Sparta Prague 0-1 Chelsea [Gallas]
Report (of sorts) from TRIZIA:
I had a cunning plan..why pay two hundred odd quid to fly direct to Prague, when we could fly somewhere else and have a bit of an adventure on the way
So, I fired up the laptop and armed with my Ryan Air destination map, and an atlas I formulated the bones of a route. And quicker than a Di Matteo Cup Final goal, 11 intrepid Chelsea fans were booked on a flight to Altenburg, somewhere near Leipzig in Eastern Germany. If my calculations were correct, that would leave us with a drive of less than 150 miles to Prague; it would be like driving from London to Leicester I told myself. Sorted!!
Of course, there are always a few snags. Firstly two of our party didn't book the flights when I told them to, so all the £48 return flights had gone. In fact ALL the flights to Altenburg had gone!! So they booked flights to Frankfurt instead. So the plan was now for them to pick up a mini-bus in Frankfurt and drive to Altenburg to meet us and an additional car.
We all got to the airport at around midday the day before the match. The airport was very busy with a mixture of Chelsea fans (Chelsea shirts, St. Georges flags, Burberry, Stone Island) and some sort of religious group going to Lourdes (knitted cardigans, open toe sandals, wheelchairs and crucifixes) it was quite a combination. Most of the Chelsea fans I assumed would be on the Easy Jet direct flight to Prague. We queued up for check in and when we looked down the rest of the queue we discovered that my cunning Leipzig route wasn't as unique an idea as I first envisaged as I saw the usual familiar faces grinning at me.
We had a chat with the rest of the blue boys and they confirmed that they were indeed following our route, although they told us that they were staying in Altenburg for the first night. They had arranged for three mini-buses to pick them up early in the morning to take them to Prague.
A phone-call to some friends at Heathrow and Gatwick confirmed that there was Chelsea everywhere; it looked like it was going to be a good turn out.
As we waited in the departure lounge, the usual conversation was had of what the team selection was going to be. And the same conclusion was reached we didn't have a clue!!! Then we went onto predictions; mine was my usual optimistic 4-0 to us; the others just smiled at me indulgently and muttered something about a scrappy one nil winwhat do they know anyway..ahem.
Time to board hurrah!!!! We'd barely been up in the air 75 minutes and we were landing again. Looking out the window, it looked as though we were landing in a field and when we got out of the plane, we had indeed landed in what was no more than a field!!!
The "airport" (loosest terms) was obviously once a military base as the huts with the grass tops and camouflaged doors testified. On later investigation we found out that it had actually been a Russian base. There were no other planes to be seen; apparently only three flights take off and land from this place in a day one from Stanstead, another from Turkey and one from Bratislava. As we came down the steps from the plane we saw a small crowd standing the other side of a wire mesh fence, waving. Watching planes land was obviously as exciting as it got in Altenburg!
We landed right in front of the "terminal building" this looked remarkably like a double fronted porta-kabin. We walked through the door and there was a tiny little baggage reclaim, that resembled a modest scaletrix set and on the other side was passport control//customs the whole thing no bigger than my front room at home.
As we all only had hand luggage we all went to stroll through but were all given an exceptionally thorough search by airport staff with a handheld metal detector I felt almost violated!!!!
On the other side of "customs" there were 3 car hire booths, toilets and two check in desks, and that was it. It is now officially the smallest airport I have ever visited. Our two friends coming via Frankfurt were nowhere to be seen but there was a van selling beer and suspicious looking sausages, so naturally we headed for that. Alan (Europhile) went on and on about how the stewardess had been given him the eye; he was convinced that she had considered him sophisticated because he had bought sushi to eat on the journey; he called her his little blond dominatrix and said that he would have her on the return journey; I think he must be going through the change or something.
Suitably refreshed we sat in the sunshine and watched the secret life of the airport.
The "wavers" were not there, as we first thought, to welcome friends/relations they were there to wave as the plane came in, and wave again as the plane took off; then they went home. Roller-bladers ploughed up and down the car park, teenagers in ridiculous shoes and even more ridiculous haircuts stood about and chatted, people with pony and trap cars, drove round and round and round. It was all pretty weird.
Finally the lads with the mini-bus turned up and we all climbed aboard and set off for Prague!!!
Our route took us through Dresden, and despite substantial construction work in the last 6 decades, the obliteration of the city in the war was still evident. Not just in what you could see, but in what you could feel. The city felt as if it had no soul, it was quite eerie. The East German towns that we drove through were so different to any of those which I have visited in the West; the legacy of the wall lives on, despite it being nearly 13 years since it came down.
Before we knew it we were at the border and through into the Czech Republic. First stage completed.
