The Battle of Nanjing

Those of you that read this blog regularly will know that since I've been here I've satisfied my desire for live football by going to watch Shanghai Shenhua. This weekend Daniel and I went with the Lan Mo (Blue Devil) Ultras Supporters group to see them play in Nanjing. I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks and it didn't disappoint.

Unfortunately my mate Cameron, who was acting as our "in" to the Lan Mo was ill and unable to come, So just Daniel and I formed the Laowai Lanmo for this trip. We meet at the train station for 8.15 and boarded the Nanijng Express. I think we were both feeling a little uneasy about meeting up with football "hooligans" that we'd never met before and with whom I'd had only brief telephone conversations but we were still looking forward to a great weekend.

We arrived in Nanjing at 11.15 and made our way to the hotel. Instantly surprised by how nice it was - 4* European standard - had a few problems checking in - as didn't know the name we were booked under. We weren't technically allowed to be in Nanjing on the Saturday - the police had banned us from travelling so unsurprisingly we hadn't booked the hotel under the group name "shanghai FC ultras".

We asked where to go for lunch and were suggested to head to the KFC around the corner - nice touch - we made our way out to find something a bit more local. We got the call about 12.30 that the boys had arrived at the hotel. We made our way back and saw about 100 people (mostly lads) milling around in the lobby as one guy took cash, distributed cards and did a general roll call. This was "top boy" Frank - leader of the Lan Mo - Daniel named him "Chairman". Each member of the Lan Mo has dog tags with how long they have been in the club - Most just say Member, or if you are especially high up leader - Frank's said "Pioneer".

Frank quickly told us the plan of action for the weekend, when we were allowed free time, the fact that they'd told the police we weren't arriving in Nanjing until the Sunday, the fact we had to keep things low key so as to not be detected and the fact that we should meet in the lobby later for a big celebration meal as tomorrow was his birthday!

Frank said that the afternoon we were free to explore nanjing- he put a ban on any football clothing until tomorrow and just said to be back in time for dinner. We went out to the Massacre Memorial museum which was interesting and was glad I went as it was closed previously when I was in Nanjing. Afterwards we joined up with the lads fo dinner. We were the last to get to the restaurant due to a useless taxi driver. We had 2 tables in the front of the restaurant for the "youth" and then two more in the back for the "top boys" and "youth leaders". We were put on the youth leaders top table.

We were in a private room and despite wanting to remain off the radar for the time being this meant we frequently broke out into song. One of the lads told me that the "youth" outside were on the look out for if any Nanjing fans turned up. There was loads of food at the banquet but very little got touched as we just focused on toasts and gangbei-ing each other. As the meal went on various people stood up and made speeches in honour of "the chairmans" birthday. Then came my turn. I introduced myself in Shanghainese (which got a laugh) and then went on to say in Mandarin that Daniel and I loved Shenhua and would die for the cause. Later Dan was asked for his turn and lost for words he just downed his bottle of beer which was met with a response in chorus of 'di yi ping, di yi ping!' (the first bottle). After this the "youth" went home and the top lads carried on drinking, we were moved to their table and they started singing English football songs at the top of their voices for us. Despite Dan and I insisting otherwise Chairman Frank paid for dinner as it was his birthday. Bonus.

After a drunken dinner round a table with topless guys, we started to have other 'things' on our minds, so we headed to a very Chinese bar/club. The standard combination of four bottles of whisky and a plate of watermelon was brought to the table. Dice games were the order of the night, I was so hammered by this time that I could barely count the dice though. Some of the lads went off to find Frank a girl for his birthday but the place was overran by blokes so think they failed. We finished all 4 bottles of whiskey between us and spent most of the evening singing Shenhua songs as loud as possible above the music and trying to incite a reaction from the locals- failed.

