Without a hint of irony, b astounded uk.sport.football.clubs.liverpool at 19:11:20 on 26-05-2005 by announcing:
Took off from Speke around midnight Tuesday night, only 2 planes so no problems. Got off the plane 4 hours later onto a coach after having a special "UEFA CLFC" visa stamped on our pbuttports.
That's where the fun began.
Traffic's a f***ing nightmare over there. Took about 2 hours, I think, to get to Taksim; nearly crushing a handful of cars & taxis on the way. Got dropped off and led up some alley where the guide stopped and told us we were all having breakfast at a cafe there. Several hundred scousers disagreed and we walked on to Taksim Square.
Locals were great. "Milan! Milan! Milan Baros, hahahah!"
Nice one LiverpoolKnockout competition? That's a lottery, isn't it? Pure luck and coincidence and all that? And...
Spent about 6-7 hours in Taksim before getting back on the coach to the hotel, checking in and grabbing a couple of hours' kip. Then back on the coach for the trip to the middle of nowhere.
Over 2 f***ing hours, this took. The Milan end was about 200 yards from the main road. The new North road they'd built for the Liverpool fans took us off the main road and on a wide loop for a few miles. Since we were only doing a few miles an hour anyway... Some got pissed off and jumped off the coach about a mile from the stadium to walk cross country. They probably arrived just before those on the coach they'd left.
Met up with Dave & WTH outside the cordon. Dave showed us his best scouse arab impression (pics to follow). Then onto the business of getting in.
Outer cordon just checked tickets. Next cordon was a body patdown (for those who didn't just push through the fences 20 yards down. Then the actual gates where they tore the stub off the ticket then ripped the edge off as well. Bastards!
I don't think I need to elaborate further on the game itself ;-)
Getting back to the hotel was a simple case of finding your coach and sitting back. Yeah, right. Took 2 hours to find my coach which I eventually found by waiting at the car park exit until it came out, then jumping on.
All then pretty uneventful (partying aside) until it came time to get to the airport. Didn't take as long to get there as it took to arrive. A mbuttive tent had been set up where the info board proudly announced flight delays of up to 9.5 hours. At least ours were on time-ish. Much queuing and guesswork later we got on our plane. The idea was to get there first to avoid being one of those chucked off as all the seats had been filled. Boarding cards? May as well have written our own. Find a flight that's going home and get on it seemed to be in order for some, especially the ones that had been there 16 hours.
20 minute wait for a taxi at Speke and the adventure's over.
-- "Some players claim they don't read what's in the press. Not Carragher. He reads the national papers, the Echo, the fanzines, the lot. He'll be reading this, too." - The Kop
