Boca Juniors

On my quest for cheaper tickets for the Boca River Plate game I took a trip down to Boca´s stadium, which was nice. Actually it wasn´t: the ground is located in a poor area that has been slightly tarted up for tourists in order to give them the real porteño "experience". The area was obviously a dock at one time, today it has tables in the street, tango dancers for hire and an ancient Maradona look alike who asks you if you want your photograph taken with "Diego". Our equivelant would be to have the residents of wine alley in Govan selling Haggis and offering pictures with a Jim Baxter lookalike (OK I´m stretching it a bit but you get my point). Tragic and exploitative; especially when you consider that I´ve been told the area is quite dangerous at night when there isn´t a tourist to be seen .

Anyway back to Boca Juniors. There is no chance of cheaper tickets, the only ones  available are through companies who sell them to the likes of me. You´re driven to the ground and kept in your own sector of it away from the great unwashed. Dont know about you but I dont call this a real football experience. Its more an anthropological study. Still might go though.

As for the ground itself,  I took the tour, which showed it to be a magnificent stadium for football: right on top of the action, three tiers of terracing at alarningly steep gradients that would not be allowed in Europe. Imagine being eighty feet in the air standing on steps with a one in three slope and you will capture some of the flavour. It´s incredible nobody has been killed. 

On this tour the guide makes apoint of asking what team you support, touchingly when I told him there were two teams in Glasgow he affected not to have heard of Rangers.
This lack of knowledge of the forces of darkness overwhelmed the impressive history of Boca. There was something missing and I could´t put my finger on it. Then as we visited the player´s changing rooms all was revealed: there was no religous sectarianism. The catalyst for this revalation was the huge statue of the Virgin Mary standing between the changing rooms and the entrance to the pitch, placed there to give Boca good luck. Now how I hear you ask did I remedy the absence of Glasgow style bigotry? Well it was a challenge given the local population is 95% Catholic, however it was a mission I chose to accept.

My approach was that from little Acorns grow great oaks. Talking with the tour guide I explained to him that Rangers played in blue and white, the colours of the Virgin Mary and that Rangers supporters had very strong feelings for the said icon, feelings verging on fanaticism. I went on to tell him if any other Scottish people visit the ground and they happen to be Rangers supporters he should make a special attempt to bring the statue to their attention. It´s a small step I know but an important one. Certainly if he does bring this little gem to the attention of any of my fellow countrymen he will remember the reaction.