F.C. Dalian Shide

Last weekend we went with a group of teachers to Jinzhou to watch some “football.” Dalian’s professional soccer team – F.C. Dalian Shide (pronounced shh-dah)- was once the best in Asia, and won 8 consecutive Asian cup championships. Now they have been picked clean of their most highly talented players by European teams, but they still provide an incredibly entertaining spectacle most nights.

To get to Jinzhou we had to take the light rail line from Kaifaqu. Jinzhou is basically another suburb of Dalian, but is much more “Chinese” than Kaifaqu. It has less of the high end malls and development, and more grimy highrise apartments, neighbourhoods and little mom and pop noodle-shops.

When we arrived at the stadium, the first thing we saw were two haggard looking goats tied up next to a bbq stand. The stand was selling “young-rou” which means either goat or lamb... in this case it was pretty obviously goat. Alongside the goats there were masses of people filing into the stadium, huge earthenware cooking vessels where people were cooking yams and seafood, old ladies selling seat cushions and noisemakers and a sizeable police presence.

When we got into the stadium the game had already started. We had hoped to order some beer, but were disappointed to find that they were not selling any inside the stadium. All there was to drink was pepsi that you could buy in paper cups that were thoughtfully labelled “cups”. By the end of the game it became apparent why.

The game was very entertaining. Two weak red cards were called (which had the crowd up in arms), a penalty shot was missed (Paul started the whole crowd booing the opposing player who was shooting on the Dalian goal- he is taking full credit for causing the player to choke), two goals were scored and the crows on the far side has to be subdued by the riot police. Perhaps our favourite part was when a small man/large boy somehow slipped under the protective netting that separated fans from the field, and started chasing the 6 foot tall ref around the field. The tiny person was flailing his arms comically, and pretending to kick the ref as he chased him around the field, he then avoided capture by players and police for a solid minute before being taken down hard near the goal line.

At the end of the game, fans were incensed by the poor reffing and the diving of the Tianjin team and started throwing their seat cushions over the netting. It was pretty easy to see at that point why no bottles or beer were allowed in the stadium.

We had a great time watching and ended up going into Kaifaqu for some beer, sushi and pizza after the game. It was definitely a wonderful night and something we will be repeating next year.