You might be surprised when I say that Sevilla didn’t disappoint. Yes, of course it would have been amazing for Real Mallorca to win the Copa Del Rey, but the whole experience was a joy from start to finish. On the Friday, I talked to Hawksbee and Jacob’s on Talksport radio in the UK about how well Real Mallorca had done to actually get to the final. My youngest son Jude and I also visited the club shop at the stadium. Which, as you can imagine, was doing a roaring trade. Credit to the club’s owners, who have built a much larger one when the stadium was being converted. I’m not sure the old one, which was like a broom cupboard, would have coped. I talked about Nike last week, and it’s no surprise that with American owners, Mallorca swapped their shirt sponsor from Umbro to Nike in July 2021. Now they don’t make football shirts like they used to, and the more fashionable tighter fit means a fat git like me struggles to get into one. So I bought a much more flattering and cheaper t-shirt. My son bought the goalkeeper jersey and even though we got a 10% discount as season ticket holders, it was still an eye-watering €76.50.
Saturday morning we set off for Sevilla. We flew to Valencia and after a short stop we boarded the same plane for the trip to Seville. We arrived at three in the afternoon and asked the taxi driver to take us to as close to the Cathedral he could. As we got out of the taxi, all we could see was red and white Athletic Club shirts. Stories say there were 20,000 with tickets (which we’ll talk about soon) and another 50,000 made the trip without tickets. We found our way to our favourite tapas bar called “Pelayo”. It was a bar recommended to us by a friend, which we visit every time we go to Seville. It is very noticeable that when you’re eating out on the mainland, you can see that Mallorca is much more expensive. On leaving the restaurant, we found the square that quite a few of the Real Mallorca fans were congregating in. There was a great fun atmosphere with lots of singing and drinking. We bumped into quite a few friends, and then we all made our way to the ground. Up to that point, our day had gone really well. The checking of bags by the police just to get into the fan zone outside the ground was to me a bit excessive. But the same bag search happened again as you made your way into the grounds of the stadium.
La Cartuja Stadium was built in the mid-nineties, as Sevilla fancied itself as an Olympic host city and set about building a stadium to the exacting standards laid down by the International Olympic Committee. Three years and 120 million euros later, it had a 60,000 capacity stadium, but no Olympic Games as Sevilla didn’t even make the ballot process for the 2004 or the 2008 games. They offered it to both the cities football clubs, but neither Real Betis nor Sevilla wanted an athletics track and to be tenants. So, since then it has hosted some Spain games, the Copa Del Rey, UEFA finals and music concerts.
Once inside, it was clear that we were going to be outnumbered by the Athletic fans. They seemed to be everywhere. Each club was supposed to receive 20,000 tickets and the other 20,000 was supposed to go to dignitaries, sponsors and families of the players. But it looked to me that most had been got by the Athletic fans. Some had even got into the Mallorca end, and I think that Mallorca and the RFEF (Royal Spanish Football Federation) should look into that. Nevertheless, we out sang their fans, creating an unbelievable atmosphere and most of our fans were in way before the start. Ironic that it’s called the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup) and yet all the Athletic Club fans booed & whistled at the Spanish National Anthem and the King when put onto the big screen! I’m sure most of you have heard the result by now, so I don’t need to go into any detail. Suffice to say that when we scored it was absolute bedlam, and unfortunately we couldn’t hang on.
Grown men, women and children were crying around me, but in truth the best team won. If you could win on heart and passion, the cup would have been ours. Athletic Club’s annual budget is €261.60 compared to Mallorca’s €87.10 and in Nico Williams (man of the match) they have a player arguably worth more than the whole of the Mallorca squad.
It is something I will look back on fondly, when 20,000 islanders went to Seville via plane or ferry to the mainland and then car, train, bus, coach, and we showed the World what a passionate football club we are. My Son said “do you think we’ll ever create that atmosphere again Dad?” My reply, “I hope that it’s not another 20 years before we do son!”
