What was said? What happened? It's just like the end of "Lost In Translation" that bit when you don't know what Bill Murray said to Scarlett Johannson.
posted by Marcos D'Cruze at 10:55 AM
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Dedicated to Antonio Sanchez Barrios, the master storyteller of my childhood.
MATCH OF THE DAY
It has taken me nearly a week to recuperate, gather and get my self to a reasonably happy place in order start writing this particular blog entry about a journey to France for the Champions League Final with my mate and my team Arsenal.
I have never attempted to write so many words since I was at school.
.
I warn you it is a long blog, I have decided to not include any pictures, I am just going to allow the 24 characters and 8 punctuation marks to do their thing.
Friends I have recounted this tail to cannot believe it, I myself as the events unfolded struggled to believe it, which is what prompted me to put this down in such detail.
In short like a football match, it is in two halves, I hope to deliver the second half very, soon, before the end of the World Cup.
So as all those cheesy American afternoon movies my mother used to watch when I was a youngling and when ill at home from school used to say…
“The following is based on a true story”
Now this is not just based, but what you are about to read is 100% real deal football supporting.
This is the story of two Arsenal fans going to Paris to see their beloved team in the biggest game of the clubs history, as if it was not hard enough to get tickets we lucked out at £300 each off a disappointed Chelsea fan, tough to book a reasonably priced hotel, or to even book a ferry that would get us over in time.
We also had the journey from hell, my mate and I had to endure not just that very tough journey there and back, and the defeat, but we also had to make the journey home, which in some ways was even tougher..
But that is what kind of makes this tale what it is.
Please savour, enjoy, and cherish this fluffy bit of nonesense, then out of sympathy join my bands website and buy a record or something; or you could send in a blank CD to http://www.guarro.net and we will send it back full of Guarro Music.
THE TRIP
Wednesday 5:30am BST (My House)
It is Wednesday morning, a small sports bag on my shoulder, I walk down the stoop from my front door with a big smile on my face with my brother in laws Sat Nav ready to plumb into J’s car. J or Jason is my Arsenal partner in crime.
My spar Jason is outside only 15 mins late, amazing for him because he’s more regularly late than me and that is something, he’s topping up the oil to his black Golf GTi and I plug up the Sat Nav and punch in Dover.
He had come all the way from his home in Beckenham to collect me in West London, the deal was, I’d then drive us to Dover as reward for his driving to BOCA, and then we’d split the French leg.
We set off considering the stupid hour well excited, I mean come on I am half Spanish half Indian Jason is a six foot Black guy who’s heritage is Caribbean; the only time we ever see this time of the morning is because we’ve stayed up all bloody night or we have got up for a piss.
But here we were all woke up, all left on time, and all booked up! We were just crushing those stereotypes!
We catch up on our drive down to Dover in the mist and fog, it was very foggy indeed on some stretches of the motorway, I don’t think J and I could quite believe that we had these tickets for a match that were changing hands for £2500 each. We were going to watch Barcelona V Arsenal at the Stade De France in the Champions League Final, and here we were in a car on our way to that final, following loads of other cars with Arsenal scarf’s and T-Shirts hanging out of the windows.
After many years following the Arsenal and finally getting a season ticket after all those years waiting, to get to this final really is what football supporting is all about.
WE FELT ON TOP OF THE WORLD and I thought deep down inside we stood a chance.
And we did.
Wednesday 7:00am BST (Dover)
We arrive at the Dover, safe and sound and pull into our designated lane, the mist was rising, and a large electronic notice board was flashing messages at us.
We pull out my Arsenal scarf, one I’ve had since I was fourteen across the back seat headrests so that our fellow Gooners could pick us out, and better still so could the Barca fans.
We get given a “Be safe, don’t break the law” leaflet stating the French do’s and don’ts when one is driving in France they go like this:
French Law!
