Sunshine, storms and Sociedad...

Doncaster Rovers 1-0 Real Sociedad
Pre-Season Friendly
Saturday 22nd July 2006

Some pre-season friendlies are infinitely more memorable than others though this one was always going to be a bit different as it's not often former La Liga winners rock up in South Yorkshire.

It wasn't Barcelona, Real Madrid or even Atletico Madrid, who'd come for a kick about though. No. Instead, Real Sociedad, who two years earlier were playing in the Champions League, were in England for a pre-season schedule which included a trip to, err, Doncaster Rovers.

The team line-up for the pre-match handshake (Photo: Unknown)

The game was at Rovers' old Belle Vue ground; a venue which was often dubbed the worst in the country by visiting supporters due to the chronic lack of facilities, leaky roof and numerous supporting pillars which hindered your view of the pitch.

Only around 20-30 hardy souls made the trip from the city of San Sebastian (where Sociedad are based) to Belle Vue and those who did were welcomed with some rather unusual pre-match offerings on the PA system including the track 'Viva Espana'. All well and good, apart from the fact that San Sebastian is located in the Basque Country - a region which is notorious because it has wanted independence from Spain for several years!

There was a mixture of perplexed, puzzled and embarrassed looks on the faces of those in the away section, who were exclusively located in their own seating block in the Main Stand, and it wouldn't be the first time the visitors would have similar looks of bewilderment that afternoon, either, as nobody could have predicted what would unfold.

Sociedad's squad at the time actually included one or two very good players who'd either 'been there and done it' or who went on to bigger and better things such as Darko Kovacevic, Javi Garrido and Claudio Bravo - yes, the goalkeeper who won the Champions League with Barcelona and was signed by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

Though most online material seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, I've managed to acquire a team-sheet and Bravo was in goal - meaning Nick Fenton, who bagged what turned out to be the opening goal midway through the first half, scored past him! I wonder if he remembers it?

Only at half-time did the first signs that something out of the ordinary might be about to happen as foreboding grey clouds began to linger ominously in the skies above Belle Vue, replacing the sunshine that had made it a pleasant day. There had been some stormy downpours in the days previously, but this looked different with the skies resembling anything but the height of British summertime.

Inevitably, it wasn't long before illumination was needed and the floodlights had to be switched on - probably for the first time ever on a July afternoon at a football stadium in England. Soon, the heavens opened and, needless to say, it was pretty spectacular.

There was still around a quarter of the game left to play as those on the Main Stand terraces inched themselves as far under the roof as possible in a vain effort to avoid a soaking, but such was the violent ferocity of the rain, everyone got drenched - including those in the seats who suffered thanks to a leaky roof. Patrons on the Town End and Rosso End bore the brunt of the downpour as rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance whilst one or two lightning strikes were visible in the distance if you looked beyond the Popside Terrace.

On the pitch, with Rovers attacking towards the Rosso End, there was no escape from the weather and in one particular attack Sean Thornton slid from the edge of the 18-yard-box straight across the saturated pitch and well into the six-yard box (akin to a child on a water slide at a theme park) as he attempted to win possession. The grin on his face, coupled with laughter from those watching, told you everything about how wild things had become.

Gareth Roberts marks Darko Kovacevic (Photo: Unknown).

By this stage, the minority from San Sebastian, still no doubt puzzled by the 'Viva Espana' episode and more accustomed to sweltering 40 degrees temperatures at this time of year, were looking dumbfounded and may as well have had 'What the f**k?' written across their faces once more - was this really what British summers are like? It's no exaggeration to say that one or two of the visitors probably thought their lives were in danger because they'd definitely never seen anything like it.

Despite a brief lull in the thunderstorm during the closing few minutes of the game, Part Two arrived as fans made their way off the terraces and went home. The infamous pot-holes around the car park were bursting with mucky storm-water - posing problems for those who 'ran the gauntlet' of another drenching to get to their parked cars. Some attempted to use trees along Bawtry Road as cover whilst the storm passed, many people went topless and just accepted defeat as they walked home, others remained on the terraces and many went into the breeze-block clubhouse with the distinctive red roof, constructed just a few years earlier, but even that had been damaged during the downpour.

One thing which everyone had in common was they were all soaking wet!

Floodlights on at Belle Vue... at 4.30pm on a summer afternoon! (Photo: Unknown).

Less than half an hour later, the grey skies had disappeared and it would have been appropriate for Charlie Swallow, up repairing the PA box at the back of the Main Stand, to blast out a bit of 'Mr Blue Sky' by the Electric Light Orchestra, had it been working. The PA system suffered particularly badly as a result of leakage from the downpour - so much so that it was literally held together with duck tape for the remainder of the year!

Sociedad went on to play at Leicester, West Brom and Tottenham on the rest of their pre-season tour which makes the trip to Doncaster even more obscure, but whatever it was they were trying to achieve from their time in England clearly didn't work as they got relegated nine months or so later.

I'm sure, however, that somewhere amidst the luxury villas and glorious apartments on San Sebastian's golden coastline, tales will have been told and it will be etched into local folklore about the time their football team got caught up in the God Father of all rainstorms in an ex-mining town in South Yorkshire.

The team-sheet which reveals Claudio Bravo did play at Belle Vue!

A report of the game which later featured in the DRFC programme - the line-up conflicts greatly with the team-sheet so who knows who actually featured for Rovers?