Dimitris Kouimtsidis
FOR many football fans around the world, the team they support means the world to them, but one superfan takes it a step further.
British expat, Jan Formella, 44, is a die-hard Tottenham fan, who’s had a season ticket for more than 15 years.
When he upped sticks to Javea five years ago, the Londoner refused to leave his beloved Spurs behind.
The father-of-three makes the 1,400km trip from Javea to London’s newly-built Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as often as he can.
He claims he’s never sat down and calculated the costs of attending a match, but, believes it is somewhere in the region of €500 and €600.
“I probably catch around ten home games a season, along with the odd European one away,” he told the Olive Press.
To make this possible, he tries to schedule UK business trips to coincide with midweek fixtures.
Formella runs his Surrey-based IT and recruitment company remotely from Spain.
“I’d fly either the day before or on the morning of the match, either from Valencia or Alicante.
“I then get the train to Surrey and go into the office, have my meetings and then head off to meet my mates at the pub for some pre-match beers.”
Despite the increasing popularity of resell websites such as Stubhub and Viagogo, Formella refuses to use them to sell his seat when he’s absent, as he ‘doesn’t want to make a profit out of other fans’.
If he can’t attend, he either gives his ticket to a mate, or sells it through the club exchange programme.
When asked if he ever saw himself stopping, Formella said: “I say every season is my last one, it’s an addiction, I can’t stop.
“Football is a community thing, that’s why I go back, to meet up with friends and experience it together.”
