A blue and white rag at Atotxa | OneFootball

At Atotxa, a boy’s first live derby ended with Real Sociedad crowned champions and a blue and white rag in his fist. What lingers is not the play but the sprint across the grass holding his father’s hand.

El Correo writes that a six-year-old from Donostia was given a chequered txuri-urdin cloth by his grandmother Pepi, tied to a stick as his first and only flag. After the whistle a gate opened, he ran on, belted an imaginary shot into the top corner, spotted Joxemari and Maritxu in the stand and waved.

It was 25 April 1982, a 2-1 over Athletic for a second straight Liga. At six he assumed Real always won, until Athletic took 1983 and the next, sealing one with a 2-1 at San Mamés. Uralde’s angle-free equaliser for Real drew silence, and those cousins’ lines came into focus.

On the terraces the kids sang that Real, for being Basque, were once despised and, as champions, suddenly forgiven. The real antipathy fixed on Real Madrid, then opponents for Ligas, Copas and Supercopas, seen as gifted and cocky, indulged by referees, their name yelled with politics the children barely grasped.

The bilbaíno was the swaggering guest who adored the derby and Atotxa’s quirks. Park anywhere in the Parte Vieja, feast, stroll to the ground, and after the game the tow yard beside the stadium would, for 5,000 pesetas, bring your car to the door. If he also left the two points, or a semi-final as now, happiness was complete.

Source: El Correo