The morning of the match was met with military precision. 9am meet downstairs for breakfast. No colours allowed. Haven eaten some fairly awful Chinese breakfasts before I was quite pleasantly surprised by the selection on offer, but I joked to Dan (who is Jewish) that there was no bacon. 10 minutes later a waitress came out and presented me with a whole plate of bacon - more than one person could ever possibly manage to eat! At this point Frank and the other lads came down stairs and told us that the team coach had been attacked on the way into Nanjing so things could get "interesting" at the ground.

we boarded the coach at 10am and drove some 40/50 miles out of nanjing to meet up with the further 10 coaches of Shenhua fans and their police escort. We waited there for about 30 minutes and then they all turned up and we were escorted to a town called JuRong for Lunch - a place that according to its sign is 'China's no.1 tourist city'. Never heard of it, nor has Lonely Planet, nor, I doubt, has anyone who doesn't live there. All 700 fans or so were taken to the same restaurant. It was quite some sight. Once again we were taken to eat in a private room with the top boys. After my drinking exploits from the night before i was christened "Charlie:King of England" and force fed beer at an extraordinary rate. In the 40 minute stop for dinner I had 5 bottles and they gave me another for the coach. Dinner came to 20RMB per person - starting to see why JuRong is a potential tourist honey pot!

At the restaurant everyone got into their Game clothes. As the group is called the blue devils everyone has to wear blue. Some of our favourite t-shirts worn by the ultras said such things as "WELCOME TO THE HELL" - "WONDERFUL SHANGHAI, WONDERFUL SHENHUA, BLUE JIHAD" - "SHUT UP" - "LETS HAVE A FIGHT, NORTH VERSUS SOUTH" - "WE WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING, ONE LOVE, ONE DESIRE, SHENHUA" - "SHENHUA; PERSUASION AND LOYALTY". Quite different to England where some of the more "hardcore" fans wear anything but club colours.

Then we are escorted by the police to the stadium. Despite leaving the hotel nearly 6 hours before the match started we still managed to miss the kick off by 10 minutes due to the ridiculous police searches that went on outside the ground. Unfortunately all flags, banners and drums were confiscated. We all walked into the ground without anyone asking for a ticket!!!

The game itself was spent standing on the seats the whole match. The mighty Shenhua had a player sent off after half an hour and then went a goal down. But then we equalised which set off crazy scenes in the crowd. Of course, Daniel and I thought it only right that we take our tops off and go crazy with the rest of them. The good spirits soon turned sour again after Nanjing went a goal up with only 5 minutes left. Yet somehow the ten men of Shanghai managed to get their equaliser and almost nick a winning goal at the end. With the equaliser the Shenhua fans attempted to "get at" the Nanjing fans only to be met by the Chinese Army complete with guns and riot shields. Breathless stuff. All in all, 2-2 away in Nanjing with ten men was a good result.

The atmosphere in the ground was decent - we stood with some of the lanmo that had befriended us and we joined in with all the songs and baiting of the Nanjing fans (Sa Bi).
After the match we had to wait around for ages as the police and armed riot police set up outside. There were hundreds of them. Almost one policeman for each of the 700 Shenhua fans. They obviously saw Daniel and I and thought we were pretty threatening to the rest of Nanjing. The Nanjing fans made several attempts to get at the coaches but were held back by the police - from inside the stadium concourse we could occasionally hear huge roars as the fans rushed at the armed guards. Even after being kept behind for 30 minutes they were still waiting for us when we left.

We were escorted out of Nanjing by the police where we experienced scenes of bottles being thrown at our coaches and a couple of opposition fans doing a 'Tiananmen tank man' and standing in front of our coaches so we couldn't move. I tried to get some of our lads to get off the coach and "deal" but no one obliged.

The long ride back to Shanghai still had one remaining highlight...after a few hours drive we stopped at a petrol station only to find that the Shanghai Shenhua team bus had also stopped for a break. More crazy scenes as we got the players off the bus for photos etc.



A quality weekend at a total cost of £30 - well worth the money!!