite how so many tickets ended up in Celtic hands remains something of a mystery. The smart move was to back your team from the start. UEFA had put tickets for the final on sale long before it was known who would be playing. It was a no-brainer. You buy the ticket at face value and if your team wins you’re at the match. If they don’t, your ticket’s worth a fortune to someone else.
The morning after Celtic won through, six seats together had attracted a bid for £2,600 on internet auction site ebay. As the game neared, prices escalated. Touts outside the ground were commanding €1,000 per seat. And getting it.
After the Liverpool game a group of 80 fans in Coatbridge forked out £300 each for a ticket and a day trip to game. By mid-May the package was worth a fortune, if it could be bought at all.
