Manchester United are in Aalborg today for a first round Champions League match - and reading this article from a British reporter in Aalborg, you really notice how respectful the Danish fans are. I can’t think of many other places (and neither, it seems, can the reporter) where an opposing football team is greeted by cheers and placards around town welcoming them. Apparently, even the hotel staff formed a kind of line of honour when the United players walked in.

Since the 80s, Danish football fans have been known as roligans - a mix of rolig (the Danish word for calm) and hooligan, the English word for a football fan [sic] - and this reputation shows no signs of abating. I wonder, though, if the roligans will ever beat the Japanese. At a game I watched in Japan, the fans brought there own rubbish bags and voluntarily cleaned up the stadium as they left!

I usually root for the underdog, but the reaction of the people of Aalborg has doubled my desire for them to cause an upset.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am by Dan Elloway and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.