Drive on the other side of the road (OK)
Stick a GB sticker on the back (Done)
Put headlight stickers on so you don’t blind the oncoming traffic. (We’ll get them on the ferry and bung em on before we set off)
You must have a first aid kit, and help any driver in distress (J has a first aid kit! Amazing, and we like helping people, especially stranded attractive female Barca supporters)
You must have a Red Triangle (Bugger, J said he had one, but he can’t remember what he did with it. You don’t know what he did with it? I mean you wouldn’t lend it out to anyone now would you.
Can you imagine it? Your mate rings you up and say’s “Hey can I borrow your Red Triangle Jason, I feel like stopping the car somewhere really unsafe later today, in France”
Last but not least a luminous/reflective bib/jacket (Stuffed, we really don’t have one of those, unless J lent it out of course.
Anyway we got onto the ferry, some of the boys singing at each other from across the boat “Were the Norf Bank were the Norf Bank were the Norf Bank of Highbury.
We meet Billy and Jason’s crowd on the boat, the Yam Yam boys and all.
We then queue up for our breakfast and by the time we get it and eat it we arrive in Dunkirk. With horns beeping as we roll off the ferry like something out of The Italian Job, we know we are just a cheeky 3hr trip to our hotel, we will then be dancing around the Moulin Rouge as we pass the time with a beer waiting for kick off at the Stade De France.
Wednesday 11:11am CET (French Motorway)
The mist and the fog is well behind us, the sun is shining, the car is purring like a big cat, all the mates on the phone, J and I are just soaking it all up. We had tucked into the Ham rolls Jason’s Doris had knocked up, we are well contented but we need a drink.
2 hrs into the drive, we feel magnificent. Our only minor worry was our lack of Euros we need a cash point. We have to pay the motorway toll, so we pull into some services.
Car filled up, cash in hand we make the abstract decision not to buy a drink, as we are only 20 miles from our Hotel we decide to hold off the cold water or a chilled soft drink, for thirst quench beer swigging which could surely now only be 40 minutes down the road. I mean have you ever done that? Held off any liquid so you could enjoy that pint that little bit extra thirsty. It only really works with lager, although I do get very envious of those people who can eat a whole KFC or Mac Donald’s without having any drink at all, and then enjoy there Cola or Tango if KFC in it’s fullness at the end.
Wednesday 2:20pm CET (French Motorway II)
Any way the traffic has got quite heavy for a while and all we can really think about is that beer, and a shower, Billy and the others in another car had some how made it slightly ahead of us, I think on account of our non-drink stop and they were now phoning in directions to our hotel.
It was at about this point, shortly after driving under an Air India jet on the runway road at Charles De Gaul airport that our trip was about to take a rather drastic change for the worse.
Mid sentence as J was filling me in with another classic life story, in the outside lane at 70 miles an hour on a French motorway, on our way to the European Cup Final our clutch goes….
Wednesday 2:31pm CET (Hard Shoulder)
Not an easy manouver, you try getting a crippled car from the fast lane on a Paris motorway into the hard shoulder without dying, there is no sympathy out there on that motorway, your just have to cut them up, difficult with no power.
We make it into the hard shoulder, by the corner of a fucking crazy junction on a bonkers stretch of Parisian motorway in the middle of lunch hour.
J and I stare at each other, not quite realising our predicament.
Clutch gone, thirsty, and not quite safe, I mean we don’t even have a bloody red triangle let alone a fluorescent bib, we are not in the best of places. We have a football match to be at 8:45pm with tickets that have a current street value of 6000 Euros.
We realise the only thing we can do is walk away from the car and put our selves into some relative safety behind some barriers, we need to get that phone call into our assistance the beloved RAC, and deal with this, just like my Dad would.
Now I don’t know if you know this, but it is French law (Job creation) I call it, but if you break down on a French motorway, basically a toll road, then your assistance (RAC) or their French partners cannot pick you up, you must be collected, as it is a private road by an assistance company selected by the Police.
Now not even our bi-lingual friend on the other end of the phone at the RAC is allowed to help. You must call the police yourself in FRENCH!
Before our RAC girl gave me the number to dial she did check I knew how to say broken down in French.
