In an earlier post about the World Cup and my strange connection to soccer, I neglected to mention one of my direct connections to soccer which is odd because it’s the only one to which I can pin a specific date: May 26, 1993.
Basically, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, Albania managed to pull itself together enough to field a national soccer team and compete in World Cup qualifying. A couple teams had already come and gone but the one that got me occurred when, for reasons I don’t remember, I headed down toward the stadium and encountered a bunch of sunburned, freaked out people dressed in orange and green.
They were followers of the Republic of Ireland national team and lot of them had just stepped off a bus from Corfu, Greece where they’d gotten too much sun. Others had just stepped off the plane direct from Ireland and were pale white and freaked out. Because I was cleaner than the average Albanian, not hitting them up for cigarettes and/or money, and because they interpreted my shirt (which I thought had blue stripes) as having green stripes, I was immediately declared a member of the tribe and shanghaied to act as translator. They paid my way in (100 lek or about a dollar) and started handing me cans of beer.
Who was I to say no?
It was my first experience with football culture and the groups of people who follow the team around. One woman, who eventually became a pen pal for a while, planned to follow the team all over Europe. I didn’t ask how they afforded all that, but years later met someone who said, even if they were on the dole, they’d been saving since the last World Cup to follow the team.
The group I was with carried a flag with “Hill 270 is here” on it (or maybe 271 or 272 I don’t remember and my journal from that time is buried). Whatever the number was, because they had Irish accents I didn’t fully understand the explanation of what that meant (Ahh, havingitalittletingwedofordelaods”) but I gleaned it had something to do with a pub. As I drank more and came to understand Irish better, they explained some basics of the game (Ayedeyaredoinmoredenjustrunninoutderdeyare) and some rule changes. If I understood them correctly the powers what are had either changed the rules or were about to change the rules to prevent goalies from picking up kicks from their own teammates. This was apparently supposed to speed up the game and encourage scoring. (Mission accomplished. ???) There was also talk of making the goal bigger and shrinking and or eliminating the penalty area or the goalie’s box or, ah, hell, UhI’llbehavinanoderbeerderbroder.
My favorite moment was when an Irish midfielder made a weak effort to get the ball past an Albanian midfielder. One of the Irishmen I was with yelled “Commitment, WhateverHisNameWas. We need a little commitment.” He and another Irishman then made eye contact and said “UhAye, we need the bleedin’ Commitments.”
Albania scored first but ended up losing 2-1 thanks to a free kick and some very dodgy play on a corner kick (at least the Albanians thought so). Here are the highlights from Spanish TV as shown on Albanian TV. (Warning, they are in Spanish and there are some scrambled bits.) You can almost see me at around 1:50-52. I’m in the shadows a couple rows above the flag on the far left.
The Hill 270 flag was stolen by some random Albanian whilst the Irish were celebrating and, after a brief fit of anger, they all just decided to make a new flag with “Hill 270 is here AGAIN” or something like that.
I drank a few more beers with them and got them back to their bus. I stayed in contact with the one lady for a while and then lost touch. It happened during one of my many transition phases during my service and it cheered me up. I was having a great time I did.