Fan perspective: Rain, kebabs, and more United memories

Biblical rain in Donostia-San Sebastian condemned them to the scrapheap the morning after an impressive but ultimately futile display from Manchester United.

Then, it was Alejandro Garnacho scoring for victory against Real Sociedad, but not by a wide enough margin.

Garnacho scored again against Galatasaray - another fantastic goal - but once again, United couldn’t do quite enough.

Now, after Matchday Five of this season’s UEFA Champions League, my shoes squeak once again. I thought that downpour in northern Spain was the most intense I’d ever see. Rivers developed in the streets in minutes. And then I came to Istanbul…

And this time it was on matchday itself, not the morning after. We arose on Wednesday morning to find seagulls outside our window. It’s never a good sign when they come inland.

Water had seeped through the windows of our hotel room and a blustering wind whipped at the walls. Our matchday plan to take a ferry up the Bosphorous out of Galatasaray territory and into the safe haven of Besiktas seem doomed for failure. And it was.

Thankfully, Istanbul is such an unbelievably large place that there are unquantifiable options when you wake up each day. And thankfully, given the deluge of rain on Wednesday, we and many other Reds had been in town since Sunday. Some had been there for even longer.

We enjoyed several glorious days in crisp sunshine in a city which can offer a surprise around every corner. Istanbul has 3,000 odd mosques, and they are, without fail, stunning, both in the day and at night. Fairytale-like buildings with domed roofs and towering spikes around them, jutting beautifully skywards. Add in markets half a millennium old, a surging river dividing it into parts and packed hills, and it makes quite the vista.

Unlike on most European aways, it was a little hard to come across Reds throughout the week. Istanbul is just too big. We certainly found a few but, wanting to avoid any trouble from Galatasaray’s notorious supporters, we steered well clear of any big gatherings of United fans, and any Irish pubs.

Come matchday, gathering in any kind of square or street proved impossible. That rain really was something else.

Just around the corner from where United’s Under-19s were playing in the UEFA Youth League we found a lovely family-run Georgian restaurant. As the streets turned into rivers outside, we ate Georgian dumplings, kebabs, fried bread, and stew and drank Turkish tea and Efes beer in the warmth. We got the occasional reminder of how brilliant it was to be doing that when another mate arrived looking like a dog sheepishly jumping out of a river.

The rain didn’t relent but, as I say, luckily most Reds had been in town for a couple of days and had the chance to fully enjoy the city before. If you’re going to make the trek to Turkey, it’s worth making a proper trip of it!

The routes some taken to Istanbul ranged, as with every away, from the straightforward (Manchester to Istanbul, a direct flight) to the extraordinary. One Red travelled through Warsaw and Tbilisi in Georgia. 

We considered our options for getting to the ground. An ark was suggested!

United had arranged some supporters’ coaches, but we were miles away from the meeting point. We tried to find a taxi, but the rain made that impossible too. Eventually we settled on a slightly nervy journey on the Metro. Those Galatasaray fans again! It was all fine in the end. We came out of the station outside RAMS Park and could smell flare smoke. Bouncing Galatasaray fans decked out in red-and-yellow anoraks, grabbing food, banging drums and enjoying the pre-match atmosphere.

We eventually found the away end, where many Reds encountered serious problems entering. Real tickets were failing to make the turnstiles open and the home club’s stewards were generally unwilling to help. My brother had this problem but was fortunate to have at least on local arguing his case and eventually he and the rest made their way in, but we know of one fan who missed United’s two opening goals because of the issues. In my opinion, games of this high stature shouldn’t have occurrences like this.

Those goals… god, they were good. After the noise of the Galatasaray fans at kick-off and the whistling, to silence a ground like that with two fantastic strikes from Garnacho and Bruno, that felt good. There is no better feeling than looking around you and seeing mates bouncing with that expression of uninhibited joy after travelling all that way across the world. No better feeling.

We got it again with Scott McTominay’s goal, down way below but in front of us. And it felt just as good. And then United let it slip.

All we could say at full-time was how incredible it is to have seen us scored three goals in each European away game this season, but fail to win any of them. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it. It proves there are some real positives in this United team and it’s entertaining — there’s no doubt about that. But I’d be lying if I said the away end wasn’t deflated after full-time. It was. And when you’re facing an hour locked into the ground while the home supporters disperse, you really need that winning feeling.

After over an hour in the ground, we had begun to move on from the result. A couple of United Calypsos got going and we all boarded buses back into town. We filled the time with United trivia and found a restaurant serving chicken kebabs and chips at 2am. Istanbul is magic like that. Not a takeaway or fast food place. An actual restaurant with a properly welcoming owner. It was just a shame he had the highlights of Galatasaray’s goals on!