So needless to say the number I was given was wrong, and I had to re-dial the RAC and go through the whole rigmoroll again, it turns out the number she gave me was wrong, but proceeded to then tell me that I could not dial the police on my mobile, and that we would have to walk a mile in either direction put our lives at risk whilst finding find one of those orange phone boxes. I had a fucking Orange phone in my hand, Orange is a French company an all, Arsene Wenger is French so is Thierry Henry, do they have these problems on the M1?
Just so you know “Je suis apan” (dunno about spelling) is broken down and the number you need to dial is 17, and I dialled it on my mobile. (Though the orange phone box has a location number for easy finding, but you might die getting there)
Wed 3:03pm CET (Hard Soulder II)
After several aborted attempts, answer machines and drama I manage to get through to the police, it was difficult to hear with the traffic zooming by, J was on his phone fighting with our hotel who no longer respected our reservation, e-bookers were shouting at the hotel as well, all of this while I was trying to read off our number plate, make of car, colour and then describe our location with my A. S. level French; consequently unused since a I last had a French girlfriend in my very early 20’s and I had to be polite to her mother, who by the way was as fucking gorgeous as her daughter.
But that is a different trip to Paris.
At this point all I want to say is thank you Iwan, my wonderful brother in law, he and his over the top expensive taste, long may you have it son and earn enough to purchase top of the range gear! His Sat Nav told me in numbers and names exactly where I was in another country, then the placard for the shopping centre Plainard in front me triangulated us, we were no longer lost in France, assistance was on it’s way, they would be with us is 2 hrs.
But we had lost our hotel.
Wed 5:45pm CET (Hard Shoulder III)
I n 2 and a ¼ hrs of waiting we had still had nothing to drink, you remember we called no Orangina at the services in order to enjoy our cold Kronenburg moment at the hotel in 40mins time 4hrs ago, we were now pretty bloody thirsty.
We had also lost our hotel, if we could even get to it, and to add insult, Jason gets injured, yes a huge filling falls out of his mouth whilst munching on a Haribo. Poor bastard.
Both our mobile phones were now rapidly loosing power through our inner city overuse on the hard shoulder. These were big bill calls and we didn’t give a fuck, we were on them like they were one of those free blue Mercury One 2 One phones with free local calls in the 90’s or something.
I decided to take it lying down so to speak and lay on an empty cable drum in the sun, which was nice.
It was a this point I had a really disarming moment, and I knew we would have no choice but to do this, we would have to push his car into the ditch, with our bags in it and fuck off to the football with our triangulated digits and words describing the motors location, then return with the RAC or police or whatever after, we couldn’t miss the match, this feeling was very liberating.
That’s when the truck arrived…
Wed 6:10pm CET (Recovery Truck)
On board a large industrial pick up truck run by an independent firm out of Charles De Gaul called BRAUN we meet our first recovery man, lovely bloke called Didier, he soon discovers my trick of using occasional random Spanish words disguised with a French accent and tells me he speaks Spanish because his dad is. Cool I say back, we are then promptly explained the rules:
3 b) We leave the car in the yard, we are told there is a Comfort Inn across the road from the yard, we could get a cold beer, have a shower, and then a direct train from Charles De Gaul to The Stade De France.
Sub section 1) A recovery truck will repatriate the broken vehicle and us in the morning after the game. With no hire car the RAC should pick up the bill for the hotel.
We take Option 3b Sub sec 1 which is car in yard, hotel, beer, train to match, train back to hotel recovery truck collection and repatriation to England, UK, Britain, British Isles, Great Fucking Britain LOVELY! We decide this all on the side of a French motorway less than 3hrs away from Arsenal’s biggest match in their history.
Wed 6:35pm (Yard)
We arrive at the yard where Jason is promptly made to part with 200 quid as this assistance company supplied by the French Police will not accept the RAC guarantee, remember the job creation thing, the RAC could not send there own guy out because of FRENCH LAW.
Jason is informed that he will be refunded by The RAC on his return to Blighty, if he shows a receipt.
Now the RAC on our 25th international call to them, had to book our hotel, even though it was right in front of us, we had to wait for them to make the reservation and put it on their account.
