Well it was nearly a perfect day, CD Tenerife took a late lead at Las Palmas only to see the Pio’s grab an equaliser seven minutes into injury time, when only 5 minutes had been signalled. So a 1-1 draw but to hear the Pio fans sounding off, you would have thought they had won the World cup. After our goal from Sicilia we were pelted with bottles, stones etc but most of it didn’t reach us. The near 2,000 Tenerife fans were of course well behaved – well sort of.
The day started with an early getaway from The Royal Oak, just a mini bus for the Armada Sur, but a few bottles later, we caught up with the main group at Santa Cruz ferry port. On a typically hot sunny day, we all partied and consumed lots of Dorada as our angelic voices rang out across the capital. There were the usual kick abouts with yellow Pio birds as the riot police looked on in menacing poses. The ferry was packed and bouncing once we got drinking and singing, and the hour crossing flew by. The coach convoy to the ground was relatively safe, just gestures from the locals as we passed-no bricks this year.
Herded into the ground, the huge banners were unfurled and free blue and white tshirts were dished out to make up the club flag, hope it worked on the television coverage. the game was the usual derby, drifting towards a goal less draw till Sicilia put us ahead, but we knew it was just too good to be true and had to settle for the draw.
The police held us back for about an hour as the stadium was cleared, some Pio fans tried to get at us but settled for good old fashioned verbal abuse. it was a slow convoy back to the ferry port with locals along the roadside waving us off, although some were only using 1 or 2 fingers. Cant believe so many have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than wait for the away coaches to pass by so they can shout at us.
The ferry trip was very liquid and fun,not too many big waves, but we realised that 2 of the Armada Sur had missed the boat and were on the next ferry so we were forced to have a beer in a very seedy Santa Cruz bar while we waited for them to dock. It was a long but very enjoyable day, maybe next year we will finally nail the pio’s.