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MIDDLESBROUGH v VfB STUTTGART - BLAST FROM THE PAST II
Fiddler on the Smog
I wasn't happy about having to get up at 5.30 in the morning.
My very kind friend (who will be attending on Thursday night) picked both Karen and I up and took us to the airport at some God-unearthly time in the morning - hey until last Thursday I wasn't aware that there were two five and six o'clocks in the day!
In the check-in area we were tripping over what appeared to be beige lumps - kind of speed bumps for the holiday maker - but on closer inspection they turned out to be a load of poor buggers in the army on their way to some far off sandy country.
The flight only took ninety minutes and Karen (the lass with me in most of the photos of Stuttgart) decided that as she was only having the one day off work she would make the most of it and started drinking her special pop (vodka and coke in a diet coke bottle) with her breakfast.
We got into Stuttgart centre at about 11.30 and, after I emptied my bag of the chicken sandwiches that smelt like they had caught bird flu on the flight over, we went for our first German brew of the day in the main square. After being ripped off at 5 Euros 70 for a small beer we decided to do some exploring. We discovered the Stuttgart club shop and bought scarves and stuff and kept on wandering. We were looking for any type of bar but the first one we came across was Sophies so we decided to stay where we were.
Sophies was pretty full but quiet when we first went in and we got chatting to some chaps from Sedgefield. The place started to fill up and the flags came out and the singing began. By the end of it the place was like a little piece of Teesside had sprouted legs and waddled over to South West Germany for a piece of the action - and a goof guzzle of the local beer.
We left with Steve, Lil, Adcraig and Monty, with Jens and Guts leading the way. Unfortunately Karen saw someone who sits near her in the North stand and she was jumped (literally).
We got off a stop early so we could get drinks on the way to the stadium - the pace was slow with knacky-knee Karen in tow (broken foot one side, swollen knee the other). And it was pissing it down. There were some arseholes at the place where the booze was bought (it turned out they were Chemnitz fans there to cause trouble) but other than getting soaked it was rather a non-eventful journey to the Stadium. And what a place from the outside!
We were directed to the left and said our goodbyes to Jens (Guts was god-knows where). Now this is where the real fun starts. The Germans are known for their organisational skills, well this lot directing the away fans couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. First we were directed down a side street toward the stadium, the security at the end of the road told us we had come the wrong way and directed us over a quagmire of a field back towards the main road. Turns out the fuckers had directed us towards a mesh fence and one of the police officers on the other side had to cut a hole in it to let about forty rather soggy, muddy and disgruntled Teessiders through.
Going through the turnstiles drunk was interesting yet fun and the security checks were ridiculous, I couldn't take in a tub of moisturiser because I could throw it on to the pitch (how far exactly?) but a metal hip flask full of rum was ok!
I don't remember much of the game (the local beer may have something to do with that) apart from Jimmy and his arse scoring a goal in the first half that we looked mightily unimpressive in. I missed our second goal because I was talking to some random while getting some food and I remember that we did not look half as bad in the second half as we had done in the first.
Poor Bob End had to sit a couple of rows behind us on the plane home and could probably hear every drunken word that came out of mine and Karen's mouths. In fact I'd be surprised that the pair of us haven't been blacklisted from any further trips with the club for being drunk and disorderly.
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