'THEY say it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience," said Jimmy Dunbar from Normanby, Middlesbrough, plastic glass in hand, Boro shirt over his head to keep the searing sun off. "But it's not. It's a once-in-a-million years."

A corner of orange Holland turned red and white as the colours of Middlesbrough, a small town in Europe, invaded. In their thousands, they came. By bus, by car, by boat, by plane. From every conceivable corner of the globe, from Billingham to Beijing.

"I've flown in from China," said Michael Ellis, a market researcher in the Far East for the past five years. "I used to go to games when I was a kid, so I've served my time. I just had to be here."

Many, like Michael, had been travelling for days; others had left before sun-up that morning from Durham Tees Valley Airport, the club's Rockliffe training ground, in Hurworth, Darlington, picked out by the day's first rays amid the dawn mist of the Tees beneath their starboard wing.

At least one didn't make it, breaking down in tears at 3am when he reached the check-in desk to be told that his passport had expired the day before and there was no way he was going to his club's biggest match in 130 years.

Others were better prepared, Tony Logue, of Stockton, dressed up in a lurid yellow, green and red checked Chubby Brown suit, complete with flying goggles and flaps. "I just fancied something different," he said. "It cost me £20 for the experience from a fancy dress shop in Sedgefield."

Seventy-three-year-old Betty Frank, from Thornaby, Stockton, was more normally attired. She was one of the first Ayresome Angels in the 1960s when football armies began travelling. She went further back still: "I used to mind the fans' bikes in the days when we played at Ayresome Park. We charged them tuppence or thruppence a bike to look after them in the little alleys off Clive Street - mind, that's going back 50 year," she said.

"We gave a note in at school about taking a day's holiday and the teacher said it was okay," said Callum Johnson, nine, from Yarm. He and his friends, Charlie Grant, from Hartlepool, and Joe Taylor from Norton, are part of the Middlesbrough Academy, having travelled with their dads.

Callum's dad said: "It's history. It is something they will never forget, and that's great for a parent."

Meanwhile, Callum said: "I'm just enjoying smashing the balls all over the square," as he hoofed a ball high into the throng.

It might have been the stratospheric punt that landed in the plastic glass of Mick the Tick - Middlesbrough's watch repairer: "Be posh, call me a horologist" - shattering it and showering all around with lager. "It doesn't matter, I only had an inch in it," he said.

It didn't matter. By the time of kick-off, the square beside Catharina Church was unwalkably sticky and the water feature, which had been running cool and clear at midday, had developed a lager head a metre high, plumes of froth blowing away in the breeze.

The pumping PA was threatening damage to the foundations of the ugly concrete buildings around the square, as it poured out sounds of home: Rule Britannia, Three Lions and, a Riverside favourite, Zambesi.

Only it had new words: "Geordies at home, watching The Bill."

It was an incredible wall of sound, a sea of celebration, in a city of enormous bonhomie and ever-increasing amounts of red and white as the sun burned down on beer bellies cultivated over long winter evenings.

"I haven't got a ticket, I've just come for this - for this atmosphere," said John Bennison, of Coulby Newham. "I'm 65 a week today so it is once-in-a-lifetime for me."

Tom Lewis, from Ingelby Barwick, had travelled to most of Boro's away matches on their European tour. "This is how it should be," he said. "This is brilliant. Rome was an absolute disgrace. They closed all the bars and surrounded us with riot police. It was intimidation, and that's why there was trouble."

Whole families had decamped to Eindhoven. "There're 19 of us, aunts, uncles, sisters, mums," said Helen McGee, a stadium cleaner at the Riverside. Indeed, whole cities had arrived. Five minutes' walk from Middlesbrough's square was the assembling point of their opponents, Sevilla. They too were red and white - an earthy crimson compared to Boro's vivid hue.

But whereas the Teessiders commandeered shopping trolleys to transport their stash of lager, the Sevillans had plates of salami at their feet and waved huge glasses over their heads containing gallons of their favourite concoction: a whisky-based punch in a bowl so large it required two to lift when full.

It was a collision of cultures, but they mingled happily. An extraordinary bearded Dutch man of God rode among them in a wheelchair, Flemish Biblical verses on his back and a large daffodil, as big as Jack's beanstalk, hanging over his head. In a language neither sets of fans understood, he condemned their "Coca-Cola conscience" while they compared their styles of play.

"You strong, strong, strong," said a Sevilla fan admiringly, watching a giant screen on which highlights of the Uefa Cup campaigns were played all day. "We fast, fast, fast."

He did a little flamenco dance for his new friends, which finished with him side-footing an imaginary ball into a net. "Nice one, Ronaldo," said the Boro boys.

His worship the mayor of Eindhoven addressed the crowd from the stage. "Dear friends from Middlesbrough," he said. "It is great to meet so many here in our city. I give you some more balls so you can kick them, and I wish you warm success."

His countrymen stopped their bicycles on the fringes of the square and looked on in wonderment.

They had to - it was all but impossible for them to pedal home from work through a crowd of lager-sway fans milling towards the stadium.

"I like it," said Bram, an elderly gent, as he tried to avoid a flying football while holding on to his handlebars. "I'm PSV (Eindhoven), but I like a lot. This is good, good football." With an expansive wave of his arms, he conjured up another word from his limited English vocabulary. "Great. And good - what you say? - luck to them."