Gus Honeybun... Your Boys Took One Hell of a Beating by Simon Carter

Author:Simon Carter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2016-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 52

Tuesday, 25 March 1997

Before we go any further, let’s state the bloody obvious: I love football.

You, dear reader, might love football far more than me, and that’s fine. My devotion knows certain limits, after all.

But I’ll tell you something, and you might not like it.

You don’t love football more than a Borussia Dortmund fan called Ansgar Spiertz.

How do I know this?

Because Mr Spiertz has visited over 2,000 different football grounds in 94 different countries.

By visiting, I mean he’s watched games in all of them – 2,173 to be precise.

Two thousand, one hundred and seventy-three different grounds – it’s worth repeating, for it’s a staggering fact.

Ansgar Spiertz is a member – 20 times over, in fact – of the 100 Football Grounds Club, a group set up in 2006 for anyone who had watched games in, you’ve got it, a hundred (or more) different football grounds.

I was delighted to find out that I qualified for membership, thanks to my dual life as an ECFC fan and a sports journalist.

Sadly, the organisers closed the group in August 2009 after reaching 199 members.

I’m a few grounds off Ansgar, though, and a few countries too. I’ve seen games in England, Wales, the Republic of Ireland and, er, that’s it. Does Cornwall count?

Of his 2,173 grounds, over 1,100 of them are in Ansgar’s native Germany, including an impressive 29 in Berlin alone. I don’t mean he went to the games alone, though on second thoughts … I mean, would YOU go to 29 grounds in Berlin to watch football?!

One hundred and fourteen grounds are in England – which is more than I’ve been to in my own country and, lest we forget, I’VE BEEN PAID to visit quite a few of mine. Ansgar HAS PAID to visit all of his! And he lives in Germany!

He’s also visited nine grounds in Wales, of which two – bizarrely – are in Port Talbot. The vast majority of people who live in Port Talbot probably haven’t been to any of the grounds – a large amount probably wouldn’t know where to find them – yet a German football enthusiast has been to both!

Not only has Ansgar listed all his grounds on the web, he’s also created his own website with pictures from all the grounds, plus match details, club information and the badges of both competing clubs.

He has been to games in China, Burkina Faso, Andorra, Uruguay, Sudan and Bolivia, though I note he’s yet to experience the delights which are Heavitree United’s Wingfield Park.

He has to be the greatest football fan in the whole world, or the craziest.

Or both, I guess.

So whenever I think I watch too much football on television, or read about football too much, I know – deep down – there is no reason to worry. I am perfectly sane. I cannot hold any light-related objects to Mr Ansgar Spiertz – be it a candle, torch or a St James Park floodlight – when it comes to obsession.

And neither can you, dear reader.

In fact, surely neither can anyone on the planet.

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