"Black whistle!" they chanted, and the Chinese translation of 'The referee's a...' I'm by no means saying that it was a fix, as football in China seems to have been last year (more on the BBC), but things were going so well. Here's the match report from the Henan website:
10 minutes, Zhang Lu Zhong external long-range kick, Yang Cheng care out of the ball, Xu Yang got the ball outside, points to the restricted area of the occasional, the occasional back to do something, to keep up with the Austrian makes the ball more than welcome adjusted direct kick vigorously Shishe network, Jianye 1-0 lead.
And with that,Henan's black Polish player scrambled the ball across the line, putting the hosts ahead. The atmosphere exploded at this point; we'd heard the drums booming and reverberating on the stadium's canvas roof before we had even got out of the taxis. As we passed the ranks of riot police at the entrance (a very obvious and deliberate show of force should this occur again), the trumpets and whistles began. After ten minutes of near-misses (by both sides), the ten-thousand Henan fans were rewarded with a scrappy, will-he, won't he goal. He did, and the roof nearly came off. This probably upset the fifty or so Shandong fans, who were locked in a cage at the far end of the stadium.
Some might wonder, therefore, if this is why they clearly slipped the ref something at half time, as not a single decision went the home team's way after the break. None were too serious, although a few fouls on Henan players - we're talking dirty, or clumsy, sliding tackles - that resulted bizarrely in free kicks for Shandong could easily have led to goals for Henan.
What was truly bizarre was that after 90 minutes, no extra time had been signalled, nor shown on a board, nor announced over the loudspeaker. After 94 minutes the referee still showed no sign of stopping the match at 1-0, the home fans going insane and the players seeming to think the match had ended two or three times. No, no, the match couldn't end until Shandong had equalised. Which they did, after 96 minutes. The game promptly ended as soon as they kicked off again.
Fix.
In all, there were 15 of us who went from the school, including a few of the students. I'd like to go again - even if the football's not great, the atmosphere certainly is, and now that I've learned plenty of chants and accompanying obscenities, it's about the only place I can use them.
Anna's photos are here.
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