Football fans will go to great lengths to see their football team play, but just how many would follow one fan in Turkey who hired a crane so he could watch after getting a stadium ban?
There are endless stories every week of fans travelling the lengths and breadths of countries to see their team play, of dropping previous engagements and organising their whole lives around when and where their football team are playing.
Fans will spend virtually all of their money to see their team play and probably sell some organs in order to see them in a big game- it's just the passion and loyalty fans have for their club, no matter the price we're desperate to go.
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Most fans though pay that price to be inside the stadium, not stood on a platform 10s of feet above the stands.
That's exactly what happened to one fan in Turkey. As per BirGun one Denizlispor fan had a stadium ban so for their game against Gaziantepspor he rented a crane and watched from there.
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It certainly was money well spent for the fan of the TFF First League team, the second tier of Turkish football, as the Roosters ran out 5-0 winners against their opposition.
It could well be an expensive year for him as he's banned for a year from the stadium, but then it might have to become a bit of a tradition for him if he's a superstitious man.
Flamengo Fan Has Whole Club Shirt Tattooed Onto His Body
There are many ways to show just how much you love your football club. The easiest is to wear a football shirt, one of the hardest ways is probably by having said shirt tattooed to your skin as one Flamengo fan did.
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Plenty of us have some form of merchandise from the football team we support, whether it's a shirt, a scarf or a fridge magnet. Some people go further and get a tattoo of their club crest, some even name a child after a player or several players but Maurício dos Anjos' tattoo goes beyond even naming your child 'Crystal Palace Smith.'
The 33 year old Brazilian decided that for the love of his football club, Flamengo, he would get the design of their 2015 shirt tattooed to his body, only the shirt sponsors are missing from the artwork.
As per Vice the body art took a whole year, taking up 32 sessions which resulted in 90 hours of him being tattooed. That sounds like a lot of pain to end up looking like a £40 tshirt.
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Dos Anjos told Vice exactly why he decided to get the elaborate 'tat' saying, "I always wanted to have a Flamengo tattoo, ever since I became a fan as a child...I got a vulture [the team mascot] with the Flamengo shield on my biceps. Last year, I decided to get a tattoo of the jersey, which is something I'd actually been wanting to get for a while.
"But I thought it would be too expensive - between R$10,000 (£2,000) and R$15,000 (£3,000). So I chose to get something smaller, that covered only part of my shoulder and chest. The tattoo artist asked for R$800 (£165), but as we chatted he told me he'd do the entire jersey at no extra cost, just for the exposure."
Unsurprisingly the interviewer asked if Mauricio had regretted getting inked at any part of the process but he said, 'Trust me, I never felt any regret,' you've got to love the craziness of football fandom in Brazil.
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The Flamengo fan is married with three children and even had another tattoo relating to his eldest daughter inked over for the club shirt, "I have one [tattoo] for my eldest daughter - her footprint, with her name and date of birth. It was on my back, but the jersey tattoo covered it, so I'll redo that one somewhere else.
He revealed he still wears a Flamengo shirt twice a week, hopefully not the 2015 one, but walks around the house topless, obviously. At least he won't be getting the shorts or socks inked on though, "I may get another tattoo related to Flamengo, perhaps on my leg or my arm. But I'm not going to get anything as big as this."
So you love your football club? But do you love it that much?!
(Interview via Vice)
Topics: Football News, Super Lig, Turkey, Fans