So I come from England. Now, when you picture
that rain-blessed island known as God’s
green land, what comes to mind?
Well, I think I may have already influenced
your opinion one way or another by including the word rain in my question. But, what other things?
Tea. The queen. David Beckham. Football. Kilts
(well, they are Scottish but same difference). Lobster like skin. Heart attack
inducing breakfasts. Warm, flat beer. Funny accents. Castles.
To be fair the above is not too far off the
mark. Though I have to say not many of us talk like the Queen, David Beckham is
more American than English these days, not all of us burn when in Spain and
very few of us eat a full English breakfast unless we are either very fat or
very hungover.
Anyway, what is the point of this cultural
exposition?
Well I wonder how many of you think of
skinheads, hooliganism, and the grand football firms of the 1980s? Not many I
suppose. Unless you happen to be a skinhead from Zagreb that is.
Yes, my latest travel regret takes us to the
capital city of that surprisingly expensive yet nonetheless magnificent
country, Croatia.
I travelled there alone in the summer of 2009,
a trip that took me through Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Bosnia as well as
Croatia. Now, that trip itself has quite a few regrets, chief among them the
fact that I spent most of my time drinking way too much and eating Forneti, a
diet that was to have dire consequences once I returned to Sydney and attempted
to adjust to normal life.
Anyway, my first stop in Croatia was the
capital, Zagreb, a wonderful place which boasts the kind of jaw-dropping
architecture left by the Austro-Hungarian Empire that generally makes most of
the cities in that region somewhat indistinguishable from each other.
I had settled into my hostel with a guy I’d met
a week before in Bled and then bumped into on the train. We picked up some
other random traveller as you do and, after leaving my bag in a private room
that suspiciously looked like a grandma’s apartment complete with doilies,
family pictures and a room that I was told never to enter, we set out to get
some drinks and discover the city.
What we soon discovered was that people in Zagreb
are fantastically friendly. In fact, no sooner had we arrived in the main
square and taken up our seats around a fountain with some Ozujskos (local beer)
than we managed to attract two rather funny looking fellows. Both had skinheads
and a slightly aggressive way of expressing their enthusiasm. Either way, who
was I to say what’s what in a foreign country? As such, I adopted the mantra of
all travellers, “when in Rome” and conversed with them about a variety of
topics until, when they realised I was English, the conversation turned rapidly
to football.
In no time at all the larger of the two, a man
who could strike fear into the heart of anyone, started to exclaim in a state
of such excitement that I can still picture his jerking limbs and exploding
smile how much he loved English football and especially the hooligan firms of
the 1980s.
He proudly then informed me that he belonged to
one such firm in Croatia and, with a chest that both swelled with pride and
threateningly sought my approval, he added that his firm modelled themselves on
those violent shadows of England’s past.
Well, what was I to do? Tell him I came from a
town which was plagued by such hairless idiots and as such I’d been brought up
ever fearful of their violent ways and senseless love of kicking the shit out
of anything that slightly resembled something beyond their thought capacity?
Of course not. Instead I just went with it,
much to the frowning and somewhat pale-faced disapproval of my American friend.
He, sensing that it was best to simply adopt a façade and go with it, told our
two new chums that he too was English, something they didn’t even bat an eyelid
at even though he had such a Californian drawl that one constantly assumed he
was stoned.
I should add here that, contrary to that awful
piece of American propaganda, Green
Street, football firms in England and elsewhere don’t really take too
kindly to Americans owing to both their awfulness at football and the fact that
they never seem to know anything about it.
So, when does this story become a regret? Well,
reduced now to just myself, the American and these two bulky, violent and no
doubt very unpredictable English hooligan loving locals, everything went
decidedly pear-shaped when we all agreed on getting a tram somewhere in the
city’s North to check out the best graffiti of the Bad Blue Boys, the group of
interest sharing short-haired gentlemen that we had managed to get ourselves
mixed with.
Looking back, it was a stupid decision. But, in
my defence I was no doubt already half-cut as well as under the influence of
being as open-minded as possible.
To be fair, the trip actually went quite
successfully, though as I began to sober up it did begin to dawn on me that I
had no idea where I was and that I was with two men who increasingly showed
their violent nature as they got more and more inebriated. At some point a
third, equally skin-headed, person joined us and that was when things turned
truly sour. He and one of the others began to wrap arms around each other and
shout in Croatian. Now, I should point out that they were enveloped in that
strange, semi-homoerotic touchy feelyness that some violent men seem to develop
when they get drunk and as such it was apparent that they were not going to
vent their building need for blood out on each other.
Instead it became startlingly obvious that my
American friend and I were being drawn into something that would equal a far
worse regret than the one I am currently writing.
Sensing impending doom, my American friend and
I insisted we all head back to the city. To mask our fear I adopted my best
hooligan chants to keep the two hot-blooded skinheads happy and, once on a tram,
they stood away from us somewhat while the third of their number, who had grown
quieter as the night wore on, stood with my American friend and I.
He stared at us and we tried to look away.
I think the expression, ‘what the fuck!’ may
have flashed through my thoughts as this gentleman stood and stared.
My friend and I exchanged looks, neither one of
us wanting to voice what we feared was rapidly becoming a reality.
Darkness surrounded the near empty tram and it
was late, much too late to be lost in a foreign city with only some drunk local
football hooligans to guide you home.
Eventually the one next to us, the starey one,
broke the silence with a slurred voice little more than a whisper.
“They want to rob you”, he said before
following quickly, “they are drunk and they will rob you and steal everything.”
I smiled, more from fear than anything else,
and looked over at the other two who, like the whole thing was planned and
merely part of a movie, were staring at my American friend and I with faces
that no amount of football chants would help to turn into smiles.
Shit.
“You need to get off soon, this is near where
you are staying. I will come with you. We wait for the doors to almost close
then we jump,” the now friendly hooligan said. How he knew where we lived I
have no idea but there are many mysteries to that night.
“Why… why do…?” I began.
“They are not my friends, I don’t know them.
They are bad,” the skinhead who had proved to be something of a lamb in wolf’s
clothing said to us. A few questions popped into my head but before I could
answer them the tram stopped. The doors opened. They stayed open.
“Now,” our new friend declared and we all
jumped off just as the doors closed and the tram rattled away with only the red
faces of the two other skinheads in the windows watching us.
“Come quick, they will come soon.”
I wasn’t going to argue and to be fair I was so
scared I couldn’t even think. My American friend and I ran with the Croat’s
shaven white head before us. We dashed along streets that were empty and down an
alley that finally ended in the main square where we had met that day. From
there it was a short sprint to our hostel.
We stopped outside. He looked at us, we smiled
and thanked him.
“Those guys are bad guys, I’m not. Give me your
number, we can hang out tomorrow,” he said.
I gave him my number with absolutely no
intention of calling him and my American friend and I retreated to the safety
of our hostel, shaken but thankfully not in pieces down some back alley with
empty pockets.
Recently I told some friends that I spent all
my time in Zagreb sitting in a hostel drinking beer and eating Forneti. They
laughed and took the piss out of me. Now perhaps they’ll know why, for after
that first night I was convinced that the two skinheads who’d been left on the
tram would be looking for my friends and I, stalking the streets with chants
lingering on thirsty lips.
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