Bienvenido a Harborough Town

Market Harborough u3a's Spanish Improvers Group recently had the opportunity to practice their Spanish 'for real' when they were asked to help welcome a group of Spanish football fans who'd flown over to support Harborough Town football team. Here, the group recount how this opportunity came about.

Spanish footballs fans pictured with members of the Harborough Welland Spanish Improvers Group. Photo by Phil Passingham, Harborough Town Football Club photographer.

Firstly, how did this team from a small Leicestershire town attract so much attention in Spain? Harborough Town Men's First Team is a member of the Southern League Premier Division Central. In 2025, they gained attention by winning through four qualifying games and Round 1 of the FA Cup. Following this moment of fame, Harborough Town games are streamed live on La Media Inglesa YouTube channel, creating a fan base in Spain and across other Spanish speaking countries in Latin America. 

In April, Harborough Town, known as The Bees, played St Ives, Cambridgeshire. Peter, a member of Harborough Welland u3a and a keen Harborough Town supporter, heard that the Spanish fans were coming and asked if the club would be interested in some help from some Spanish speakers. The football club asked members of the u3a Spanish Improvers group to meet the visitors, chat to them in Spanish and make them feel welcome. 

When they arrived to help, the u3a members were made welcome with security pass lanyards and tokens for free drinks. The club screens and match programme had welcome pages in Spanish for the visitors. At around 1.30pm the visitors could be heard singing and chanting as they approached on foot. They were all given free t-shirts in the club colour - yellow. Members of the u3a group chatted to the visitors, who were very friendly and seemed surprised and delighted to be greeted in Spanish. 

Members of the Spanish Improvers group

The two teams were given a loud and enthusiastic welcome onto the pitch, with most of the cheers being for Harborough Town. Sadly, they lost the match, greatly reducing their chance of reaching the promotion play-offs, but well done to St Ives!

Videos posted later that evening showed the young Spanish fans partying in the clubhouse. The somewhat older u3a members had already left by then!

We don't all get the chance to put our foreign languages theory into practice, so we were fortunate as members of this u3a group, along with group coordinator Don, to do just that. It was a brilliant, if slightly nerve-wracking, to be able to put our developing Spanish to such good use. It gave the visitors the chance to ask questions about Market Harborough and the u3a group the chance to practice their spoken Spanish, even if hard-practiced grammar and verb endings got lost in the enthusiasm of conversations. Just being understood was really encouraging.