Match Day. The reason we are in this wonderful country.
Spoiler alert. We drew 2:2. It’s weird, coming back from two nil down always feels like a victory, whilst throwing away a two nil lead always feels like a loss, emotionally, even though it’s technically not. More about the game later, but don’t expect analysis of formations or player ratings, this is more of a subjective reflection on one of many match day experiences.
We start the day by fueling up in our favourite vegan restaurant. It’s a bit of a break from tradition for us to not be sampling lots of different local restaurants, but we’ve made up for it by working our way through the menu throughout the week.
We check out our local, The Dubliner, but there are no seats, so after stopping off to buy a fluffy puffin (no, it’s not a euphemism, it’s a child’s toy) for my granddaughter, we head for The Irishman to check out the unofficial ‘pre-match party’. Not only are there no seats, there doesn’t appear to even be any standing room, so we look through the door and turn around. There’s still six hours to kick off but it’s a long walk. We decide to walk slowly, taking in a few pubs on the way.
First stop is Smekkleysa Records, which doubles up as a coffee shop and bar. We enter through the ground floor where the record shop is situated. There are numerous racks of vinyl, CDs and T-shirts. There’s an extensive display of albums by the Sugarcubes, the Band Bjork was in before she was Bjork. Given they split up thirty two years ago, it seems a bit excessive, but as well as being a record shop, they are also the label that put out those records.
We head up to the bar, which is light years away from the Irishman, quiet chilled and relaxed. We order beers and find ourselves constantly Shazaming the the cool music they are playing.
After chilling for an hour, we head towards the stadium in search of a pub en route. Just as we are close to giving up we bump into Bangor’s answer to Last of the Summer Wine, three lovely chaps we met in Podgorica (See Montenegro Or Bust blog). As usual, they know where to find a pub with craft beers, and it’s their happy hour. It takes a few missed turns (slow down Glyn, you won’t miss so many turns), but we soon find ourselves in the poshest craft ale pubs I’ve ever been in. We get served, but there’s nowhere to sit. The barman kindly tells is there is another bar upstairs if we want to take our drinks up. We do.
It turns out the craft beer pub is actually one of several bars in the hotel where the Wales squad are staying. After a few minutes we see the team climb aboard the bus. I hope they haven’t also been on the craft beer.
We are still thirty minutes from the stadium, but Glyn knows the location of another craft ale pub en route. Or at least he thinks he does. Several more wrong turns and we are sat drinking craft beer in a pub near the ground, that hardly any other Wales fans have sussed. Well, there’s a few in there, but it’s only a small place and we easily find seats.
Now we really have run out of pubs and it’s time to get to the game. In a blink of an eye we have gone from six hours to kill, to arriving as the national anthems are being played.
Laugardalsvöllur Stadium opened in 1953. It has stands on two sides but not behind the goals. There’s just a wire fence at each end so it would be easy to watch the game from outside the stadium, and many local kids do.
The stadium has a capacity of 9,500, so on top of the 1,000 away tickets allocated to Wales fans, there are also many Welsh in the home end.
The stadium is not full though, and that’s partly due to several sex scandals that have rocked the Icelandic FA, resulting in some people turning their back on the team, in protest at the way the allegations were handled. We hear anecdotally that it has actually resulted in an increase of support for the women’s team.
Arriving late, we head to the block in which our seats are allocated. Now I’m no stranger to the concept of people just standing wherever they like at away games, but the stand is total chaos. It looks like all the Wales fans with tickets in the home end have walked into the away end. There’s even Iceland fans in our end swapping scarves and hats. There’s no point even trying to find our seat, we just join the five hundred other people blocking the aisles.
The crowd are in good cheer, and get even more good cheerier when Ben Johnson hits the back of net after just eleven minutes.
The home fans keep themselves going by banging drums and doing the ‘Volcano Clap’ thing that came to the football world’s attention when they played in Euro 2016. The year Iceland knocked England out and Wales went on to the Semi Final. Just saying like, innit.
The Wales fans quickly adapt the chant with a sheep related remix. There’s also an inappropriate chant about one of the Iceland squad and his connection with the aforementioned sex scandals. Come on lads, there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute. Why even mention it?
Before half time Harry Wilson makes it two nil.
We decide to go for the traditional ‘beat the rush’ pint just before half time and then go and stand behind the goals, like the locals do. There’s a few familiar faces there and it’s far less chaotic. Without the body heat of the crowd though, it’s a bit bloody nippy.
My professional curiosity is aroused by a chap going up and down the pitch at half time and appears to be gritting the pitch. I wonder what he’s using because the traditional salt would ruin the grass.
Despite being wrapped up like Nogin the Nog, we are freezing. My bladder actually freezes. There is a positive of this though, it means I won’t piss myself til my bladder thaws out in the pub.
We start the second half in good cheer and full of hope. But as the old saying goes, it’s the hope that kills you. The team that shone in the first half are eclipsed in the second, as Iceland bang in two to equalise. At the end of the ninety minutes, we haven’t lost, but it feels like we did. Even though Bellamy’s unbeaten record remains, it feels like the honeymoon is over. But hey, I didn’t piss myself.
As the crowd decants itself from the ground to the city centre, there is despondency amongst the Wales fans. We stop off at another craft beer pub (where the hell were they when we were trying to escape the Dublin Triangle?). Then mingle with the bucket hats and bobble hats as Reykjavik goes about its Reykjavik business. Everywhere is open till 4am and pubs that were empty in the week now have bouncers on the door. The Lebowski bar we had been keen to check out following recommendations, is bouncing. As is Lemmy. I think the recommendations were aimed at young people. We bump into a familiar face from the Rhondda who wants to go and catch some of the live music we had been craving all week. He is distraught about tonight’s draw and wants to be near music so loud he can’t think about it. He’s also so drunk he thinks he’s thirty years younger than he is, as he tries to negotiate the steps up into the Whiskey Bar.
We behave like a couple of old bastards who are thinking about the fact that we have to get up early to rinse one more experience out of the trip. Tomorrow we finally do the Golden Circle. We head back to the apartment before my bladder thaws out and thus avoiding a Golden Shower.