LILLE OLYMPIC SPORTING CLUB (Stade Pierre Mauroy)

EUROPA LEAGUE GROUP H, LILLE OLYMPIC SPORTING CLUB 0-0 EVERTON, ATTENDANCE: 42,000

When the draw was made back in August this was one of the two trips I decided to target, VfL Wolfsburg being the other one, for a European jaunt.

I along with a couple of others decided to have a road trip and make the 800 mile round journey by car. This involved my first ever ride through the Channel Tunnel.

We left for Lille around 4am, amid reports that some Everton fans in an Australian bar had been targeted the previous evening by some Lille "fans" where the inevitable then happened.

There was a slight delay going through the Channel Tunnel as many other Blues were making the same journey to France. It is reported that over 10,000 Everton supporters crossed the channel.

 We arrived at our hotel around 3pm local time where I switched my phone on to be bombarded with text messages about avoiding the main square as it was all going off, with tear gas and rubber bullets being used by the police.

Anyone expecting some Kate Adie frontline reporting then I'm afraid you will be disappointed as I clearly missed the fun and games. Nontheless, here are some links to an Everton forum that may offer a better insight to events that I can;

http://www.grandoldteam.com/2014/10/24/actually-happened-lille/

http://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/got-world-exclusive-video-footage-of-the-lille-police-incident-contains-bad-language.70733/

Naturally curiosity led me to the main square but by the time I had strolled into the town the situation was calm and most of the fans were making their way to the stadium, though it was chaos  trying to get on the Metro.

The 50,000 capacity Stade Pierre-Mauroy, named after the former Mayor of Lille and French Prime Minister, was opened in 2012. Lille’s original home was Stade Grimonprez-Jooris, which they left in 2004 in the hope that they could redevelop the ground, but the plans went nowhere and instead they ended up building a new stadium. A rather impressive stadium it is too and it will the one of the grounds used during Euro 2016.

Tonight I was one of the thousands of Evertonians in the home end and I happy to report, from my end, there was no hint of trouble and the Lille fans sat around us were friendly toward us.

It was pretty easy to keep a lid on things as there was very little to get excited about as both teams fought out an insipid goalless draw. The only time I nearly jumped out of my seat was when Tony Hibbert had a chance in the second half and we were all thinking "this is it, this is the moment" (Hibbert has thus far failed to score in over 300 appearances for Everton) but a Lille defender managed to block his shot.

Top of the group, with 5 points, at the midway stage, with two home games to come, I will be hoping to look back on this result as a great away point.

Post match we drifted back into the centre of town but the vast majority of bars were shut up for the evening, probably on Police instruction, so it was a case of drifting back to the hotel for a nightcap. An anti-climatic end to the day.