Dubliner Rob Smith on getting the VIP treatment from Boca Juniors at La Bombonera

If you’re reading this, you might be aware of my connection with Argentine giants Boca Juniors. If not, I’ll shed a little light as to what happened. 

My name is Rob Smith and sometime last year, Boca featured me on their Facebook page as an Irish musician who loves Boca.

With that, thousands upon thousands of Boca fans started liking my own Facebook page and, much to my surprise and delight, start downloading and streaming my songs. 

One day, my wife turned to me and said “why don’t you make a song for them?”. 

So I did. And “Dale Boca Juniors” was born.

I released the song onto iTunes and various digital stores last February and I was delighted to discover that it charted in Argentina, peaking at No 25.

That’s pretty incredible. It also made number 58 in the Irish charts which, when you consider I wasn’t selling it here, wasn’t bad.

The interest from the blue-and-gold side of Buenos Aires became bigger and bigger and the chain of events to bring me to Argentine capital began.

I was interviewed by loads of Argentine-based magazines and blogs and I even made national news here in Ireland in both newspapers and radio (former Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr compared my song to the Stiff Little Fingers on RTÉ Radio 1 – strange but true).

It wasn’t long before Boca Juniors invited me to their home game against Newell’s Old Boys at La Bombonera on May 31.

If you know football, you know that this stadium is on every football fan’s bucket list. People pay through the nose to get a ticket into the famous ground.

And here I am, invited by the club to be their guest at a match.

Naturally I accepted.

I eventually got booked to do two DJ gigs in the city – one in a 1,500 capacity club in the district of Palermo, the other in a well-known 300-capacity Irish pub in the middle of downtown Buenos Aires. It was set to be quite the weekend.

However, when Emanuel Ortega passed away due to a serious head injury in San Martin Burzaco’s tie with Juventud Unida in the country’s fifth tier on May 4, football was suspended nationwide.

The knock-on effect of the tragedy meant that the game against Newell’s would be postponed for a few days later than scheduled. 

But it turns out that it probably wouldn’t have mattered.

The now infamous incident that happened between Boca and River Plate’s second leg in the Copa Libertadores where a Boca fan pepper sprayed River players as they were coming onto the field for the second half witnessed the tie being suspended.

Eventually Boca were eliminated from the competition and forced to play a number of games – including the Newell’s one – behind closed doors.

However, all was not lost.

Boca contacted me the week I was due to fly out to South America with an invitation to view the stadium. There might be no match, but I was going to be in this stadium by hook or crook.

After a 15-hour flight, I got to my hotel in downtown Buenos Aires at around 11am and was greeted with the message from Boca to say “Be at the stadium at 1pm”.

I may have been tired beyond belief following a mind-numbingly boring flight (the plane had no TV, magazines and wifi, and as I can’t sleep on planes, I was forced to stare at the seat in front of me for what seemed like an eternity).  

But regardless, I walked towards the famous Plaza Mayo and hailed a cab and said the magic words: “La Bombonera, por favor”. And away we went.

The first thing you should notice about rolling up at the stadium is that the area of La Boca reeks of history.

Parts of it, I am sure however, doesn’t look terribly safe. With that into the stadium I walked where the club press officer greeted me at reception.

The club had arranged for a personal tour of the stadium with a tour guide and the club’s photographer to accompany me around the ground. 

We went around the ground, and into the museum, where the tour guide in her excellent English gave me a detailed history of the stadium.

In my tired state, I was trying to drink it all in. The evidence of my tiredness is pretty clear in the photos. But inside I was dancing. Eventually we went into the dressing room.

“Oh no, you can’t go beyond the line. This is where the players get changed,” the tour guide said as I approached the seated part of the locker room.

Much to my surprise the press officer waved me on as to say “go ahead, no problem”.

“Which shirt would you like to have your picture taken with?” the photographer asked me.

Flabbergasted, I said something along the lines of “uhm…I don’t know…Calleri”. And with that I was standing in the dressing room in front of Jonathan Calleri’s shirt. Looking exhausted, but secretly delighted.

After that I was lead into a padlocked door which was opened for me and I was lead down steps. I was in the tunnel. I was going to be walking onto the pitch. They don’t let any punter do this.

I got my photograph taken on the pitch as I stood there in amazement. Then, all of a sudden, the Copa Libertadores trophy appeared almost as if out of nowhere.

“Here,” the tour guide said. “Hold this and the photographer will take your picture”.

“Is this happening?” I wondered to myself, as I could see the other tourists in the stand, looking at me bemused.

More photos were taken around the museum and in at the club shop, and with that it ended as soon as it began. I walked outside the stadium where I instantly hailed a taxi to bring me back to my hotel.

I drove off looking at the tourists trying to get into the ground to do a tour and my mind went into overdrive. “Have I just been given a private tour of the most famous stadium in South America?”, “Did I just hold the Copa Libertadores?”, “Was I on the pitch? I can’t even get on the pitch at Dalymount Park!”

The rest of my time in Buenos Aires went swimmingly. The gigs were fantastic, the people were utterly cool and the steaks didn’t disappoint. 

I flew back to Dublin, and a few days later Boca featured my visit to La Bombonera on their website and on their Facebook page. This, naturally, was a surprise. But it certainly was noticed by the Boca fans, known locally as Bosteros.

Regardless, I will take the experience with me to the grave. Boca Juniors are truly a special club. 

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