MASK & YOU WILL RECEIVE
Joy as fans return
As a season-ticket holder for the last 12 years, a matchday starts walking down a King Street full of supporters. Yesterday it was quiet. We – I went with my son Scott – had to be at Pittodrie for between quarter-past two and half-past for our block.
Everything was very well organised going in, there were lots of stewards explaining what was going to happen.
We had our temperature checked, which brought that momentary panic – it would have been a disaster if told to turn around. There was lots of social distancing, lots of hand sanitising – it felt very safe from a Covid point of view.
I wasn’t sure what to expect with all the dos and don’ts that were sent out. But once you got towards the ground itself, it felt an awful lot more like being back at Pittodrie. It was straight to your seat, which given there were only 300 folk, was quite easy. Obviously the pie kiosk was shut as this wasn’t a normal match.
But there were still people having banter. Somebody even gave the ref a boo in the warm-up and he jokingly told him to sit down and be quiet.
Everybody had their face coverings on, so yes it was strange but people certainly seemed to adhere to what the club were trying to do to make it safe. To make it something that could be repeated because it did seem to tick all the boxes in terms of guidelines.
I think the whole thing of not standing up was the biggie. Most people, certainly around about us, stood up for the goal because it was a cracker.
There was cheering, there was a shout, it is just naturally going to happen.
Sitting there in a sparsely populated stand, seeing the other three empty, it was strange at the start. But apart from the lack of singing and shouting, you became absorbed in the game and got the reaction from other fans.
There were still the groans when things went wrong, the build-up if something good happened. There was still a bit of atmosphere – obviously much diluted – but it felt much more like the football.
It was so much better seeing it live than on telly. I felt lucky.