The lady at the BRAUN yard office gives the Comfort inn number to the RAC guy to book the rooms. We take our bags and documents out the car, Jason fills out the forms, and I give them the car key, which they then leave in the ignition behind secure gates ready for our recovery truck in the morning.
Jason has no phone charger, of course he forgot it, so his phone is slipping into obscurity, and our calling capacity is suddenly halfed.
We are at this point like Mary and Joseph as we walk across the road to the Comfort Inn to confirm our reservation, and have that beer and that shower, we are tight for time now, and my phone is getting texts from mates drinking outside the Moulin Rouge (Why didn’t we take the Euro Star?)
At reception we are told they have had no call from the RAC and even if they did there is no room at the inn anyway.
I ring them back, by this point as far as the RAC is concerned I am Mr Price as much as Pricey because my mate is suddenly very dehydrated, and about to loose the plot, the last thing we need now is an angry Jason, he’s not that pragmatic but to be fair by this point why should he be, his breakdown company is not really providing the coverage.
The RAC tell us that they cannot find us a room and that they are looking, we are offered a hire car (BASTARDS) we turned that down that was option 3b sub. Sec. 1 in the truck on the hard shoulder, we want a bed not a car.
The RAC say they will call us back with news of a room.
We make it back to the yard just in time to catch the lady in the office leaving, we explain our predicament, and tell the lovely lady not be scared of Jason he just needs a drink, even the two guard dogs German Shepherds keep away from Jason.
Now this wonderful, caring, slightly meddling, slightly over weight girl calls every friend or hotel in her manor she knows that may have a room for Mary and Joseph here, she hits the same wall, NO ROOMS. No surprise really there is a European Cup Final in an hour and a half.
We no longer even have a car we can sleep in, we can’t take our bags to the match and doss on the streets, we could leave the bags and doss.
I call another from London I know who is at the match, this mate has a room, actually two of them have two rooms, one of these guys is from BOCA the other Chiswick, maybe they could put us up after the game, all we’d need would be a toothbrush. My mate say’s they can’t put us up, some girls friend owns the apartment and we are not welcome. Billy’s place is a possibility other mates could put us up but time was now against us, especially with the bags.
God we need a pint.
Wed 7:12pm CET (Outside the Yard)
Our girl at the yard suddenly yelps with delight as she tells us there is one room at the Radisson a short 10 minute walk up the road. The one available room in the whole of Paris is a suite at the Radisson at Charles De Gaul Airport and they want 400 Euros for it, I immediately say yes please we’ll be there in 10 minutes, I can’t take this anymore, and Jason really needs a drink. Jason is fuming as we walk up the road trying desperately to keep his calm with RAC, with my encouragement. He can’t believe they still have no room booked, and will not contribute under any circumstances to this inflated room charge.
I think the room price is quite reasonable considering.
We amble up the road the road I hand over the 400 Euros, and we head straight for the bar.
We drink…
Two pints of chilled Kronenburgh, we feast on bar nuts, and head up to our room. Of course we have a double bed, I take the left hand side of the bed, and ask Jason if he wants to be Mary or Joseph? He answered “I’ll be Mary, I’ve been fucked so much today already, I may as well get fucked once more”.
Wed 7:45pm CET (Radisson Hotel)
Showered, changed and watered, we head downstairs for the mini bus that takes us to the station at Terminal 1 for Stade De France.
We sit in the sun again, Jason smokes a Marlborough and I take a call from my manager.
The loveliest African girl with the kindest eyes drives us to the station, we are actually now smiling quite broadly in our mini van, we are an hour away from kick off, Barcelona V Arsenal in the European Cup Final and we have but a 20 min journey on the train to one of the worlds most amazing stadiums and we have tickets!!!
I only met one other bloke on the ferry with a ticket.
Now I am an Arsenal supporter through and through, and this moment feels like nothing else, Arsenal is not a country, it’s a team from a city where I was born with supporters from all over the world, it is the only club I am a member of and have been for 14 years.
When Spain play England, I support Spain, if Spain were to play Arsenal I would be behind the GOONERS. Arsenal V England I am a GOONER.
