|
OSTRAVA AWAY 30-9-04
Written by Steve G, whilst wiping the tears away
I had sworn that I would be there, 'wherever we get drawn and whatever the situation in the country that we play in, be it war, famine, pestilence, whatever, I will be there." Or words to that effect. This was the one that couldn't be missed because this was an historic occasion.
Excitement and anticipation mingled with concerns that we may get beaten 4-0 or that I may experience travel difficulties and I got little sleep on Wednesday night. The 0630 alarm sounded soon after I had drifted off and it was time to get ready, get on the road and join the party in Ostrava.
The TGWU were having a party outside Gatwick Airport and although the delays on the way in to the terminal were not so serious, the disruption caused by this baggage handlers strike were monumental and included a delay of at least three hours to the flight that I was taking to Prague. As the wait dragged on, it started to become apparent that the delay was going to be more than three hours which meant that I was going to have trouble getting there in time for kick off.
With nine hours left to complete my seven hour journey, I weighed up the odds of catching a RyanAir flight from Stansted and knowing that a same day Internet booking was not possible and finding the phone lines unavailable, I bussed it back to the Gatwick car park and burned rubber all the way to Stansted to find that there was nothing doing for less than four hundred pounds, a sum that was out of my reach.
I did manage to get through to other numbers during my search for an alternative flight but the only remotely feasible option was a flight from Luton at 1900, which would have meant getting to Ostrava long after kick off. So it was not really even remotely feasible then. My last, and really only remaining possibility was to drive all the way to Ostrava and I pulled into Dover with five hours remaining before kick off.
When the ferry docked in France, after what seemed like an eternity, it finally released me onto the same piece of dry land that the Boro game was taking place on and I flew down the Calais to Brussels road like a bat out of hell until I was within thirty kilometres of the European capital city's Zaventum Airport and hit some very heavy traffic. The length of this delay meant that I had to admit defeat and throw in the towel, as it would have been totally unrealistic to even contemplate crossing the whole of Germany in the time that I had left.
Here's where I should have been. Thanks to Darren Congdon for the pic.
I can't even begin to describe the feeling of knowing that I had missed the Ostrava extravaganza, so let me leave it like this.
'Whoever we draw in the group stages and whatever the situation in the two countries that we play in, be it war, famine, pestilence, whatever, I will be there."
After freeing myself from the Brussels Ring evening traffic jam, I hit the E40 to Liege and figured that I would go to Aachen and catch the second half of Alemannia's UEFA Cup first round second leg match against an Icelandic team with an unpronounceable name containing lots of j's and i's, blag my way in and pretend that I was at the Boro match.
After screaming across Belgium at almost supersonic speeds, I crossed the German border at exactly the same time that I figured the whistle for the end of the first half would be sounding and turned the corner into Tivoli where the Aachen ground is situated a mere ten minutes later. I was not greeted by the expected sound of a twenty thousand strong crowd and the sight of a football ground alive with bright lights and colour and in fact, the silence that I discovered was almost 'deafening'. How the hell could I not have remembered an article written in early June of this year stating that Alemannia Aachen would not be able to use their stadium for UEFA Cup matches because it did not meet the required UEFA standards? An article that I was the author of. I wondered how Boro were doing as I bounced my head off the steering wheel, over and over again.
Thanks to Andy Craig for the other pictures on this page. Sorry that you and Chris were messed about...
BACK TO 2004/05 REPORTS INDEX
|
|
|
|
