Gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll …………….

It’s official. I am now truly Honduran; I have become a full fledged “futbal” freak in flying colours here in La Ceiba thanks to a friend who invited me to a live game and, well the rest is history….

Even getting to the stadium before the game is an adventure combining crowds of folks and families flowing down the centre of the blocked off main street, men trying to park vehicles in the open areas, the police trying to keep an eye out for trouble, vendors flogging souvenirs, scalpers hustling for ticket sales and all of this happening at the level of a loud, happy street party, complete with music blaring! Only in Honduras, my dear friends….

There are three distinct sections to the stands inside the stadium – the west side (which is shaded for afternoon games and thus more expensive), the north side for the overactive high energy fans and the east side (the cheap seats with sun in your eyes until almost 6pm). You are accosted by scalpers at the approach to the stadium which is the entrance for the shaded seats at 120 Lp for men (only 70 Lp for women – what, we don’t like futball?) but if you follow the road around the stadium, the seats are only 50 Lp, with no distinction for gender.

There is such a crush of bodies all flowing into the small doorway, with their tickets at the ready; the armed police visually checking everyone for guns, bottles or other instruments of harm and suddenly you are in the bowels of the concrete stadium surrounded by smoking food stalls, vendors, beer and soda sellers, hot dog stands and that same crush of bodies that entered with you. If you don’t like noise, crowds or unexpected intimacy with strangers, this is most definitely the wrong place for you to be!

La Ceiba has two major teams - that I know of; please keep in mind that I am grossly uninformed about the game, the teams, the language and everything else to do with this great game of soccer. On April 11th there was a game between “Vida”, sponsored by the Salva Vida beer company and “Victoria” who is sponsored by a local milk company, Leyde. The Vida fans wear bright red shirts and the Victoria fans wear blue and white colours and are actually referred to as “lecheros”, the milk men.

Not knowing anything about the game, the standings or statistics or the teams I simply chose to support the Vida team – Salva Vida is a good beer and I don’t drink milk – simple choice as far as I was concerned. We wound up sitting in a Vida cheering section, surrounded by folks wearing red and ferociously chanting “Vida, Vida, Vida” and there is so much happening in the stands with all of the fans, that I kept forgetting to actually watch the game.

Vendors come through the stands selling everything – beer and soda in paper cups, pizza slices, tipico meal plates, pastry, trajadas in a plastic bag with chopped red cabbage and lime slices overtop, and chewing gum with all of the vendors calling out their wares overtop the sounds of the fans screaming, roaring and blowing small plastic horns that are loud enough to pass as compressed air horns! (These are also for sale by passing vendors…..)
The south section fans set up roars of chants, instigating choreographed leaps and waves of bodies moving in opposing directions; and also do their part in denigrating an opposing team’s goal scoring by hurling rolls of toilet paper over the chain link fencing to fly through the air and literally paper the playing field.

Vida did score in the first half and when play resumed, there was a gang of young men “the lecheros” dressed in blue and white who set themselves up in the Vida cheering section and proceeded to leap up and down and bellow out their chants much to the displeasure of us Vida supporters. It didn’t take long for our section to begin roaring “Vida, Vida” with fists punching into the air above our heads in order to drown their chants out. And then Vida scored the second goal of the game and people went wild!

Suddenly there were bags of water and paper glasses of beer and soda being hurled at the lecheros and I even saw a few umbrellas being raised overhead in self defence by non participants of this latest endeavour in basic mayhem. I even got christened, literally, by someone’s beer and may well consider bringing my own umbrella next time!

The game was still continuing and I really did try to pay attention to the actual play but as I said earlier, there was just so much else going on. The finale to the evening’s outrageousness was an unbelievable fireworks display set off in the empty south end bleachers while the game was finishing up and the noise level was phenomenal! I now understand why I can hear roaring crowds and fireworks from the stadium on game nights, all the way across town in my barrio.

One last moment of shock on my part was the armed police charging through the stands, chasing and capturing renegade lecheros, who I imagine had finally pushed the limits of good fun.

So the end scoring of the evening was Vida – 2, Victoria – 0 and the police – 5! All this good fun for only 50 Lp ($2.50 Can) – only in La Ceiba friends – and I did go back the following week for an excellent game of Vida vs Marathon, which ended in a 2 all tie but still managed to keep Vida in the semi finals for the next game.