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FOOTBALL
Why one fan travels 5,800 miles to watch Grant Holt at Wroxham and Jamie Cureton at Bishop’s Stortford
Hong Kong-based David Lee tells Alan Smith why he has spent £40,000 on watching Jamie Cureton and Grant Holt

Every autumn since 2002, save for four years in the middle, David Lee has made the pilgrimage from Hong Kong to England to feast on football. Nothing unusual there, you may think, when the Premier League views itself as a global brand and every weekend supporters descend on stadiums from all corners of the globe. Except Lee does not visit Old Trafford, Anfield or Stamford Bridge. Instead he is more interested in turning up at Wroxham and Bishop’s Stortford to watch his heroes: Grant Holt and Jamie Cureton.

It has led to some bemused reactions at passport control, with border officials usually asking the same question. Why? “They laugh,” Lee says, “They think fans from Asia only support the big teams, that we are all glory hunters.”

Lee’s interpretation of fandom is far more complex. The 42-year-old bank employee became a Norwich City fan in 1992 because he owned birds as a child and the club’s Canaries nickname caught his attention, along with their distinctive yellow and green kits. While the only destination on his early trips was Carrow Road, he became captivated by two of their strikers and that has spiralled into something rather different.

He still goes to watch Norwich but in recent seasons capturing the final moments of Holt’s and Cureton’s careers has been the priority. It all dates back to September 8, 2002. For that inaugural trip, Norwich, piqued by the novelty of someone travelling half the world just to see them play their centenary game against Harwich & Parkeston, rolled out the red carpet. The club invited him into the changing room on the morning of the game and he was allowed to loiter in the tunnel before kick-off.

He then met Cureton in the players’ lounge at full-time, although the now 43-year-old Bishop’s Stortford player-manager, whose first spell at Norwich ended six years earlier, was not given permission to play by his then club Reading. It was not until October 2006, with Cureton playing against Norwich for Colchester United, that Lee was able to watch him in the flesh. “Of course he scored,” Lee says. “After Jamie found the net he did a muted celebration. At that time almost no player did that, unlike nowadays.”

They have got to know each other as time has passed, helped by Cureton becoming a regular at the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens, where clubs send some of their former and formative players to play every year. “In 2014, Jamie came to Hong Kong to play a seven-a-side tournament for the first time, I went to see him and perhaps he wasn’t expecting someone to know him,” Lee says. “After the game I posted his match video on Twitter, his wife Lisa contacted me and we started to communicate.”

That was the moment when he became a player-first, club-second supporter, even if the love for Norwich still endures. “When Jamie played for Dagenham & Redbridge and then Farnborough, Norwich did not have games on the Saturdays so I went to see him play,” he says. “Then I skipped the Nottingham Forest versus Norwich match to see Jamie play. I got stick from the Norwich fans but I am OK with that — it’s Jamie over Norwich.”

During this year’s visit, Cureton drove him to the train station after Stortford had defeated Corinthian Casuals 3-0. “I got a shirt signed by all the lads to give to him,” the striker says. “Since I left Norwich he has turned up every year to see me play, so it’s the least I could do.”

Lee had long admired Holt but his highlight was when they organised to meet in the lobby of Norwich’s Holiday Inn on October 17, 2016. “I still have the date,” he says. “I organised it through Twitter and I asked him so many questions.”

He is already looking forward to next year. When the fixtures are released in June, he plots his schedule. This season’s trip, his 12th, lasted 13 days and eight games — including three Norwich fixtures, a Bostik League game involving Cureton and Eastern Counties League and veterans matches featuring Holt, who retired from playing seriously last season after a spell with Barrow in the National League and is now focusing on a career in wrestling and coaching in Norwich’s academy.

“My first game was Thetford versus Wroxham so I could see Grant play, then I went to Bishop’s Stortford to watch them play Corinthian Casuals,” he says, listing the itinerary seamlessly. “Then the next Tuesday I watched Norwich City v Aston Villa, Friday night was Great Yarmouth Town v Kirkley & Pakefield, then on Saturday I went to watch Norwich City v Brentford, on Sunday I went to the Leathes Prior Veterans League, Horsford Veterans v Cringleford Veterans, when Grant scored twice for Horsford Veterans in a 3-1 win. On Monday night, I watched Norwich City v Fulham in Premier League 2 Division 2 at Carrow Road and finally Tuesday night, Bournemouth v Norwich in the League Cup fourth round.”

He does not keep exact track of how much he has spent since 2002 but estimates that the dozen trips have cost about $HK400,000 (£40,200). “I earn about $HK20,000 a month,” he adds, “so I have spent a lot of money but it’s worth every dollar.”

The four-year break in the middle came after he met his partner Daphne. She is not a football fan and he felt that an expensive trip every autumn needed to be curbed for the sake of their relationship. Yet she has come around to his fascination and accepts that it is an essential part of his life. Travelling the 5,800 miles to Norfolk is a step too far for her, though, so Lee crusades alone. He knows one other Norwich fan in Hong Kong, Norman Chan, and they are in near-daily contact over WhatsApp.

Norwich will, of course, return to being his No 1 priority once Cureton retires but, as Lee says, “he might keep playing for another ten years”. Then he will be on the look out for a new hero. Carlton Morris, the young striker who has struggled for game time and been loaned out five times, is his big hope but for now Lee is happy to continue along the road less travelled.

David Lee’s 2018 schedule
Eight games in 12 days
Oct 19 Thetford v Wroxham
Oct 20 Bishop’s Stortford v Corinthian Casuals
Oct 23 Norwich City v Aston Villa
Oct 26 Great Yarmouth Town v Kirkley & Pakefield
Oct 27 Norwich City v Brentford
Oct 28 Horsford Veterans v Cringleford Veterans
Oct 29 Norwich City U-23 v Fulham U-23
Oct 30 Bournemouth v Norwich City

Posted By: JD3, Dec 31, 13:42:57