The reason for Jason and I making the trip and spending the money is a result of that inexplicable love of your club.
My season ticket means nothing without that feeling, it’s a very unique special feeling that many people don’t understand.
Wed 8:15pm (Stade De France)
I cannot explain the feeling, I cannot explain it my scarf round my neck, my Spar by my side, the ground, the colours, the smells, the crowds, the journey we had endured all for this feeling, so what if our mates had The Eurostar and Hilton this is why I was here.
People holding pieces of cardboard with TKTS PLEASE! Scrawled on it. At least 40 of them just randomly scattered around St Dennis.
With the music playing and the plastic pints are flowing, Jason and I grab one of those fuckers like marathon runners heading for mile 26 and head for the south of the stadium, which is where our entrance is.
As we round the bend, Jason hands me my ticket, as I grasp it I feel like Charlie going into the Chocolate factory, very lucky, not just to because I’m here with the ticket for this amazing moment, but that Arsenal are here; my team, my city, my country of London from where I hail. This is football supporting, not like those strange non offside rule understanding flag waving England supporters with flags bought at Asda. (Sorry armchair supporting rant).
All the kids are Chelsea these days, cos they win, I used to watch them want to be Arsenal fans a couple of years ago.
Wed 8:20pm (Stade De France)
At the gates I suddenly become aware of my tickets monetary value, not because I want to sell it, or because I am smug, but because suddenly I do not feel quite so safe, this ticket is a 3000 Euro cheque to the right steamer or thief, and St Dennis is a shit hole with a world class stadium in it’s inner city back garden (rather like Wembley) but unlike Wembley, here, I’m the tourist with 3K in my hand.
I notice everyone around the gates hiding their tickets as they queue, this is the un- safest queue in the world, as I reach my turnstile I panic, what if this ticket is not legit? I mean after the journey we’ve had it would be about right that the Chelsea fan we got the tickets off gave us a hooky pair.
The line inches forward I am beginning to feel extreme dislocation, happy and frightened all at once, then all of a sudden the moment of truth arrives and my mind stops mid thought.
I hand over my big blue watermarked ticket to turnstile man, it’s placed under an infra red barcode scanner, it beeps once, turnstile man pulls it out looks at it and places it in again (it’s fake I knew it) as he places it in second time the scanner beeps again, he rips off the stub and hands me back my ticket, he then says to me nearly seductively enter.
It wasn’t fake I knew it! I get checked out and look back at the turnstiles where I know Jason is feeling the same fears and joys.
Of the 5 turnstiles available at this gate, nice and open plan I hasten to add, one had been shut down because the turnstile guy had been letting people in for cash (bet he cleaned up).
I then realise though that once inside the ground the tickets get re-checked in the stadium proper before you sit, so those poor guys who paid him will never get to see the game. Anyway, I digress.
Jason and I are in, my mobile goes off a few times, all the football mates from back home loads of em of every flavour, mostly wishing us the best, apart from the odd Yid!
We climb the steps all the way up to our level, have our tickets inspected again, and walk into the stadium. I have never ever seen so much colour, felt or smelt such an atmosphere, this is more addictive and amazing than I or Jason could have ever imagined I have never experienced something so awe inspiring, it’s crazy but my breath had just been taken away. The last time my breath was stolen, was the first time I saw the Moon through my telescope after trying to find it for 2hrs.
We are at the Final, and we are going to watch The Arsenal in Europe.
This tale gets worse, and it’s not just the result.
HALF TIME
To Be Continued…
Thanks for reading this far, I have so much other news for my blog since this but hey.
My Abuelo died in Spain last week, I love him, thanks for reading, posting to iloveyouthankyou.com and for sending in your blank CD’s, they are being returned full of music as I type.
Adios for now,
Aupa
M
posted by Marcos D'Cruze at 2:09 AM
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| Members Day 2006/07 |
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posted by Marcos D'Cruze at 1:57 AM
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We hope you enjoy the event and look forward to welcoming you to Emirates Stadium! 