Spanish fans inspire non-league Harborough Town's summer tour

BBC News

4 hours ago

A non-league football club is gearing up for a pre-season tour to Madrid after gaining a surprising following in Spain.Harborough Town were visited in April by more than 100 Spaniards who subscribe to a YouTube channel devoted to English football.La Media Inglesa (LMI), founded by Barcelona-born Ilie Oleart, decided to collaborate with the seventh tier club after meeting representatives last year.The Leicestershire side, nicknamed the Bees, will return the favour with a visit to the Spanish capital next month to play two fixtures.
Harborough will fly from Stansted on 17 July and are due to play a Spanish Select XI made up of recently released players that evening.The following day will involve a meet and greet with fans organised by LMI, and the team will host an open training session.On 19 July, the Bees will face Spanish third tier outfit AD Alcorcón at the 5,100 capacity Estadio Santo Domingo before flying home the next day.While announcing the tour details on social media, the club offered "a massive thank you to La Media Inglesa for organising this brilliant opportunity".
Ricardo Pan, from A Coruña, said he has followed LMI since 2018 and will be making the trip to see Harborough play in Madrid.He added: "We went to the town Market Harborough which was amazing. Everyone loved it."We went for a couple of beers after the game with the players and with some fans."We were chanting and we were singing for almost like two hours and it was just amazing."I don't know how the players will take the weather in Madrid in July because it's really hot, almost 40 degrees or something like that, so it will be complicated but I'm just happy and they will be playing against such a historical club like Alcorcón."Mr Pan said he hopes to return to England next season to watch the Bees and hopes the team can earn promotion from the Southern League Premier Central.
LMI has almost 450,000 subscribers and covers English football for Spanish-speaking fans.It began organising trips to the UK in 2018 so the fans could watch games in person, but Mr Oleart said the next step was to become involved with an English club.