European stamp collecting

[marinersawan 1]

Arnhem home and away and Inter home and away for me.

Arnhem home - a disappointing attendance, and not going too well until we scored, and I recall smoke bombs and the atmosphere ratcheted up several notches even in the River End where I was with my mates. Shame my Dad wasn't there to see it. They seemed a bit intimidated. Two more and we felt fairly comfortable.

Arnhem away - the pity was it was made very difficult to go without being on an official club trip. English clubs were not long back in Europe after Heysel and no-one wanted to risk any trouble. The ferry was quite lively given the time of day. Dropped by coach in some shopping centre before the game. Played out a rather tame 0-0, and off home.

Bayern away watched on the telly in a pub in London - nearly chucked out for celebrating too enthusiastically.

Bayern at home watched on the telly in a pub in London with a mate - phoned another River End mate after the game - "the River End was like the Barclay" he told us.

Inter at home - second most ill I've ever been but made it back. Can't remember much but I think Bergkamp got a penalty.

Inter away - again the Club restricted tickets to official trips, but I think a fair few made their own way having learned that they could get tickets themselves. I was on an official trip - a flight from Norwich airport. Not allowed a drink at the airport bar, although those on independent trips were. Plane full of what to me in those days seemed like old codgers - probably about the age I was now. Thought - "crap atmosphere if the ground is full of these growlers". On the plane back - the whole lot of them had sung themselves completely hoarse. Outside the ground an Italian shared his "herbal cigarette" with me. I bought a foghorn and promptly had it confiscated at the turnstile. We were a bit disappointed that the attendance at the San Siro was predicted to be only thirty thousand.  Walking towards it I said based on the noise - "there's more than thirty thousand in there". Turns out that noise was just from the Norwich, half an hour before the match. I was hoarse before kick-off. I think we briefly stopped singing at half time, but otherwise the atmosphere was phenomenal. I think the locals described us as the best fans there ever. Some of their lads came in our area after the game - but to exchange scarves etc. Although I think it kicked off a bit in the evening after the game.  We played quite well and I thought we might have a chance but I think Bergkamp scored with the only chance of the game.

 

[TIL 1010 4,722]

Yeah did all six European games which i mentioned in your other thread.

[marinersawan 1]

Til 1010 - my first thread was about Wembley matches. My hope was that on this one people would talk about European matches, and hopefully you can give us some reminiscences. I had in mind another threads about semi-finals. Bill's comment made me think about bad experiences, and I suspect that might be the most "popular" one, but I'll post it as a separate topic.  

[Bill 1,788]

I wonder if Luton consider their 1-0 FA Cup

win at CR as one of their memorable games ?

[TIL 1010 4,722]

2 minutes ago, marinersawan said:

Til 1010 - my first thread was about Wembley matches. My hope was that on this one people would talk about European matches, and hopefully you can give us some reminiscences. I had in mind another threads about semi-finals. Bill's comment made me think about bad experiences, and I suspect that might be the most "popular" one, but I'll post it as a separate topic.  

I will expand on them tomorrow mate.

[Crabbycanary3 994]

Just seen this.

Vitesse away . Just HAD to be at our 1st away European away game, but as a consequence, couldn't afford any other away games, although got to the Bayern Munich home game.

My (our) story to get to Vitesse has been documented in print and on the Radio Norfolk airwaves, thanks to Kathy 🙂 

[marinersawan 1]

Any link, Crabbycanary3? Some bloke got sneaked on our coach just after we got into Holland and livened up the atmosphere with a chorus of "Who's in Europe now, Scum?", so some lads made it despite the restrictions.

[Crabbycanary3 994]

Haven't got a link, but basically I turned up at CR to get on the coaches, but they had already left for Dover (I was in the military at the time and had not received notification of the time change)

I got speaking to Kathy (did not know her at the time, but she hadn't got notification of the time change either). We decided to try and catch the coaches up (Kathy was brave jumping into a strangers car, at 4.30 on a dark morning). Norwich to Dover in 2 hours 15 mins, dumped the car basically on the side of the road if memory serves correctly and finally got on our respective coaches just before they were to board the ferry. My coach driver was somewhat surprised to get a knock on the door from me to say the empty seat was mine!

[Crabbycanary3 994]

Interested to hear stories of fans who have traveled to pre season games, away (Europe/Malaysia etc)

[FenwayFrank 2,456]

Just now, Crabbycanary3 said:

Interested to hear stories of fans who have traveled to pre season games, away (Europe/Malaysia etc)

I did Malaysia, played in a fans match as well as doing both games. Then spent a week on an island, beautiful place. Most people that went will remember the night the club put a bit of cash in a bar and we all had a few drinks 😁

[TIL 1010 4,722]

Arnhem away a group of eight of us travelled by ferry in two cars and booked in a Best Western hotel overlooking the Rhine. Checked in and then went to the bar early afternoon before the game where we found none other than John Motson and a woman he introduced as Vivien Kent the producer of MOTD. He was surrounded by pieces of paper as he prepared his notes for the commentary of the game. An absolute gent who was happy to talk all things football.

Around tea time two bus loads of club staff and partners descended on the hotel and it happened they were staying there as well. After an hour or so Chase turned up and gave one of them an envelope stuffed with cash ( Yes honestly ) which was used to settle a very substantial bar and meal bill.

Munich was also a trip we did by car and boy was that a long drive. One of our group had booked the hotel the details of which he had on a scrap of paper and remember this was in the days pre e-mail and mobile phones. On arriving in Munich the problem arose when the organiser did not have the address so we bumbled around the streets for an hour or so hoping to blindly find the hotel. We gave up and hailed a taxi where another problem arose, not one of us spoke German ! Pointing at the scrap of paper we followed him in our cars and literally just a few seconds later we pulled up outside the hotel which was only a hundred yards around the corner.

After the game and obviously in very high spirits we descended on a bar in central Munich where the locals made us very welcome. A busy bar but it took a while for us to realise that the clientele were exclusively male and that they looked as though they had all auditioned to be in Village People. One of the best nights out you could possibly have.

The ferry trip back my mate who had booked the tickets had booked the wrong date and we were 24 hours early. It cost him a few quid to alter the tickets so we did not have to spend twenty four hours in Zeebrugge. We then made it back as far as Tasburgh where decided to knock on the door of The Countryman Pub at 9am in the morning as one of us knew the landlord....we eventually made the last few miles into Norwich at tea time.

Milan was a trip from Norwich airport as we decided to do it in style and for those nervous about flying it was not good to hear as we approached our descent into Milan the pilot announce that it was very foggy and that he would descend to three thousand feet to ' have a look ' and not to worry if we heard the engines roar and we climb up a few thousand feet to circle round again. Needless to say a big relief when we landed.

Just a few stand out memories that have nothing to do with the football but will not be forgotten marinersawan.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

I didn't go to the Vitesse game. Once you've seen one bridge you've seen them all. I fitted a holiday round the Bayern game, with some walking in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Went round Dachau. A concentration/punishment camp rather than a death camp, but still a dreadful, murderous place. In plain sight on the outskirts of Munich, which was the point. it was meant to be visible.

I lacked a ticket for the game but ran into Chase as he was arriving with his entourage. He fished out a bundle of tickets and handed one over, in an expensive part of the ground, so I was with German fans rather than Canaries.

What I remember of the Inter game was walking away from the ground and the Carabinieri looking sheepish because they'd come tooled up and ready for rampaging hooligans and instead were being smiled at by placid yokels.