peter
“I’ve been a big football fan since I was young, and when I was about 21, me and my friends would travel around Europe on trains to see different football matches. We didn’t have much money so we never stayed anywhere, and we’d sleep on trains and shower at the train stations. You’re probably too young to remember, but we were there in Stuttgart in 1988 when Ireland beat England in the European Championships. That was one of the most memorable days of my life. We were there with another 6,000 Irish fans, and the whole vibe was just incredible… Imagine, we hadn’t beaten England for 50 years… English hooligans had a very bad reputation at the time and the whole stadium was very well secured, but at the end when we were leaving we saw about 200 English fans at the exits and we thought ‘Wow, what do we do now?’ And before we could even think, they all faced us and started clapping. That night we ended up in Heidelberg drinking all night, the Irish and English all together. I was only 21 but I felt like they’d write that day into the history books…”