Scotland …. Scotland … Oops!

He stood up and screamed , West Ham scarf tied round his wrist, shaven head beaded with sweat, veins protruding from his neck, jaw jutting forwards and teeth bared, his face scarlet with rage. He managed to fit the c-word once and the f-word three times into one busy little sentence.

Reading that paragraph written by a journalist covering a recent football match brought it all back to me in a flash; those vicious West Ham fans, desperate for blood, heading in our direction, ready to tear us limb from limb. It did not look good. In fact, on reflection, it looked positively suicidal.

We’d bought some corporate tickets to take two senior clients to the football. It was England vs Scotland at Wembley. The winners, over two legs, would go through to the European championships. The ‘corporate’ tickets cost £750 each and included a pre-match meal, a post match dinner with special guests and unlimited booze. It was still expensive but we’d been working on this deal for nearly four years and we were getting to the end so a bit of ‘corporate hospitality’ was not amiss, even at these prices.

The problem was quite apparent as soon as we took our seats. We were in the England ‘end’ of the ground and whilst there’s quite a few things you can do to remain inconspicuous in hostile territory, wearing full Scottish dress (i.e. – a kilt- as one of the clients was), is not one of them.

Despite the occasional neanderthal glances in our direction, the first half was passing relatively peacefully, that is until right against the run of play, Scotland had the temerity to score a goal. Now it’s rare enough for Scotland to score a goal but for them to score against England, well, wrong end or not, two of the four of us (the Scots) instinctively stood and cheered.

Bad move. As the elation poured from us in shrieks of ‘C’mon Scotland’ and our colleagues tried to drag us back into our seats, it was noticeable that quite a few of the surrounding England ‘supporters’ had left their seats and were heading in our direction. I immediately noticed the West Ham scarves and remembered that good footballing club or not, their fans were amongst the worst on the planet.

I refused to be intimidated by this show of ungentlemanly behaviour by the ‘home’ fans and continued to cheer my team’s goal whilst goading the approaching mob, happy in the knowledge that there were several stewards around who, no doubt, would calm the Neanderthals down and we could continue to watch the game. No such luck. The stewards took one look at the shaven-headed thugs and did the best vanishing act you’ve seen since David Copperfield made that Jumbo Jet disappear!

My life was just passing before me. I was wondering if, upon reports of our deaths, the deal would still be completed. Would the company categorize this as ‘death on business’ and my heirs would get four times my salary as an insurance payout? And just as the first thug was close enough that I could read the tattoos on his tongue, the long arm of the law intervened and we were surrounded by the boys in blue. Phew!

The outcome was that we were ‘arrested’ , held by the police until they could establish what had happened (wrong tickets – wrong end etc) and eventually, despite our protestations, we were ejected from the game.

Needless to say that managing to get two senior banking clients ‘arrested’ and thrown out of a football game caused a bit of consternation within BT but I’m pleased to say the deal was completed and we celebrated by – yup – you’ve guessed it - by going to another football match. This time in Paris where hopefully there would be no West Ham supporters.