An Irish football fan has set himself the gargantuan task of visiting all 807 of Europe’s top-flight soccer teams to take in a match, and he’s sharing all of his results with followers on TikTok.
22-year-old Jamie Lomax is a long-suffering Derby County fan, and short of watching the Rams take on the world’s best in the Premier League, he’s decided to see literally everyone else, from Portugal to Poland, from the Faroe Islands to France.
So far, he’s around 80 clubs down, and has no plans of stopping, eventually hoping that he can leave his job at a local petrol station to create content full time.
@jamie_lomax11 Episode 79:Is it possible to watch EVERY football team across Europe??🏟️🎟️⚽️ Europe 1 to 807 Club 79/807!!! Olimpija💚🤍 #europe1to807 #awaydays #solofootballtravel #ultras #olimpija #maribor #football #fyp ♬ son original - Lomax | Europe 1 to 807
The story starts on a sad note though, with the death of his beloved dog Millie.
He told Balls.ie: “I graduated college and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I quit my job in October 2022 and went on a crazy month of football travelling.
“Whilst I was there I’d film clips for myself, I never thought it would come to anything.
“Then, in December my dog died and I didn’t know what to do.
“I was in a rock bottom moment of my life.
“I didn’t know what to do, I had no job, everything is falling apart.
“So, I said ‘f*** it – I’ll go travelling for a bit’.
“I had a bit of money saved up, so it was either stay miserable and depressed or take action,
“I had caught the bug, so I decided to go to as many football matches as I could.”
Since then, he’s never looked back.
'I'll go everywhere'
Sure, there have been setbacks, including accidentally paying €30 for a parking spot outside Schalke vs Dortmund, but broadly the experience has been life-changing.
What’s more, his account has gone from strength to strength.
“Once you post one viral video, it’s like a dopamine rush, you just want more.
“I thought about what might make people think ‘what’s so crazy, I have to follow that guy’.
“That’s where I got the idea – I’ll just go to everywhere.”
Now, Jamie’s account (@jamie_lomax11) has over 50,000 followers and has received over 1,000,000 likes.
He’s come a long way since the car park of the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen.
Logistically, there are problems – a few global conflicts might spring to mind – but also the spiralling cost of travel, tickets, and treading the pathways all across the continent.
“I try not to think about it,” Jamie said.
“The potential for the series is insane, so eventually I might make money back from it.
“Any money I earn goes into the trips, and I try to do it as cheap as possible.
“People don’t always see how I travel.”
Getting to these matches involves planes, trains, and automobiles, but often they don’t involve a lot of sleep.
The task currently stands at around 10 percent completed, and Jamie wants to attempt around 80/100 clubs per year, meaning that things should finish in almost a decade.
@jamie_lomax11 Episode 68: Is it possible to watch EVERY football team across Europe??🏟️🎟️⚽️ Europe 1 to 807 Club 68/807!!! Charleroi🖤🤍 #europe1to807 #awaydays #solofootballtravel #sansiro #charleroi #genk #belgium #fyp ♬ son original - Lomax | Europe 1 to 807
However, there are yet more problems to consider.
Israel and Ukraine are both on the list, but seem a long way away at the moment.
Whilst Ukraine is playing some matches in Poland and Germany, Israel remains incredibly difficult from a safety, political, and moral status.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Jamie continued.
“If it gets to a situation where I’m at seven or eight hundred games, it would be a personal conflict about what I would do.
“But, that’s about eight or nine years away, so I’m not worrying about it too much yet.”
The individual games that have stood out for Jamie so far include the Stockholm derby, which he claims has an atmosphere that he’s ‘never seen anything like’.
A low point – if there has been one – came at the Turin derby between Juventus and Torino, which came during the Old Lady’s off-pitch troubles last season, as well as during a ban for the Juve ultras.
He explained: “Expectations were let down quite a lot – when the opportunity came, I decided I had to go.
“But, because of the situation there was a ban on ultras, tickets were very expensive, and the atmosphere was very flat.
“There were six goals – it was 4-2 – it wasn’t a bad match, but it didn’t feel like a proper derby match that I was expecting.
“That was probably the worst experience.”
Moldova calling
There are bucket list games everywhere he looks on the list of games to come, including some stunning scenery in the Faroe Islands and some of the highest-profile matches in Europe’s top five leagues.
However – ever the footballing extrovert – Jamie claims that he’s most looking forward to a trip to Moldova, where a friend is waiting to help him out with an experience.
Since starting out, the reaction from the public has been overwhelming.
Random people have reached out to help facilitate Jamie getting to games, helping organise tickets, and offering any assistance that they can.
“It’s not usually the big teams, it’s the small teams,” Jamie explained.
“The main thing I love about this series are the unique experiences.
“My most popular videos are when I’ve been by myself, people love to see a guy from Ireland travelling by himself and having these experiences in different countries.
“The whole concept has people fascinated, they find it very hard to hate what I’m doing.
“People see what I’m doing, what I am trying to achieve.”
Of course, there has been negativity – this is the internet after all – but broadly the response has been supportive and positive.
@jamie_lomax11 How do you even explain what my life is at the moment😭💀🇩🇪🐐 #europe1to807 #solofootballtravel #awaydays #ultras #koln #germany #fyp ♬ son original - Lomax | Europe 1 to 807
He said: “The main thing is, I’ve tried to promote my content in a positive way.
“There’s the odd time at the beginning where I might have said something negative about a club, their fans, or a stadium, and it’s a balance.
“That’s the kind of content that engages people and is going to create an argument or generate views or whatever.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s worth it for the reaction you get.
“It’s going to get views, but I don’t like that side of it.
“Everyone supports their team in a different way, people love their clubs, and to s*** on them for supporting their club, I don’t like that idea.
“It’s all light-hearted, and in general the response has been overwhelmingly positive and that’s what I try to focus on – any negative comments that I get, I just ignore.”
In the long run, Jamie hopes that he can use his account to leave his job at the petrol station and create content full time, and if his platform continues to grow, his
Follow Jamie on TikTok and YouTube and – if you support a random club in a top-flight European league, keep an eye out for a young lad from Tipperary.
Hell, offer him a bed for the night, eh?
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