It was still summer in Lanarkshire, but someone had forgotten to tell the clouds. Hefty and granite, they smothered skies that for decades had been illuminated by the fruits of blast furnaces. Now, only claret and amber shirts and scarves made steel town streets glow. Finally the clouds parted, leaving 400 Germans dry as they gathered to sing in front of the Pig Iron pub. Then the tourists marched on to Fir Park, arriving with the kind of punctuality that even a dad in charge of holiday airport timings would regard as excessive.
Parading with altogether less ceremony, locals later followed the same route in great strides, their heads raised as if magnetised towards the stadium’s blazing floodlights. There was purpose in their movements, a form of matchday deportment that said: “This one matters.” Here was not some humdrum league game against a side they would meet at least twice more this season; Freiburg were something else, Europe was something richer. This was a silk fixture in a world of sackcloth.
At the ground they queued on Fir Park Street and around the Davie Cooper Stand, a hungry army awaiting the sustenance kick-off would bring. Sunshine visited at last and predictions were swapped, from “I’ve got a sneaky feeling” to “Gubbed.” Old pals greeted one another, glints and grins restored because they were here and it mattered. Kids yanked mums towards turnstiles and teenagers felt a million miles from double maths first thing tomorrow. Community in its sparky difference is alive and well beneath our pylons.
All climbed their steps and found Fir Park resplendent and tuneful, a rowdy sanctuary. In the East Stand, Motherwell’s Block E ultras group had turned set designers and contrived a terrific drop scene worthy of any great theatre. Giant pennants marking past European ties were hoisted from the rafters, and a long banner greeted the players as they strolled onto the pitch. ‘Write your name in history’, it said, ‘go further than those before you’. It and the gorgeous racket which crescendoed at kick-off sprinkled goosebumps upon the terminally numb.
Motherwell started as if they had taken the banner to be an instruction. After one minute, Emmanuel Longelo acquired possession on the touchline just shy of halfway and pushed the ball inside to Joe Hodge. Longelo then sprinted through the claret and amber tickertape now littered on the pitch, a boy running among autumn leaves. Hodge relocated Longelo deliciously and the wandering left-back scooted towards the penalty area. The crowd roared him on, first with parental encouragement and then feverish belief. Surely tonight couldn’t be this easy? Longelo proceeded without interruption, pushed the ball into the box and then — somehow, as if a wand had been tapped — Regan Charles-Cook rolled it into the net.
What noise the goal unleashed. What primal, evangelical glee. The earth seemed to move. It was enough to restoke the furnaces of Ravenscraig. In the Main Stand, guttural acclamations seemed to rebound from the rafters. Men who never kissed their wives in public embraced each other and didn’t care who noticed. Kids danced and then stared agog as their dads climbed on seats. Over in Block E, human dodgems made happy bedlam and pies flew. This fans’ club — this town’s club — had a moment to smile about forevermore.
Bewildered, the players of Freiburg staggered back towards the halfway line. Many looked as though they had just seen something they shouldn’t have. “We’re all going on a European tour” chorused the delirious of Fir Park. Yet the Germans composed themselves rapidly, snow settling after an avalanche. Moving rhythmically, they passed the ball around Motherwell and connived half-chances.
The Steelmen did not wilt. Home goalkeeper Alex Paulsen caught, parried and commanded. His outfield teammates hunted down opponents ravenously and blocked vehemently. Freiburg, though, were swarming. Only a quarter of the game had passed and it felt as though Motherwell were defending their lead during the final minutes of the second-leg. Meanwhile on the electronic hoardings, an advert for Well’s Christmas party offering flashed gaudily. It was enjoyable to imagine a drinker watching in a Freiburg bierkeller, wiping away his frothy moustache and asking: “‘Barry Chisholm singer and entertainer.’ Was ist das?”
Increasingly, the articulate feet of Yuito Suzuki flummoxed Motherwell. The Japan international seemed to skate across the turf. Left-winger Derry Scherhant was similarly masterly. After 25 minutes, he lulled from Motherwell’s Tawanda Maswanhise a galumphing challenge just outside the area. Scherhant coiled the resulting free-kick into the box where centre-half Matthias Ginter waited. Ginter, sporting the haircut of a freshly unboxed Action Man, hopped and headed in. There came from the stands sighs at this inevitable equaliser, but they were soon trounced by defiant song. All evening, just as the Motherwell players clung to passing principles where brutish stuff would have been understandable, their supporters kept their hymnbooks close by and applauded with flamenco levels of enthusiasm.
Any negativity was reserved for referee Radu Petrescu. Although the lengthy VAR delay which followed the opening goal could not be blamed on him, Petrescu was the public embodiment of this pox on football. At other times, he awarded fussy free-kicks and seemed to be attempting to speak through his whistle, blowing in piercing syllables like some Pingu dressed in sanitary blue. Petrescu was not helped by his heavy running style, which resembled that of a man dashing for a bus while carrying four bags of Lidl shopping. In truth, even if he was favouring the German side as many at Fir Park alleged, they did not need his help. For the rest of the half they settled into dominance, their supremacy matched by home stubbornness.
The latest edition of Nutmeg Magazine has just been sent to the printers. To subscribe, choose ‘Annual’ below — and it will be dropping through your letterbox in early September.
As the sun fell at the start of the second half, it daubed a pale orange colour upon the top tier of the Tommy McLean Stand and the highest windows of the tower blocks beyond the stadium — ghostly flames of the old Motherwell reawakened. Stirring too were the home side, now dashing forward and harrying with renewed vigour. While they could not reward their followers with a goal, there was some compensation when Niklas Beste received a booking. From the stands they jeered with shameful joy (someone should invent a word for it) as Beste — wearing the scraggly demeanour of an outdoor pursuits instructor into The Levellers — received his telling off.
The booking proved to be a rare moment of second-half levity. On the hour mark, Croatia’s Igor Matanović — gliding around with menace — nudged the ball to Suzuki. He dummied deftly and slotted Yannik Engelhardt through on goal. Centre-half Martin Moorman missed with a left-handed grab at Engelhardt’s back but connected with a second, right-handed swipe. Engelhardt then seemed to clip his own ankle. Whatever the true cause of his descent, he was soon sprawled on the turf like a cat on a newspaper. There followed another VAR adjournment at the end of which Moorman’s yellow card was upgraded to a red. Ginter planted the penalty beyond Paulsen and everyone knew in the way that supporters do that the game was already over.
For half an hour Freiburg pushed the ball around, their football controlled rather than concerted. A hooter blown by a child that in the first half added to the atmosphere now sounded like a forlorn horn belonging to a street busker with no coins in his hat. Everything drifted and the players became flotsam. The match they now served hit a Morse Code pattern: Pass. Pass pass pass. Shot. Block. Whistle. Whistle whistle. Corner. Header. Goal. Whistle whistle whistle.
Those final dots and dashes were cruel on Motherwell. Yet Keisuke Gotō’s goal to make it 1-3 was instantly forgotten by those who dream in claret and amber. What they will remember are those first minutes, when it felt like they could reach up and touch the sky.
