Well,
I don’t know about Euro 2004, best forgotten about really, but
the really important news was that Blues’ pre-season foreign
tour was coming up in July. The
2003 spectacular in Malaysia was a really tremendous trip, so much
so that the good lady had consented to accompanying me on the next
one, as long as she didn’t have to join in the singing.
Good result to start with.
When
I spoke to David Gold not long after the Malaysia tournament, he
said that in 2004 we would either be touring Canada or China.
Where and how Germany got into the equation, I don’t know
- perhaps it was the proximity of Dresden (well, strictly
speaking, Meissen, for the bone china aficionados
amongst us). Still,
Germany it was and plans for the invasion visit had to be
made.
Scheduled
Fixtures
The schedule was to begin with a match in Pőssneck
(Purse-neck) on Monday 19 July, then Wednesday 21 July would see a
mini-tournament in Weiden (Vy-den) with a final match in Ulm (Ulm)
on 23 July. This was
a tidy number of fixtures over a period of a few days that would
ensure the squad began to regain match fitness, plus the new boys
would begin to settle in with their teammates and get to know them
properly both on and off the pitch.
As we had already made some major signings in Muzzy Izzet,
Mario Melchiot and Emile Heskey, plus the promising Julian Gray
nephew of the renowned Dorian (perhaps not) and involved in a tug
of love with Seville for the services of Jesper Gronkjaer, the
future augured well and I had the usual rush of desire to see the
boys in Blue in action again.
This
was further complicated by Blues other pre-season fixtures,
beginning with a trip to Cheltenham on 17 July (a new League
ground to visit, even though I had actually played there for Moor
Green some decades ago, well before their status had improved to
league standard). After
the Germany tour, Wednesday 28 July saw a visit to Sheffield
Wednesday (just down the road for me) and then to Hull’s KC
stadium on Saturday 31 July (another new ground since their move
from Boothferry Park). I
wanted to ‘do’ Cheltenham and be back for those Yorkshire
games.
I-O
I-O You Couldn’t Fill a Fridge
As with the 2003 trip to Kuala Lumpur, Blues had allowed the same
travel agent to arrange a club trip at a price not dissimilar to
that charged for 2003 – a trifle steep, in other words.
This meant that most of those planning to travel were
making their own arrangements and a host of good advance
information was to be had from a couple of Blues message boards.
Some were taking in the whole trip, and following the
club’s original announcement, were basing themselves in Nurnberg,
or Nuremberg. Others
were popping over for one game or maybe two.
The
official tour was left bereft of numbers, which may act as a
lesson to them for next time.
How
Do We Get There? I Don’t Know
Our decision was to drive, which made perfect sense really.
There was a need to do the game at Cheltenham, plus we like
to be under our own steam as far as possible.
We’ve made holidays from driving round various parts of
Europe in the past and stopping on spec at somewhere we liked the
look of, so we decided to do much the same, although we had a fair
idea where we wanted to end up for some of the trip.
As
I’d booked everything online for the Malaysia trip in 2003, I
thought I would have a look at Germany hotels and Gasthofs before
we left. It turned
out to be a good move, as the online prices from the “bucket
shop” sites were a lot cheaper than could be had from the
hotels’ own websites in a surprisingly high number of cases.
I ended up joining a German hotel booking site, which got
us an extra 10% off prices quoted online, as long as we booked
three hotels or more for a period of more than four days.
The
best piece of news was to come after the hotels were booked.
I had budgeted on a Eurotunnel price of around £300
return, as our journey would be what they class as long term.
Fortunately, I didn’t get round to booking this too early
(when the estimate was close to the price – I think I’d got it
down to around £270 on initial investigation).
When it was about a week before the trip though, I had read
of a cheap fare – which took a little locating on their site, as
the more expensive deals were more prominent (naughty!)
BUT, a price of £100 return was obtained, which caused
much celebration in the Boz household.
