A family from Spain travelled 1,400 miles to watch a League One game after they fell in love with the club on FIFA.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, Fernando Batallon and his six cousins made the six-hour round trip to the East Midlands to watch a not-so-glamorous clash between Derby County and Morecambe in England's third tier.
So, why did they travel all the way to Pride Park from their sunny home in Lugo, northern Spain? It's a good question.
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Three years ago, Fernando and his cousins decided to pick the Rams as their next FIFA Career Mode save because "they liked the badge". Yes, the one with the Rams Head.
Then, after a number of successful seasons playing with Derby, their unexpected bond with the club would become so strong that they began following them in real life.
From researching more about the club's history to their reign under the genius of Brian Clough, the lads were fully on board.
In fact, after years of looking at their results from afar, Fernando and his seven cousins would come together to organise a soon-to-be trip of a lifetime to the 33-000 capacity stadium on Saturday February 4 – an afternoon they would never forget.
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Goals from David McGoldrick [3], James Collins and Jason Knight sealed an emphatic 5-0 win for Paul Warne's side, who currently sit in fourth place behind Ipswich, Plymouth and leaders Sheffield Wednesday.
Fernando and his cousins enjoyed every single minute. In fact, the Batallon family have vowed to return following the 'best weekend of their lives’.
Speaking to Steve Bloomer's Washing – an award-nominated Derby County podcast – Fernando opened up on the fairytale journey.
"It was one of the best weekends of my life, really," he said. "It all started with a FIFA career mode. We were coming back from a party one night and a cousin of mine wanted to start a career in FIFA.
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"We didn't know what team to pick. So we decided to pick the team with the badge which we liked the most.
"Another cousin of mine who knew Derby, I'm not sure how, but he knew and he said Derby's badge was the best.
"He showed us and we liked it. It's charming, I can't explain why but we loved it instantly. This was around 2019/2020."
Fernando added: "To start with we just played as Derby and then I discovered there was a film about them, 'The Damned United’.
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"We saw the film and thought it was awesome and we started researching the team and the history.
"We knew that Derby were not in the Premier League but we knew that they had won the league with Brian Clough.
"We loved the team, we loved the history and then we started to follow the team in real life.
"I was shocked when I found out Derby had won the league because at first when we didn't know the history we thought it was like a little club, so that was pretty shocking to me.
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"We had been talking about coming over to England since the pandemic in 2020 when we couldn't travel. And also because we had to wait to afford it as it has been a very expensive weekend for us."
Fernando wasn't done there. He continued: "The game we chose was complete luck. It was the cheapest [game we were looking at] and a weekend everybody could do.
"Pride Park was bigger than we thought, I did not have this image in my head. It's not the same seeing the matches on your phone and seeing the stadium.
"And also now we are not in the Championship we can't watch the games in Spain. It's been impossible this year.
"Derby have suffered a lot, just like our club Lugo in Spain, who have had problems with owners, so it is a similar situation.
"We just seemed to pick a club in the same situation as Lugo.
"I thought the British beer was very nice and also very big because in Spain we don't drink that size of beer.
"We had such fun in the pub, we met two guys who were 60/70 and they were so nice. I have really loved Derby as a city too. I thought it was cute.
"It was like an explosion [watching Derby score a goal] we were shouting and celebrating the most I think. The game was awesome.
"We knew Derby had been winning but I didn't know the game would be so good as we haven't been watching them the last few months.
"We haven't decided yet but we are already talking about coming back. We are trying to come back for the last game of the season."
Featured Image Credit: SWNS/Twitter - @SteveBloomerPodTopics: Derby County, League One, England, Spain
