EFL club make wholesome gesture for Barcelona fan who travelled to the wrong stadium

A Barcelona fan was left 366 miles away from their Champions League clash with Newcastle United after arriving at the wrong stadium.

The two sides met in the first leg of their last 16 encounter on Tuesday night.

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A crowd of 52,103 supporters watched the match inside St. James’ Park.

However, their was one Barca fan missing from the crowd after a moment to forget in their travel plans.

Exeter City have revealed one supporter instead arrived at their match against Lincoln City, also played at St. James’ Park.

The fixture marked the second home match back in charge for Grecians interim boss Matt Taylor.

Built just 12 years apart, the two grounds have shared the same name for over a century.

Newcastle’s St. James’ Park was opened in 1892 and has a capacity of 52,264 fans.

Meanwhile, Exeter have played at their stadium since it was built in 1904.

The Grecians are based a six-and-a-half away drive from Newcastle’s home stadium in Devon, though.

As a result, the unfortunate Barca fan was unable to make it to Tyneside for the European clash.

Instead, though, they were provided entry into Exeter’s stadium to watch the League One encounter.

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Exeter statement

In a post shared to X, the club’s supporter experience officer Adam Spencer explained: “One of our volunteers came to the office to let us know that this guy had turned up expecting to see FC Barcelona.

“His English wasn’t great, but from what we could gather, he’d come from London.

“My guess is he’d put St James Park in his phone and then just followed the directions from there.

“He was pretty gutted and a bit embarrassed. So, we sorted him out a ticket and he got to watch a game at the real St James Park. He’d be welcome back any time.”

The fan was treated to a clash against the League One leaders at the 8,219-capacity St. James’ Park.

Lincoln would go on to win 1-0 thanks to Tom Hamer’s first half goal.

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Meanwhile, the supporter missed out on a dramatic late finish in Newcastle as his side snatched a draw in stoppage time.

Lamine Yamal scored a 96th minute penalty to cancel out Harvey Barnes’ opener for the hosts.

The Magpies winger had scored what had seemed to be the winner with four minutes of normal time remaining.

Barca will welcome Newcastle to the Nou Camp for the second leg on Wednesday, March 18.