Sometimes you have that moment in life when you just stop and think “yeah, I’m really doing this aren’t I”. It’s a great feeling, you sort of feel like you’re in a movie a little bit, the main character in something you can half-remember enviously watching. I’m only young, hopefully I’ve got plenty of these moments ahead of me, but I can vividly remember my first.
Marrakech is a great city; it has some of the craziness of Casablanca but not too much for a 16-year-old and his dad to go on holiday for a week. It has hot sun, historic buildings, shopping malls and bustling bazaars. What Marrakech also had was a team in the first division (at the time) called Kawkab Marrakech. So we thought that while we were there, we could catch a game of football. Why not, it would be our first match outside of the British Isles. It was in August of 2018 when me and my Dad went on our adventure, completely unprepared, to go watch Marrakech versus FUS de Rabat in Morocco.
When you do things on holiday you normally plan them out, but for some reason or another (probably just for the fun of it), we did no prior planning. We didn’t know anything about Moroccan football; we didn’t even know where Kawkab Marrakech played. It isn’t a very enticing destination for tourists so there wasn’t information about it in our hotel lobby. We did know the general direction the stadium was in but only because we saw a bus heading north, packed with about fifty fans, draped in red, hanging out of windows and chanting ferociously. We thought it best to catch the next bus going that way.
Needless to say, Marrakech central bus station isn’t a particularly ‘well-oiled machine’, but after some pushing, shoving, shouting and paying we eventually managed to blag our way onto the right bus and we were only a thirty-minute ride out of town to the stadium.
As you approach the Stade de Marrakech what you see from your grimy bus window is a fortress; thick, stout, brutal. Its floodlights are tall towers that loom over battlements and are equally foreboding. It was designed by famed Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti, the same man who designed Sampdoria and Genoa’s Luigi Ferraris Stadium with which it shares many design aspects. At each of the turnstiles, there’s an armed policeman, staring at you with an arm resting on his automatic rifle, you hope you don’t look too conspicuous. Once you scan your ticket then the wall of sound hits you for the first time. And a smile probably creeps onto your face. Horns and chants fill the air, and you can feel a chorus of snare drums in your feet.
Marrakech’s best and loudest fans call themselves ‘The Crazy Boys’ and they live in the upper deck of the Stade de Marrakech’s South stand and style themselves after the typical ultras groups of Europe, they like to come to games with scarves (to swing around your head although your tshirt also works), face coverings, megaphones, flags and drums. The domain of the Crazy Boys is the most raucous, and as the name would suggest, ‘crazy’ part of the stadium. The Stade de Marrakech’s 45,000 capacity was not even close to being a quarter full, the North, East and West stands were sparsely populated and quiet, but the South Stand was alive with passion, an electric sense of community and two white, English tourists from Chesterfield. Yes, my Dad unknowingly bought us tickets to join the Crazy Boys for the evening.
Some of you may wince at the thought of standing with the Crazy Boy’s but it was one of the best accidents my Dad has made. There may have been some bemusement at our presence, it’s obvious that not many tourists come to Kawkab games but there was no hostility to us whatsoever. We were welcomed with open arms to stand on a seat and sing and shout and jump and clap with the rest of them. Across the world, the media likes to present passionate football fans as criminals and miscreants but these weren’t bad people; they were here for the love of their team and a game of football. As I sang along with the Arabic chants as best I could and joined in with all the choreographed movements during the match (sit down, sway, get up, three shouts, back down again etc) I didn’t feel like a foreigner; I felt like a ‘Crazy Boy’.
The Moroccan first division obviously isn’t of the highest calibre but I watch non-league football every week so I didn’t care. We were there for the atmosphere and were satisfied. Honestly, It was an awful match, it was really bad. Since that day in 2018, Marrakech has dropped into the second division in Morocco and they looked like relegation fodder even when I went to see them. But, after all, we didn’t really go for the football.
There was very little quality on the pitch and even less to cheer about for Marrakech. Rabat took the lead early in the first half and as the game lurched into stoppage time, Marrakech were still 0-1 down. The Crazy Boys weren’t happy; a scuffle broke out at the front of the stand. Soon the armed police from outside rushed to the seats we all had to scramble out. Together, the Crazy Boys and I stood in the narrow concourse watching the final minutes of the game.
In the 92nd minute, Marrakech had what was probably their first shot of the night. They sent a long ball up and it was knocked down to the edge of the box by a Rabat defender. The subsequent shot was a peach, from outside of the box and it was a sweet last-minute equaliser. I had no investment in this team. I didn’t even know they existed a couple of days before I landed in Marrakech but as I got caught up in the celebration I hugged a Crazy Boy and pumped my fists in jubilation.
As we were herded out of the stadium by armed police, delirious from that fleeting glory, we remembered we had no idea how to get back into town. But soon a final act of fortuity landed at our feet when a Tuk-tuk driver and his little boy crossed our paths. I guess we looked desperate enough, so we were able to hitch a ride back into town with them and a man from Wolfsburg who also happened to be there. The German told us of his adventures watching football across the globe, he was currently touring North Africa and I listened in awe as he told of three more games in Morocco he had lined up that week. As a 16-year-old kid, I was jealous beyond belief, but he also said that this was the best game he had seen all year, and that brought some solace.
Out the back of the Tuk-tuk, with the imposing floodlights of The Stade de Marrakech soaring into the sky, swarms of mopeds buzzed around me. When I was able to catch some eye contact with a Kawkab fan we cheered with each other, reliving those final seconds of triumph. If me and a Crazy Boy met in any other circumstances I doubt we’d have much to talk about, I can’t speak Arabic after all, but in that moment, me hanging out of a Tuk-tuk and him riding his scooter, we were connected, without words, without blood, just with football.
The Post Match 
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