Gate opens to a match made in heaven

THE gates to my house are in sorry disrepair.

When visitors come, they complain about how they routinely injure themselves trying to lift the broken rusty things from their wonky hinges and clang them shut again. It’s a two-armed operation, extra difficult if carrying shopping or small children. Nobody ever enters or exits my property in a hurry. I keep being told to go to B&Q and get some new ones.

The lodger has even offered to install them for free. All I have to do is go to the gate shop and choose some. Think of how nice they will look, he says wistfully, nursing a bruised thumb from his last attempt at opening them.

Online, trying to look at gates, forcing myself to concentrate, something happens — my brain glazes, as my hand navigates the mouse — and I find myself instead purchasing tickets for Barcelona v Read Madrid at Camp Nou. With the gate money.

One EasyJet flight later, my kids and I are in Barcelona. We go to Camp Nou for the ‘Camp Nou Experience’, which involves paying good money to take photographs of an empty football pitch, and walking through a darkened room walled with hundreds of giant silver trophies, before exiting through the shop, which sells toddler Barca strips for €84.

The kids and I sit overlooking the empty pitch. The nine-year-old is in a quasi-religious ecstasy, as the 11-year-old rolls her eyes contemptuously. “Could this be any better,” he sighs, waving his arm towards the pitch. “Yes,” I say, pulling the El Clasico tickets out of my bag. “You’ll be back here tomorrow night.” Then I wipe the foam from his mouth.

Camp Nou holds 99,000 people. On match night, there is not a single empty seat. Nor does there appear to be a single Real Madrid supporter — when the Barca team come out, the whole stadium holds up sheets of either red or yellow shiny paper, transforming the crowd into a giant Catalan flag, as we sing the Barca anthem. It is incredible. When the Madrid team come out, everyone boos, as though we are all at a giant outdoor pantomime, although one with serious political intent. At the 17th minute, tens of thousands unfurl individual flags and chant “Independencia!” Catalan independence and Catalan football are one and the same.

Meanwhile, my son and I are perched in the highest seats in the whole stadium. We both have vertigo, but make a pact to ignore it. Miles below, Messi and Ronaldo are scoring goals against each other. We are transfixed. It is astonishing, beautiful, magical. Then just as it goes a bit tippy-tappy again, they ramp it up and we are screaming and leaping from our seats, forgetting our vertigo. The 99,000 roar, sing and boo. My son learns loads of new Catalan swear words. At no point do I think about gates.