Derby night: how the city turned crimson

By six o'clock on Saturday evening, Rustaveli Avenue had stopped being a street and become a river. Thousands of supporters, wrapped in crimson scarves and carrying flags stitched at home, flowed toward Lineuper Arena for the biggest night of the spring. Three hours later, 18,400 of them were still singing.

The march

The march began at the Opera, where the Crimson Wall supporters' group gathered at 17:30. By the time the procession reached the stadium gates it was a kilometre long, led by a brass band of retired factory workers who have played at every derby since 1994. Shops along the avenue hung scarves from their windows. A bakery near the metro handed out free crimson-iced biscuits.

The tifo

Inside the arena, the north stand unfurled the largest tifo in club history: a 90-metre banner showing the founders of 1948 carrying a ball through the printing-house yard. More than 200 volunteers had spent six weekends painting it in a rented warehouse in Didube.

We did not want to show a player. We wanted to show where we come from. When it opened and the whole stadium went quiet for a second, I cried.

The night in numbers

• 18,400 in attendance, a sell-out for the fourth consecutive home match
• 90 metres: the width of the tifo, unfurled in 40 seconds
• 112 decibels recorded at the moment of the opening goal
• 1,200 children seated in the family zone

The city as one

What stayed with the players was not the noise but the afterwards. Supporters stayed in the stands long after the final whistle, singing the club anthem in the dark while the floodlights were dimmed. Outside, taxi drivers refused fares from anyone wearing a scarf, and the metro ran an extra train at midnight.

Captain Giorgi Maisuradze summed it up: "We played for ninety minutes, but they played for the whole week. Thank you." Photos from the evening are in the photo gallery.