What greeted us on the other side of the border was odd to say the least. The first thing we saw was "Gnomeworld". It was the biggest garden gnome shop you could ever imagine. There were thousands of them, all colours, all sizes. Hot on the heels of Gnomeworld was "Hookerworld". There were more hookers than you could ever imagine. Hundreds of them, all colours, all sizes. They were in shop windows, they were jumping out of the woods, they were sat on chairs by the roadside, they were even standing at the petrol station. Funnily enough, Andy, our driver, who had been driving like Michael Schumacher was suddenly driving like my Auntie Nora. I have no doubts that if myself and Maggie had not been on this trip, an unplanned stop would have been madeas it was we left Dobi (the town in question) behind and returned to our previous break-neck speed towards Prague. I should mention that the whole trip thus far had been set to the most surreal soundtrack. We had a local Czech radio station on, whose choice in music was eclectic to say the least. Morning Has Broken was followed by The Eve of Destruction, Fade to Grey, Karma Chameleon and then some Euro bing-a-bang tosh.
At around 11pm local time we crossed the River Vltava in to Prague; we'd made it! We just had to find our hotel now. This wasn't as easy as it sounded. As it was, we spent an hour looking for it; this wasn't as bad as it sounds, as the views as we went round (and round) the city were simply stunning. It was a clear warm night, and Prague was spectacularly lit up. The jewel shinning brightest of all is the castle which is over 1000 years old and stands high and proud watching down on the medieval city below. Everywhere you looked there was a beautiful building, statue or bridge. There seemed to be little evidence of the flood that had caused so much devastation just over a year ago.
The drivers had to be particularly vigilant as the city has an extensive tram network and they seemed to come at you from all angles. The roads were almost all cobbled, and although this looked very nice, it wasn't the most comfortable thing to drive on, especially in a mini-bus whose suspension seemed shot to pieces!!! After an hour, numerous U-turns and other interesting driving manoeuvres, we finally pulled up outside our hotel.
Now the thing is, we were given strict instructions not to take the bus and car out of Germany and into the Czech Republic but obviously we did. The reason car hire places don't like their vehicles crossing the border is that they are invariably nicked or vandalised. We reasoned however that we were staying in a hotel with a car park so it would be nice and safe. The car park was one of those underground varieties.the ones with the very low ceilings. The car obviously went in fine, the bus however was very very tight and we knew we were going to have problems getting it out again, but it was safe for the time being and that was the main thing.
Plan was to check in, and head straight for the hotel bar. I had booked the hotel on the strength of its website which is always a bit of a gamble but I am pleased to say, it was one that paid off. The hotel was beautifully designed, clean, efficient and reasonable.
So 11 very tired, but excited and certainly thirsty Chelsea fans hit the hotel bar. Immediately one of the lads honed in on 3 young girls sat enjoying their own company. He hiked up the charm offensive and in no time at all had them giggling hysterically and the loud American tourists at the next table tutting audibly. The girls were from Bavaria and seemed delighted to be getting so much attention. Alan (Europhile) not wanting to miss out on the schmoozing pulled up a chair and did his best to look cool and act cooler. So finally we were all relaxing; the beer was flowing, the plans for the next day were being made, Frank and Alan were schmoozing, all was nice and then Alan went and glassed one of the German girls!!!! Glass and blood everywhere.
OK, OK it wasn't quite as it sounds. Alan had been trying to pass off his age as sophistication and had ordered himself a carafe of wine; he had gone to toast the good health of the frauline Doris and had done so a little too robustly breaking the glass and cutting the aforementioned girls hand. Alan blushed furiously under his Medway tan while the rest of us just laughed hysterically. We decided there and then, that whenever anyone mentioned our trip to Prague we would reply "that's the trip where Alan glassed the German in the bar". And the tale, of course, will be embellished over the forthcoming years and pass into European Tour folklore. We drank into the early hours until the talking sense became exclusively talking rollocks and we decided it was time for bed having arranged to meet for breakfast sometime after 8am.
Sometime after 9.30am we all met for breakfast. We ate heartily as we knew it was going to be a long day and a lot of drinking was going to be done. We enquired at reception the easiest route to the old town and they recommended the tram. So we all dutifully bought our tickets and boarded the said tram and set off. It was only after about 6 stops that we realised that no one had asked where we should get off. So at the point where it looked as though we were heading out of town again, we all jumped off and retraced our journey on foot.not happy.
Eventually we got to the Charles Bridge where some of us decided we were going no further until we had had a drink. We marched into a bar and sat on their terrace, which jutted out over the river and gave us a lovely view of the old town, the Palace and the bridge. We sat and chatted and drank and watched the tourist boats (one with a Chelsea flag hung over the side) going up and down the river. Hundreds of people streamed over the ancient Bridge adorned with over 30 statues. We saw 4 Chelsea supporters in their blue shirts wearing Cossack hats leaning over the Bridge watching the world go by.
After a beer or 5 we decided to head more into the centre of the old town, and with Mike and his trusty map reading skills at the helm we walked towards the main square.
