'I'd only watched football on TV' - meet the Iranian woman watching her first games in the flesh at Exeter City

Shiva Shoaee has become an Exeter City supporter since moving to Devon from Iran to study

"This feeling was something unique, something you can't imagine. I've been watching football for almost 36 years through the television, but this time I had the chance to go to the stadium, to watch everything for real and in person."

Exeter City's League Two fixture with Bristol Rovers might not be a game many football fans equate with something so meaningful, but for one woman it ended a three-and-a-half-decade wait to be allowed to go to a game.

Iranian postgraduate student Shiva Shoaee has loved football for as long as she can remember.

But in all her 36 years growing up in Tehran she was never allowed to attend a match in her homeland as women had effectively been banned from stadiums when men were playing since just after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

But on that afternoon last August, Shiva's love for the game grew even greater - helped perhaps by the home side scoring four goals in the opening 25 minutes - as the things those who go to matches freely every week take for granted, made quite an impression.

"The colour of the grass, it was so green, it was something absolutely new to me," she explained to BBC Sport.

Shiva has been lucky enough to meet some of Exeter City's stars, such as long-serving defender Piers Sweeney

"It seemed as if I was touching the ground and touching the field, that lovely green colour.

"I've been watching football for years and I found that stadiums in the UK like Manchester United and Liverpool are so close to the field, you're so close to the players.

"You can feel it in your blood. It's such a unique feeling that I've never had before.

"Being among those people who are all cheering and shouting, you just can express your feelings when you're among them.

"I felt I was among them, one of the fans, and I didn't feel like I was a stranger. It was such a unique feeling."

Dreaming of watching a game at home

Iran did allow a small number of women to watch an international match in Tehran against Cambodia in 2019

Shiva moved to the UK last summer to study data science and, rather than move to one of the UK's big cities, opted for Exeter in Devon - partly for family reasons and partly for the lifestyle that comes with living in a city a few miles from both beaches and moorland.

And Exeter's supporter-owned club proved to be the perfect place for her to form a football bond - she has been welcomed by all that come to St James Park and formed firm friendships along the way.

It was that bond and those friendships which helped her cope with the grief that followed the death of her mother in the summer while she was in the UK and unable to return home because of Covid-19.

"This was something that really changed my life during these few months, just to be in the atmosphere and be among those lovely people that are supporting their team," she explained.

"This is something I feel is really changing my life. I don't need any therapy or grief consultant, that's the power of football and it's something really unique that I had experienced in my life."

Iran finally allowed women to buy tickets on general sale to watch a men's match for the first time in 40 years just over two years ago when the national team thrashed Cambodia 14-0 in a 2022 World Cup qualifier.

Only 3,500 tickets were available for a special women's section and Shiva was not one of those lucky enough to get one.

"The joke was that that was the only game that women could attend and our team won 14-0," she said with a smile.

But she hopes one day she will be able to watch a game in her homeland surrounded by those she loves - from both sexes.

"My dream is to have a chance to go to a stadium one day in Iran with all my friends, my family, my cousins and sit beside my brothers and share my passion with them," she said.