The Stadium of No Light shambles in the Algarve could’ve been saved – if the local jobsworths had only listened to the Rangers fan who was on hand to fix it.
Holidaymaker Iain Martin – who runs an electrical company – jumped from the stands to come to the rescue when the floodlights packed in. Martin, 47, offered his expertise to get Saturday’s friendly with Sunderland back on after the Albufeira Municipal Stadium was plunged into darkness before the start of the second half.
Unfortunately there were not enough bright sparks around to take the advice on board – and fans were left chanting in the moonlight. Martin said: “It’s fair to say we ended up having a bit of a heated exchange. I run an electronic repair company who do fault finding on site at an industrial level. We’ve done work for the likes of Coca Cola and Tennent’s, big companies.
“I was out on holiday with the family and we were taking in the game. It was the usual pre-season fun but then the lights went out at half-time. I’ve sponsored a few games at Ibrox, know a few of the guys and told them it looked like this wasn’t happening but this is what I do for a living.
“We did a bit of running about and found the event guy in charge. Myself and David Cook, who is an industrial electrician, went down to the electrical room. But they couldn’t find the key!
“It’s a council run stadium so they were trying to track down whoever had the key. About 25 minutes later this wee guy turns up looking like he’d just fallen out of bed.
“He claimed the whole street had no power but that was garbage. I clocked the problem and told him about putting on the breakers.
“I tried to tell him this is what I do but he wanted me out. We managed to get the lights on in the room and the stand. When you are fault finding you have to see if the fault follows itself but he wouldn’t listen.
“I was thinking about trying to get the lights back on, not just to get the game on, but to make it safe for the fans leaving. People were using their mobile phones as torches. I think it dawned on him I knew what I was talking about but I got the sense he didn’t want this Scottish guy on his holidays making him look stupid.”
Martin – who runs Atholl Industrial Solutions – added: “We managed to get two of them going but they refused to do what we asked and by that time the players had been off the pitch too long and it would have been too big a risk of injury to restart. The Sunderland fans were giving me a bit of stick, saying I was trying to get the game stopped because we were losing!
“It was good banter. It was just a shame they wouldn’t listen to get the game back on.
“Sunderland play Roma at the same venue on Wednesday and I told him, if they let this guy go home with the key then the same thing will happen. I’ve said to them I can pop along – maybe I can help out Jose Mourinho!”
Rangers have offered refunds for fans who bought tickets or stumped up to watch on RangersTV.
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