We were sitting about a dozen rows up from the touchline at the halfway line. Good seats. When we looked up to the left there was a gaping hole in the crowd. We asked Fernando, Liz's student who had organized this trip to the River Plate stadium (the Monumental), and he said it was the space for the Barras.

Two minutes before kick off there was a procession of flags and banderas and the sound of drums. The barras were arriving. They call themselves Los Borrachos del Tablon (the drunks of the old river stadium). As you can see in the picture they have a lot of flags.

River were playing Quilmes, who are bottom of the league and they made a rubbish job of it too. Two players sent off in a scrappy midfield battle (or so people said). There was a young lad in front of us who was singing along with the barras (usually about Boca Juniors), obviously he was out of place, but it seemed he was accompanying his grandfather.

The crowd were passionate, hurling abuse at the referee and the Quilmes players, one of whom was a bit dirty. So much so that the grandfather ended up on his feet yelling 'hijo de puta' (son of a bitch is the politest of translations for that one).

River ended up winning 2-1 and the game got a little better after 2 players were sent off and made a bit of room. Fernando was relieved, as were the other fans. We just enjoyed the spectacle. No trouble, good natured fun in the stadium where Argentina won the world cup in 78... they're still using the same TV cameras...  ¶ 12:44 AM