PAOK ARIS. Greek Soccer

my article for my college newsletter

 PAOK Hooligans

 

            It was the calm before the storm as we strolled up Platia Aristotelous headed towards something incomparable to anything we had ever witnessed before. There’s a few kids playing in the center of the square and some dogs barking at each other, birds fly through the air and a few parents talk. We walk for a while in the peaceful element by which we were surrounded, discussing possibilities for the rest of the day but having no idea what was coming. We met a Greek friend who took the four of us in his tiny car to a backstreet behind the stadium, in the Toumba area. He takes us to the stadium after some confusion and we witness our first piece of something which will come to represent a piece of Greece not every visitor gets to see.

            The streets around the stadium are packed like nothing I had ever seen before. Fifteen police buses line the street and men in camouflage stand in front of then talking amongst themselves, not paying much attention to the impending chaos around them. All around us are men and women who looked like they were ready to kill anyone who stood in their way, all in black and white, a cataclysmic atmosphere getting louder and louder as we approached a street on the other side of the stadium. We turn a street and there it is in front of us, something we’ve never even seen in movies. From sidewalk to sidewalk packed with fans, hooligans, people who live for soccer, futbol, ποδοσφαιρο. There are chants banging against our eardrums, screaming at our primal instincts as beer bottles and flares fly over the asphalt, crashing and exploding around us. I can feel it surging in my veins, the urge to participate, to be a part of this, a piece of something I’ve never experienced, who knows if I’ll find the chance again? We met up with a few other PAOK fans and they took us back to the stadium. One began to brag about the obscene gestures he made towards an Aris player coming off the bus. We got there and we were immediately face with a new problem, none of us had tickets. The plan had been to jump the gate into the stadium. The site of the gate made that sound pretty crazy, very tall with an awning, which seemed impossible to get over, although it gets done every game apparently. Out of no where someone bursts on to the scene with a handful of tickets and everything seems to be perfect although I don’t know why, did they get tickets. Turns out they were tickets from the last PAOK-Aris game but we were going to get in with them anyway. We approach the turnstile and off the bat the tickets don’t work. Security begins to push us back and theres yelling but the people who took us would have none of this. Everyone is trying to squeeze through the turnstile two at a time and security is powerless to stopping it and begin to push people through. I suddenly feel myself forced forwards into the turnstile, crammed between the gate and the wall with a complete stranger pushing our way into the crowded stadium. We make it and move to the stairs, we snuck in and therefore, have no seat and are forced to stand the entire game, over two hours on a set of stairs packed so that we are forced to stand shoulder to shoulder. Fractions of a centimeter separate the insane amount of us packed into the aisle.

            Then the teams come out. Screams, chants, primal instinctual roars from the backs of our throats and the blackened bottoms of every fan’s throat pour into the stadium heavy in the once calm night air blending with the smoked from flares and fires, flying bottles and toilet paper rolls and burnt debris floating amongst the stand. Shirts are hung over the fences and lit on fire, massive bonfires around the edge of the field on the fences fill the air with smoke, a smoke that wouldn’t leave our lungs until we left the stadium hanging hot in stale in our chests and leaving only with our screams and cheers. It is comparable to a riot, a war zone in which there is no blood pumping in our veins but instead straight chemicals and adrenaline with not one though going to the blood, which once kept us alive.

            A cigarette brushes my cheek and flares and sparks fly over our heads, we cannot see the field for several minutes through the thick smoke and flames. Men use our shoulders to hoist themselves up and lead chants as a man pounds a drum below us in rhythm with the chants. Then a penalty, a penalty kick. The stadium quiets down in desperate anticipation, a shirtless man with tattoos and a tough look, a shaved head a scruff turns away not able to watch the following intense moments. The kick and, goal! Immediately without even thinking about it a scream rips from my throat and fills the air along with 30, 000 other voices exploding into the Aegean air. Jumping, pushing, shoving, yelling, screaming, throwing beer all over.

            This is how it continues for the rest of the game. The fans are as much players of the game as the men on the field themselves. The players acknowledge this too, running up to the fans in celebration. At one point a fight even broke out between players on the field as a PAOK player lay on the ground, motionless with pain. Its all about making noise and insulting the others. We all take out our keys at one point and start jangling them, a massive ringing in unison. I later found out it was a reference to Santa Claus and his slay, with a Christmas themed chant to explicit to repeat now, as with all the chants that rang in our ears that night. The chants were constantly evolving, with new ones showing up, then old ones reappearing, then more new ones. We would all squat down and get up, or do the wave, or turn around and jump or yell ole! Ole! Oleo PAOK! After the score reached four nothing the chant became, Tessera! Tessera! Over and over, or Four! Four! In English.

            The game ended and PAOK had won, the played tore off their jerseys and threw them into the stands as fans hopped the fence and tried to run onto the field. We walked out and made the journey to the car squeezing through bodies everywhere pouring out of the stadium like a colony of ants on attack from an anthill, in defense of the Queen, the life source, the team, PAOK. On the carried home we were tired and the music was to loud to speak over. I thought about the day over crunching guitars and pounding drums. This hooliganism, these firms, this was more then a game to these people. This was a life, a whole different lifestyle. Yelling, pushing, chanting, anthems, insults, beer, cigarettes, broken bottles, massive fires, it was a warzone and these were soldiers, these people were defending something. This was a different breed of human beings, dedicated, strange, wild, living life for a cause, a cause which none of us may recognize as important, but not many of us can come to understand. They are not violent, they are loyal, they are not loud, they are passionate, they are not human, they are hooligans, and it is not life, it is the team, it is PAOK, its is ποδοσφαιρο.