Forget the London Lions, I’m with Lithuania

What you must know about me is that I have freakishly tiny hands. Many high street stores do not sell rings small enough for my fingers. What you must know about France is that, for some godforsaken reason, basketball dominated PE lessons in the early 2000s. I was exactly as good at it as you’d imagine.

The sport is, as a result, not one I’d ever been attracted to, but I thought I should give it another go. I booked myself a ticket to watch the London Lions take on the Žalgiris Kaunas, and I hoped for the best.

It didn’t start well. I woke up that morning having slept poorly, and spent the day forlornly watching the thick grey clouds hanging overhead, choking on existential ennui. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the evening watching a sport that had traumatised me as a teenager.

Still, I travelled to Hackney, and went to get myself a quick bite in a food hall nearby. I’d expected some fans to be there but, truly, nothing could have prepared me for the Baltic tide I was about to crash into. I knew that the Žalgiris were Lithuanian, and were the country’s biggest team. What I didn’t expect was for a statistically significant portion of the country’s diaspora to be there that day.

While waiting for my food, I got chatting to a middle-aged woman who had grown up watching the team in Lithuania, but now lives here. She was ecstatic. I asked her what to expect and she said: “Oh, get ready for it to be loud.”

She was right to warn me. Nothing could have prepared me for the wall of sound permeating the Copper Box Arena. The game technically featured a London team playing at home but, in practice, it was attended by me, an ocean of Lithuanians, and maybe a handful of Brits.

It was glorious. Everyone was wearing green and white – Žalgiris colours – and there were flags everywhere, worn as capes and hats. The giddiness was palpable. Why do they love the sport so much, though? I asked a few men and they looked at me like I was insane. Would a cheetah be able to talk you through its love of antelope flesh?

I went to take my seat and started Googling. It turns out that basketball is, by some distance, the country’s most popular sport. About 41% of the population watched the 2015 EuroBasket final. It is, as I came to understand, more than a game to them. Countless teams were set up during the Soviet occupation, by people imprisoned in gulags. For some time, Lithuanians peacefully asserted their national pride and desire for independence by cheering on the Žalgiris, especially when they played against CSKA Moscow, a Soviet military team. By the time the game started, I knew who I had to back. The Lions technically were my home team, but who cared?

Somehow, within the space of an hour, I’d been welcomed into the warm bosom of Mother Lithuania, and I refused to leave. Did you know that it was Europe’s last pagan state, only converting to Christianity in 1387? And did you know it was Europe’s largest state in the 14th century? Do I… what? Oh yes, I do know this is a sports column. I’m afraid, in the end, I didn’t watch any basketball. I just looked up facts about Lithuania for the two hours. I did leave feeling a whole lot better than when I’d arrived, and isn’t that, in a way, what watching sports should be about?

Photograph by London Lions