We
were booked in Weimar for two nights, Sunday and Monday, Tuesday
to Thursday in Nurnberg, the Friday in Ulm, then we were free to
go where we fancied until the following Tuesday morning, when we
had a 9:30am Eurotunnel return time booked.
Incidentally, if you missed your train time either way, you
got to pay full fare.
We’re
On Our Way
Saturday 17 July saw a planned fairly early start from Leeds
somewhat delayed by in-laws needing a favour done and we pitched
up in Cheltenham pretty close to 3pm.
I parked up near the ground and joined a similarly tardy
Cheltenham fan in a swift walk to the ground.
MariaPia went shopping and my instructions were to get
something to eat in the ground.
However, the ground had failed to accurately gauge the
voracity of Blues’ fans stomachs and had run out of all things
edible and imbibe able well before KO.
A text got the message through to MP and she would pick up
lunch.
The
game finished 1-1 with Muzzy Izzet on the mark for us, but others
will have covered match details in more depth than I, so I won’t
dwell on that.
I
left the game 5 minutes early, as planned, so we could get the
necessary good start towards Folkestone, but MP managed to get
herself lost walking from the shops to the car and we were
consequently late getting going (then we found Cheltenham somewhat
difficult to get out of, as there are no street signs).
Passed GCHQ twice, then found a route that worked.
Heigh ho.
To
shorten the tale, we just made it to the Eurotunnel terminal,
after many road dealys and having to stop for petrol as the engine
was sucking fumes as we got near to the terminal.
Three minutes and we would have been too late for our
booked train and made to pay full fare (phew!).
As it was, we joined the queue and discovered we were third
in it. Only 8 cars
made the journey at the same time as us – 9:36pm.
It
was 11pm local time when we ‘landed’ in Calais and we quickly
made tracks into Belgium and a place called Jabekke, where we
stopped at midnight and crashed after a light snack (of Hoegaarden
bier).
Sunday
morning saw us up bright and early to continue our voyage post
breakfast, although as our body clocks were still on UK time, we
weren’t quite as early away as we thought we would manage.
Still, Belgian Bloke at the hotel gave us some sound advice
to miss major traffic works near Bruges and orfft we jolly well
popped.
By
early evening, we were in Weimar, home of the original German
republic movement (pre-Adolf) and it has to be said we had
happened upon a terrific hotel.
It had been booked at a cheap price, as mentioned, which
was made all the more palatable by the fact it was cheaper still
for two nights. The
website I booked it through had said it was a 3 star plus, but it
was a 5 star Hilton – the room was enormous, the bathroom large
enough for a chaise longue (I know this for a fact, cos there was
one in there!) with choice of two person bath or walk in and keep
walking round for exercise while showering area.
Only drawback, no grub included and the house prices were
… erm… designed to get back what they were saving on the room
deal.
Luckily,
the early evening rainstorm meant we dashed to a plain-looking
little Gaststube next door (well, across the far end of the hotel
car park) which we thought might be a bit pricey, given it was
next door to this superb hotel joint.
none of it – the prices were staggeringly good value and
the food made it a stagger back down to the hotel – though
MariaPia reckoned the 3 litres of German ale had a little bearing
on that. They served
this cheeky little dark beer number too, that you usually only get
in and around Koln/Dusseldorf – “Starke Bier” or strong
beer. You have to be
careful though, as it seems to contain a drug that makes your legs
go numb, which then makes it difficult to walk.
We
retired at some point and slept the sleep of the innocents,
although by next morning, I was firmly in the house of the guilty,
that is, if you believe MariaPia that I snored loudly.
We were located opposite a large park and decided to walk
into Weimar the next morning for breakfast –well, it was only
four inches on the local tourist map.
We had a wonderful time spotting green woodpeckers, finches
and all other sorts of birds on the way, including a tasty enough
wench claiming to have lost her Hund.
I could see straight through the charade though, no
MariaPia and I would have breakfasted on the fruits of love.
45
minutes later and we stumbled into Weimar central for a bite to
eat. Very tasty and
reasonable it was too. We
spent hours looking around and marvelled at the typically German
fashion of building a new town/city around an old, leaving the old
untouched Difficult
to imagine this as the birthplace of the German renaissance
though, and hard to believe it was until recently part of the old
DDR.
