For my money, it’s the most beautiful ground in the world.

War has renewed the Lobanovski stadium’s former glory.

Dinamo play here, not the Olimpiski, as do Zorya Luhansk, despite leaving Luhansk ten years back.

Ringed by trees, even if the game’s dull you can admire the lush surroundings. Sit opposite the grandstand and some Kyiv sights are visible in the city beyond.

And the memories are many:

• Watching Wales u21s lose 1-0 in 2001 in a biblical downpour.
• Taking a date to Ukraine-Uzbekistan in 2007. Yeah I know, but only in Ukraine would a date come to a game. Just before kick off I was informed of a boyfriend. Phoo! Ukraine won 2-0.
• Dinamo-Shakhtar 2007. Teens pelted the cops and their Alsatians from terraces knee-high in snow, forcing the boys in blue to retreat. Players tippy-toed round the field like ballet dancers, chasing an orange ball.

Not only that but the stadium environs, near the gated entrance, pack an emotional heft.

This was were people died ten years ago as protesters struggled to throw out the crook Yanukovych as they strived to save democracy in Ukraine.

Above, the entrance shows the 2002 statue of Lobanovski on the football. The three body outlines commemorate people who died in February 2014 in the unarmed protests against the government, with two memorial stones on the wall on the right.

Fans are being let into games this season and 3,500 were admitted for the biggest match of the season so far.

This clash is dubbed the eastern Europe ‘clasico’ by marketing types but it lacks real edge, and anyway, with a war on, fans have had to unite behind the army and, indeed, many joined up early and many have died.

Dinamo have had crowds of around 1,780 but rules were relaxed for this one.

A word of warning – if you’re stupid enough to visit Ukraine any time soon for a Dinamo home game then arrive 15 minutes before kick off as that’s when the execrable heavy metal music finally gets turned off. It’s beyond horrific.

The standard walk out by players bearing flags was followed by the national anthem and a silence for those who have died in the war.

In attendance – guys back from the front in full military kit, a couple of amputees, and what looked like the new breed of moneyed middle class fan who took up football after Euro 2012 was held here. Previously, most were white trash groups of lads, few women, no kids.

Not in attendance – followers no longer with us whose names flashed up periodically on the pitch-side electronic hoardings, providing poignant reminders of the conflict. Some of them distressingly young.

The game kicked off and someone clobbered someone – I didn’t see it – and within 30 seconds there was a load of shirty shirts shouting and gesticulating crazily for two minutes.

Whoever was clobbered got up. There was no booking.

Shortly after, there was some singing and chanting. Not from the 3,500.

I looked at the trees. No, they weren’t chirping.

I remembered the local topography. The Lobanovski is surrounded by a metal fence made of stakes.

Plenty of room to watch the game if you can’t get in. Quite a good vantage point in fact.

So fans watched from outside. And they made all the noise.

On the inside it felt like the trees were singing. A rhapsody in russet.

And this being Ukraine, and this being the most beautiful tree-lined ground in the world, why wouldn’t the sycamores and horse chestnuts get in on the act?

After all, they make it the most beautiful ground in the world.

The trees, sorry, the fans outside, had an effect. Posher middle class supporters inside mustered some lukewarm response so as not to feel left out.

Maybe fans, locked out for a long time, have forgotten what to do. So the trees have to do it for them.

Not that it mattered. Unusually for UPL this was a riveting match from the outset.

Dinamo, managed by Oleksandr Shovkovski, may be top of the table but they didn’t play like it. Shakhtar dominated, prompting some rather pathetic half hearted boos from the posh chaps inside.

Fielding several Ukraine internationals including current golden boy Georgi Sudakov and managed by Bosnian Marino Pusic, they were fresh from a narrow defeat by Arsenal earlier in the week.

But it was number 11 Oleksandr Zubkov who caught the eye. Every pass perfectly weighted, every run a danger.

He cracked the crossbar in the eighth minute and it was strange to later discover he doesn’t usually start for Ukraine but comes off the bench.

After 38 Dinamo cleared another off the line. And were lucky to head for the half-time coffee, croissants and, presumably, bollocking at 0-0.

Shakhtar duly came out and scored after 48 minutes. You knew they would. Artem Bondarenko headed in from four yards.

The Young Moles celebrated in style. It looked like it would be all over.

But the ref had other ideas. On 61, Dmitro Kryskiv slid in a bit late and was sent off for a tackle from behind. Not a horror, and a bit unlucky.

It was the break Dinamo needed and 11 v 10 suddenly seemed like a fair contest. The home team could now actually keep the ball plus Shakhtar’s Rubkov was substituted. No more handful to police.

So they had a go at having a go. Plugged away at plugging away, and then plugged away some more.

After 86, a cross flashed across goal from the left, to be met on the far post first time by Oleksandr Karavaiev.

Inside the ground, fans finally produced a rousing reaction. Outside, joy unconfined, I suppose – you couldn’t see the locked-out.

The trees shook with glee, or did I imagine it?

A home winner would have been a travesty and fortunately we did not see one. Shakhtar in the end clung on in a match they dominated up to the sending off, which was crucial.

Still six points behind Dinamo, they look far better but with European travels, an impermanent existence based in Lviv, 1,150 kilometres from Donetsk, you wonder how long this club can stagger on against odds no other club can countenance. Ten years since they played in their home town.

But, as miners – the meaning of ‘Shakhtar’ – they’ve dug in for the long haul and you have to respect that.

And, yes, provided absolutely tree-mendous entertainment.