CBA's oldest fans attend every home game for 20 years

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At the Yuanshen Sports Center, home court of CBA's Shanghai Bilibili Sharks, two first-row seats on the first floor in the North 2 section are always kept for a couple, Xu Guangqi and his wife Gan Ruxue who have been supporting the home team for 20 years.

With their combined age of 151 years, Xu and Gan followed the team from the previous Luwan Gymnasium to today's Yuanshen. They witnessed Yao Ming's success in Shanghai before he went to the NBA, saw how Liu Wei grew to be the team leader, as well as the departure and return of head coach Li Qiuping.

In the past 20 years, the couple has never missed a single Shanghai Sharks home game. "We never miss any home game. We watch away games, too, but on television to see our boys on the court," said Gan to Tencent Sports.

Liu Wei is the favorite player of Gan Ruxue. /VCG Photo

Gan used to work as a middle school teacher and she liked to watch students play basketball back then. She would pay attention to who played better than others and shared her views on basketball with her colleagues. On her way to becoming a huge basketball fan, Gan found a basketball player of the Shanghai Sharks as her hero.

"Liu Wei is my favorite player. Every time I saw him score, I would feel so happy," said Gan. Her husband Xu agreed: "That's true. Whenever she saw Liu, she looked so excited and even more so if we are watching at the scene."

Gan and Xu did not have today's nice seats at the beginning. They saved money to buy better tickets in order to get close to players. After a while, the Shanghai Sharks noticed the couple - and so did Liu Wei. Both the team and Liu started to offer benefits to the two loyal fans. In 2013, Liu even handed Gan a pair of season tickets.

"Welcome home, Liu Wei." Liu Wei means something unique to fans of the Shanghai Bilibili Sharks. /VCG Photo

From 2002 to 2014, Liu Wei played 12 seasons with Shanghai. Since then, he left the city and played two seasons for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers and the Sichuan Blue Whales respectively. Gan and Xu said they remember every time Liu came to Shanghai as a member of the away team. They always waited at their old spots to meet Liu after the game.

In July, Liu announced his return to the Shanghai Sharks. This news brought tremendous joy to the couple. On November 13, 38-year-old Liu scored his 10,000th CBA point, becoming the third player to achieve such accomplishment in the league's history. "I hope he can keep playing and become Shanghai's coach after retirement to help bring up the team's new leader," said Xu.