Inter vs AC Milan: When Mail Sport's Craig Hope won a trip to the magical San Siro aged 13

Mail Sport’s Craig Hope will be at the San Siro on Tuesday evening covering the second leg of the Champions League semi-final between Milan and Inter. Here, he takes us back 27 years to his very first visit to the stadium…

Over the course of my childhood, I spent hours outside that betting shop in the North East of England, waiting for my dad as the masses swept past en route to the match. I was happy.

We’d soon be joining the crowd and the football coupon was my means of entertainment, passed back through the door by my dad as he plotted an X-marks-the-spot path to fortune inside. My parents still live in the same semi they bought in 1979.

Anyway, that coupon was a pre-Internet treasure trove of information - fixtures on the front, league tables and top scorers on the back. But one Saturday afternoon, in October of 1995, I found a competition overleaf - ‘Win one of 6 Italian Dream breaks to see Inter Milan v AC Milan’.

Gazzetta Football Italia was in its pomp on Channel 4 and never to be missed. The competition questions, therefore, were answered before the betting shop door had even closed.

Which of the following teams did David Platt not play for? Bari? Sampdoria? Napoli? That would be Napoli.

Which team has won Serie A the most? Juventus? AC Milan? Inter Milan? Ah, the Old Lady. Juventus.

Which Italian team won the 94/95 UEFA Cup? Roma? Parma? Sampdoria? Easy. Parma. I had the game on video.

I remember my dad’s words as I asked him to post the slip to the listed address in Middlesex… ’That’s a waste of a stamp, son’.

Four weeks later and back outside the betting shop, my dad emerged. He wore a look of total disbelief. I assumed he’d had a winner on the horses. Not so. The winners of the Italian Dream competition, as was being relayed over the shop’s speakers, were us.

Flights from Gatwick, three nights in a Milan hotel and two tickets to the Milan derby on Sunday March 10, 1996. That stamp had paid for itself a thousand times over.

By another quirk of fate, my best friend at school entered a competition through the local newspaper for tickets to the same game and he, too, won.

His was a slightly better package - he and his dad flew from Newcastle, our nearest airport - while we were on an overnight National Express. Not that it mattered. I was 13 years old and missing two days of school to go to Milan to watch football - I would have walked there!

Seeing the San Siro for the first time, the day before the game, was truly magical. There was a flea market outside and we were able to wander into the stadium unchecked. For all that the noise and colour of the following day would leave a lasting impression, being stood alone with my dad inside this majestic footballing monument - one that existed in my mind only on TV - was worthy of top prize itself.

Earlier this season, I bumped into Eddie Howe as we left an empty St James’ Park. Unprompted, he looked around the stands and remarked how breathtaking it was to be the only person there. I didn’t bore him with my Milan story, but the first time I had ever experienced that sense of wonder was in the San Siro. Not a bad place to start.

It was very different 24 hours later. My biggest concern was not seeing any of the match - we were there in good time, no betting shops here - but the smoke from an explosion of flares clouding the pitch was as thick as the coat my mam had made me take, much to my distaste. But she knew best. For all the atmosphere was red hot, the temperatures were sub zero.

Not knowing where we’d be sat, my dad and I hedged our bets and bought two bobble hats - one Milan, one Inter. I claimed the Milan hat - Maldini, Desailly, Weah, Baggio. My dad could cheer on Paganin and Fontolan. Yeah, me neither…

He had the last laugh in the battle of the bobble hats, though. The smoke had just about lifted come the fifth minute when Inter’s Marco Branca scored what would prove the only goal.

But much like seven hours on a bus between Newcastle and London did not matter, the result was academic, too.

Just being there - seeing the Duomo, eating pizza and ice cream, watching the Italian Match of the Day with my dad, buying an Italian newspaper just for the pictures and player ratings, kicking a little ball around Milan with my friend (later my best man) and his dad, entering the San Siro via those brutal yet beautiful spiral walkways, feeling the heat of the Derby della Madonnina and having the whole story to retell for eternity, that was the money-can’t-buy prize.

And all for the cost of a stamp.