We
got caught in a thunderstorm of almost biblical proportion just
after lunch too, which led to us taking refuge in a stamp
collectors’ shop, whereupon we spent a good hour or so being
schooled in the history of East German money and its
worthlessness, then offended the chap whose shop it was by
refusing to buy reams of the even more worthless notes at a price
you could have bought the whole of East Germany for less than
twenty years ago.
I
was getting a little tetchy as the day wore on, as the Blues game
was in my thoughts, so we decided to go cross-country and see a
bit of ‘East’ Germany on the way to Possneck.
Plenty of little villages with surprisingly austere
buildings dominating them, which gave rise to a few photo stops.
Later, we stopped for a bite to eat (and the ubiquitous
pre-match beer) at a delightful place, where, as luck would have
it, the eaves were home to a family of swallows; the male and
female swooping in and out of the elevated verandah we were sat at
to bring snacks to their young but lustily chirruping brood of
chicks. In my stilted
German, I managed to explain to the few others who turned up for
an early evening meal that the swallows fly in through the same
portal each time and out through the same one, so as they never
hit each other, as they arrive at great speed. No good a swallow screeching “Argghh! Look out!” with a
gobful of insects taken on the wing, is it?
We
were around 30 minutes from Possneck at this point and with time
not waiting for this man and woman, even though we were well
landlocked, thus weren’t sure about the tide and its insistence
either ebbing or flowing, we decided time was as good a yardstick
as we needed and proceeded to make our way along to the ground.
Damned
civilised this brand of Germans are – they had kindly slapped an
enormous banner across the end of the road you needed to turn up
proclaiming the visit of the glorious Blues to this neck of Der
Wald and we discovered there was a car park right behind the end
of the pitch, behind a grassy bank, at the extortionate cost of a
whole Euro. Entry to
the ground resulted in a nice little souvenir ticket, plus a free
match programme (which turned out to be easily the best on the
whole tour – shame on those richer clubs in loftier divisions).
We were easily in time for kick off, a good five minutes
early in fact and managed to squeeze in at one corner, to the left
of the Blues fans behind one goal who had been drinking the Starke
Bier awhile and could not stand up apparently.
I
had exchanged phone numbers with BN1’s own Vic disk diva,
LiquorLicence, or Jo, to use a far easier name for typing
purposes. With
nervous fingers and trembling hands, I texted the message “Where
are you – we’re to the left of the goal” and awaited a
reply. Suddenly, the couple leaning on the barrier 5 yards in front
of us called out “Leigh, where are you?” to which the
pantomime horse rear end responded “We’re behind you!”
A brief relocation of personages and we were gaily
extolling the virtues of this green and pleasant land – although
the train journey had taken most of the day from Nurnberg, where
most Blues fans were staying at the club’s recommendation.
Sometimes I’m glad I’ve followed the Blues for so long
and make my own travelling and lodging decisions.
There were beer tents and vans strewn long the facilities
end of the ground, although Jo and Lee (her chap – could have
been confusing if he hadn’t spelt his differently) gave us the
old “Psst! We have
a free supply of beer outlet.”
Turns out, when they arrived, the local club’s officials
assumed they were part of the club entourage and directed them
into the club changing room/bar/rest area, where BCFC had opened a
bar tab for all drinks served.
While the rest of the fans queued at the vans for a plastic
glass of overpriced fare, we were treated to free cool beers in
glasses you would steal if it was closing time, plus free
sandwiches and the very welcome (to a memorabilia man)
complimentary teamsheets for the game itself.
Blues
won the encounter 5-0 and of course, as I was driving, I only
partook of the one beer (harumph).
On the way back home to our lodgings in Weimar, I got speed
camera lighted on the Autobahn, but as seems to be usual, no
ticket has ever made its way to GB, like one never has from
Holland, France, Switzerland, or Jamaica.
To
be continued…..
