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Why Indonesian Football?

Persija Jakarta supporters, the Jakmania. (JG Photo/Antony Sutton)

I’d been meaning to go to a game ever since I’d arrived in Indonesia but I always found reasons not to go. Usually beer related. I’d seen full-scale riots on TV, players doing their best in monsoon conditions and fans pelting the match officials with plastic water bottles and rocks.

Every time I’d suggested to friends I’d like to go to an Indonesian football game the idea was roundly pooh-poohed and we carried on helping the national economy by necking vast quantities of its home-brewed beer.

Finally I decided it’s going to happen. A new season was about to begin with a game at Lebak Bulus featuring Jakarta side Persija and a team from Palembang, Sriwijaya.

The day started, as all good football days out should start, in the pub. The beers were well chilled and it was raining heavily outside. Despite my commitment I was wavering. I was winning on the pool table, rare enough surely to keep me in the pub?

But no, a promise was a promise. I determined to go. Bill paid, we jumped in a taxi and drove the short distance to Lebak Bulus and I got my first real sight of Indonesian football fans up close and personal. They were on top of minivans, hanging off the sides of Metro Minis and they all seemed to be having a whole lot of fun. Not the snarling grimaces like you see at English football matches from people posing in their latest Adidas retros, these kids were having a blast from stopping the traffic and pissing off middle-class Jakarta in their Kijangs.

We bought tickets and I took the steps two at a time. Going to a new stadium back home had always been a buzz. Now, some 20 years later, I still had the same thrill.

I’d first heard the noise from the terraces outside the stadium and it increased in intensity as I got closer. The rain had done little to dampen the ardor of the hard-core Persija supporters, known as Jakmania, numbering several thousand shoehorned into the small terrace opposite the main stand. I walked through the arch and out into the stand, greeted by a sea of orange.

From that moment I was hooked. The noise, the color, the passion on that gray afternoon one January brought to mind the English game I’d grown up with in the 1970s before it was rebranded as the Premier League. The players came on to the field, greeted by dozens of toilet rolls and roars you could hear for miles around.

The game was crap, the pitch awful and the stadium would not pass any health or safety checks but I didn’t care. It was football at its rawest and I loved every minute of it.

Think of this as a virtual bar where fans and pundits gather to talk football, from the controversial local pro leagues to European competition. The ball is round, and our bloggers can bend it. Readers are encouraged to offer their own take on anything football. The rules: keep it clean and between 300 to 800 words, and we reserve the right to referee (read: edit) the article. Oh, and any posting on American “football” will be reported to the authority for blasphemy. Send to: blogs@thejakartaglobe.com