Half Time Bovril

Wednesday May 16th 2007, Hampden Park, Sevilla vs Espanyol in the Uefa Cup Final. We were there, oh yeah!

A few months earlier, in the hope that we might actually see a Scottish club in the final of the Uefa Cup, we entered into the ballot to see if we would be lucky enough to get to the show piece final. We weren’t quite as lucky as we had hoped and only got 2 tickets so Mark and Alistair trooped off to Hampden Park on a wet Wednesday night to welcome the two Spanish teams Sevilla and Espanyol to Glasgow. We arrived at the stadium at the back of 7pm to be welcomed by a sea of Spaniards, some Sevilla supporters, some Espanyol, and the rest some quality Scots there for the party! All the fans were really enjoying themselves mixing together, having a few drinks, and generally enjoying themselves even though they couldn’t bring their weather with them. On the way round to the gates we happened to notice one of the local gardens had been taken over by a Spanish television crew! They had erected a marquee for filming inside and they were lucky enough not to be annoyed by any Buckfast drinking neds, although I bet they were bloody freezing and soaking by then end of the night.

Hampden Park is certainly one of the newer, more modern stadiums in Scotland having been given a complete face lift in the 90s. It was re-opened in 1999 to its current all seater 52,000 capacity and has already seen a number of European Cup Finals, one especially when Zidane scored the wonder goal against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 Champions League Final.


Upon entering the stadium we were amazed at the noise the Sevilla fans were making this early. We have never experienced that level of noise before in Hampden, well apart from when Gary Caldwell scored a wonder goal against France (we had to squeeze it in somewhere). We were sitting nearer to the corner flag, just over half way back so had a pretty decent view of the whole pitch. We were once sat behind the goal in the second row, which made it virtually impossible to see the other end of the pitch, although the atmosphere at that game more than made up for it (Scotland 1 – France 0 for anyone who is interested in which game it was (might as well squeeze it in a second time)). There wasn’t any pre match entertainment, which was a wee bit disappointing, unless you class the bit of flaming beef that was the sevilla mascot dancing about as entertainment. After the warm up had finished they unfurled 2 huge banners from the roof of the north stand, each had one of the clubs emblems on them and stretched from the roof to the ground. These were then taken onto the pitch as the teams made their way out to a resounding roar from all the fans.

Hampden is renowned for hosting great finals over the years, and this one was to be just as good. The game was pretty much end to end until the middle of the second half and made for some great watching. The favourites Sevilla took the lead when a long throw from keeper Palop started Adriano on a run from the half way line on the counter attack, after some pressure from Espanyol. He coolly slotted away inside the box to score the first of 4 goals. Espanyol’s main chances were coming from the left wing through Reira, who equalised 10 minutes later after his deflected shot found the net. The first half ended all square, a fair reflection of the efforts of both teams. The second half produced no more goals, but did have the major turning point when Moises was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 68th minute. The rest of the second half was a backs to the wall effort from Espanyol as Sevilla used their superior numbers to bombard the goal, with no result. So the game went to extra time, we got our moneys worth alright! Extra time started off where the second half had finished, and Sevilla were finally rewarded when Kanoute slotted past the Espanyol keeper to give them the lead. The Sevilla fans were in full voice after this, but were silenced when Jonatas fired home a screamer from outside the box, with 5 minutes left on the clock. And so the game went to penalties, unfortunately which were taken at the other end. It was to be Sevilla’s keeper Palop’s night with him saving 3 out of 4 of Espanyol’s penalties.

Being seated in the Sevilla side made sure that we got a good view of the trophy as it was being paraded in the lap of honour. On the way out we spotted several Spanish TV camera crews and as we walked by the thought of giving them the full glaswegian experience such as the one below was strong but thankfully we managed to restrain ourselves. Overall a brilliant game in a 5-star stadium which went right to the wire.

Quality of Seat: 4/5 Quality of Banter: 5/5 Quality of Ground: 5/5 Quality of Pie: 3/5 (Really Expensive but that is to be expected) Overall: 4.5/5