One afternoon in Paris with the best fans in the world

It was at Corcoran’s Irish bar near the Moulin Rouge when the penny finally dropped.

I’d been waiting for about ten minutes to be served at the very edge of the bar’s counter, just far enough away to go unnoticed by all serving staff.

About to give up, I felt a hand on my shoulder and an Irish fan dressed in a head-to-toe shamrock-emblazoned green suit said, “you’ve been there for ages haven’t you? Hang on. I know the barman, I’ll get you a pint now.”

And within a minute that’s exactly what he did.

I asked him did he work in the bar and today just happened to be his day off?

Nope, he just thought he’d gimme a hand.

Best fans

We’ve long heard about the ‘best fans in the world’ tag, but there’s definitely a camaraderie amongst the Irish fans that is hard to find when you’re actually back in Ireland.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent three hours amongst some of the hardest-partying Irish fans in Clichy.

The Harp has become the the de facto HQ for Irish fans in Paris and it was there that all manner of innovative tomfoolery was rolled out. You had ‘points’ been kicked into French balconies, packs of fans heaving against coaches as they tried to move through traffic and many, many renditions of ‘olé olé olé’.

It’s silly, it’s often very funny and as Roy would say, all credit to the French people and police, because they received the antics very well.

As the crowd swelled, the Irish fans began to block the road and two exasperated French police officers arrived on the scene.

Traffic in Clichy now at a standstill, French police are here on walkie talkies. Should close the road I think. pic.twitter.com/Az7kdG0Y0K

— Paddy McKenna (@PaddyMcKenna) June 12, 2016

Efforts to try and curtail the crowd were utterly futile and as the police began to yap animatedly into their walkie-talkies, I just hoped that they were going to do something sensible to make the scene safer.

When the road was closed twenty minutes later, I silently applauded the police for a really good decision.

Irish fan getting some gym work in in Clichy earlier. German fan did it after one-handed. Show-off. pic.twitter.com/QKaC9MqqHt

— Paddy McKenna (@PaddyMcKenna) June 12, 2016

Self-policing

Irish fans on tour is a living, breathing organism that, as a unit, is very aware of the ‘best fans’ tag and it jealously protects it by self-policing. There are idiots in every group, of course, and if someone takes the joke too far, there are immediately two or three other voices telling them to cop on.

Just a fan stopping traffic by crowdsurfing a rock-the-boat on the road in Clichy right now. #coybig pic.twitter.com/rj3wcT2dUN

— Paddy McKenna (@PaddyMcKenna) June 12, 2016

I filmed this Irish fan crowdsurfing the impromptu rock-the-boat that stopped traffic in Clichy. For a minute it was really, really funny and then it was time to move on and let the traffic pass.

When two or three fans tried to repeat it again ten seconds later, they were immediately helped off the road by several other fans and told not to. You don’t play the same song back to back when you’re putting on a show.

Swedes

All the while, the Swedish and Irish fans mingled and there’s a real fondness between the two sets of fans. And yes, it’s true, our Scandinavian friends can’t say more than two sentences without mentioning that Zlatan fella, while many of them have never even heard of Shane Long.

Hopefully, that will all have changed by 8pm in Paris.