The Only Fan

Tiago Rech has watched Brazilian football team Santa Cruz, since going to see them with his dad as a 10 year old .....

The Only Santa Cruz Fan 2012

.... eating a hot dog on the concrete steps of Estadio dos Platanos the club's 5,000-capacity stadium in Santa Cruz do Sul, was where his personal field of dreams started.

He grew up (like we all have to do), and after university he took a job on a newspaper and moved away to the state capital, Porto Alegre 120km away, so his weekly attendance dropped to occasional visits home and taking in a match. But the love affair kindled in childhood remained undimmed, so when Santa Cruz were scheduled in 2012 to play against Gremio in his new resident city, he decided it was the ideal time to visit the Arena do Grêmio ground in the 'away end', and join his fellow Santa Cruz fans in supporting his team.

"The game was due to start at 9pm and I left work around eight and went alone, on foot, with my Santa Cruz T-shirt stuffed in to my jacket just because there would be lots of Gremio fans around and I didn't want any trouble. 

When I got to the stadium I went to the space reserved for our side and I went up to the ticket office and asked if any of the Santa Cruz fan base had arrived yet. This was 20 minutes before the game. The security said no, but I thought it's still early it takes two hours from Santa Cruz, maybe they were late so I went in and sat down, waiting for the game to start and for the rest of the fans to arrive.

Then the game began and no one came. Five minutes went by, then 10 and then at 15 minutes in, Santa Cruz scores the first goal. And I'm there celebrating, I mean, slightly embarrassed because I'm the only one there."

So there he was alone with a drink and his thoughts, wearing his team shirt, and as the game was televised, pictures of him as the sole away team supporter were beamed across Brazil. Tiago's phone soon started ringing with calls and texts from his parents and friends.

"The game went on and Gremio scored so then it was one all then 2-1 then 3-1 and in the end they won 4-1. And I'm just there on my own, the whole time."

Deflated, he went back home ... oblivious to the fact that in the age of the Internet and Smartphones, he was becoming an overnight sensation, as pictures of him went viral worldwide - a YouTube clip quickly went past 1m views - even the newspaper where he worked had an image of him sat alone in the stand, a half-drunk plastic cup next to him, on the front page of the next days paper under the headline "Don't Leave Me Alone." 

Sadly that games result was indicative of the teams decline, and just year later, at the end of a dreadful campaign, Santa Cruz had been relegated to the second tier, while Tiago was back living at home having left his newspaper job. However after a fairytale story that's too long for me to recount the club, now under Tiago's first reign of club presidency, won its first cup in 2020 ... the Copa Federacao Gaucha de Futebol and a happier recreation of the famous 2012 picture was recreated.

Not The Only Santa Cruz Fan 2020

This wasn't the culmination of the tale because last season, after having been down to the third tier at one point in the years since 2012, under Tiago's second term as club president, they finally won promotion back into the first tier again. He's now no longer club president, but says he will continue to follow their games, forever a fan ..... even if he's the only one. 

But what attracted me to the tale was that of course, as regular readers of this blog might recall, this story of being the only away fan, is not a unique tale. In fact.... very strangely also in 2012, I had posted on this blog the tale of the lone Udinese football fan, a Mr Brovedani. So being a pair, they were in one sense not the only one ....