Charlie Smith
ONE Tottenham fan has shelled out a whopping €15,000 to make his Champions League dreams come true.
Darren Ashley, 48, made the immense 24-hour journey from his home in Australia to Madrid.
The father-of-one spent 25,000 Australian dollars on the trip, with $8,000 on a match ticket alone, in a bid to see his club beat Liverpool and win its first Champions League title.
The Spurs-mad IT firm owner from Walthamstow, and his girlfriend Emma jetted from Sydney to Melbourne, Melbourne to Abu Dhabi, and Abu Dhabi to Madrid.
“The minute that Moura put it in the net against Ajax, I rang Emma, and said ‘I have to go’,” he told the Olive Press.
“I thought, ‘they’ve done their bit, I have to do mine and get on the plane’.”
Since the age of six Darren began attending Spurs matches with his dad, and he now says his club is ‘on the up’.
“We’ve made it here with zero investment in the team, with the new stadium the club is really on the up.
“Pochettino is a really good coach and the squad is a good group.”
And despite living down under for the last 12 years, the British businessman has still managed to keep up with his beloved team.
“There’s a really big following in Australia for Tottenham.
“A lot of us have come out.
“The Australian group meets up at 3am for matches, it’s amazing the following that we have.
“But it has been chaos, I had five emails, including one saying my ticket had been cancelled, and one saying it had been delivered.”
Darren is quietly confident, but even if Spurs lose, he said he has taken some inspiration from a certain club legend.
“In the words of Bill Nicholson, ‘It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory’.”
Tottenham take on Liverpool at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid tonight at 9pm.