The locals, in my opinion, didn't seem particularly overawed by the 2000 or so Chelsea fans. The city has become such a tourist magnet, that a few more in the grand scheme of things didn't make much difference. Don't get me wrong, they weren't rude or anything, but it was a stark contrast to the warm welcome we received in Zilina.
As we walked, we went past many shops and street vendors. It was indeed a shoppers paradise; there was beautiful glass, bold modern china, sculpture, marionettes, original Russian hats and Russian dolls. Russian dolls were sold everywhere, both traditional, highly decorated ones and novelty ones. We saw some Chelsea Russian dolls, which would have been quite cleaver if they in any way resembled the players concerned; only the Veron doll bore a vague passing resemblance to the original, so we passed; but it may be something the megastore may wish to consider.
Anyway, we made our way to the Old Square and found a nice looking restaurant with pavement dining (we're so posh!) and ordered more beer and food and just chilled out. I think most of the Chelsea fans drifted through that square at some point. Many familiar faces were seen "how long you been here?" "Which way did you come? "When you going home?" "Where are you staying?", and so it goes on. We get chatting to some fans that had come with the exec. Club, in fact one actually worked for the travel club and even he admitted that the official tour was both too expensive and restrictive so from the horses mouth it seems.
As we sat in the sunshine, beer in hand, we heard the unmistakeable sound of "Carefree" somewhere nearby. We drank up and followed the sound. Our trail took us past Prague's famous Astronomical clock and across the square.
There were hundreds of Chelsea fans outside a traditional English pub called the George and Dragon. (the Irish pub next door advertising the Man Utd game was deserted) so we drifted there too and stood in the sunshine as more and more Chelsea fans arrived and joined in. It was the same old faces that you see on European trips and we also bumped into the guys that had been on our flight. They were late, they informed us, as they had had an unexpected stop in a town called Dobi just over the Czech border..(40 euros for half an hour apparently).
The beers were flowing and the singing was loud, it seemed that most were going to watch the game through an alcoholic haze. After Zilina, my male colleagues were fully expecting a city of high cheek-boned, long legged beauties, but they were bitterly disappointed, as there seemed to be only a handful of them. As one of the boys observed "when they split the countries, Czech Repbublic got all the beautiful buildings and Slovakia got all the beautiful women".
There were a few that received the Celery Song treatment as they strolled past the hordes; they smiled appreciatingly, but obviously not having a clue what the song was about.
It was getting increasingly difficult to get served so we decided to go and find somewhere a little less crowded. We drifted down one of the many narrow cobbled streets and found "Scandals".
We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in that bar. More and more Chelsea fans were making there way towards us, as it was more towards the ground. The nerves were beginning to kick in now. I hadn't really seen anything of Sparta Prague recently so my deduction that we would beat them easily was based on nothing. Smiler was even more nervous than me and stopped drinking a couple of hours before the match; I on the other hand drank more to steady my nerves. As did Alan; he was quite drunk, and almost two hours before KO decided he wanted to get to the ground. We tried to persuade him that it was too early and that it was a short cab ride away but the red wine would not have it and just kept repeating, "Who's coming with me". No one moved. So off he went.
As it got nearer and nearer to KO, I thought how odd it was that we had hardly seen any Sparta fans; the odd one or two but no more. I found this quite disappointing as the rivalry obviously creates the atmosphere. With less than 90 minutes to go, we decided to find a bar nearer the ground; we walked for 20 minutes, and then chose a hotel bar on a busy street so that we would have no trouble getting taxis. However, we only had one round, as the place was very expensive in comparison to the places we had been drinking thus far.
So we began hailing taxis. The roads were packed by this time. The football match was very low priority in the great scheme of things in Prague. Even our cab driver was unaware that there was a game on. He tried a number of routes until he admitted defeat; it wasn't that far from the ground. As soon as we got out the cab I realised that the mood had changed. Maybe that was down to the dark, or the visibility of the riot police or the thousands of bodies milling around, but I for one felt threatened. The stadium, from the outside, reminded me of a cross between the Rasunda in Stockholm and Feyenoords stadium in Rotterdam. It had external balconies as routes of entrance and egress; there were plenty of people already in there. As Chelsea fans got out of cabs, Sparta supporters started shouting in their faces; it was aggressive but it didn't look as if it was going to get violent. Then a couple of young lads with St. Georges wrapped round them started singing "Chelsea Chelsea" and were immediately set upon by Prague fans. Within seconds the sound of "ooh ooh ooh" filled the air as other Chelsea fans steamed in. The fracas lasted no more than 50 seconds as the riot police separated the fans.
As we made our way round the stadium we noticed that someone had spray-painted a hangman's noose with the head in the noose being Chelsea..not exactly Galatasary with their slitting a lambs throat and welcome to hell. There were approximately 60 riot police around the visitors entrance, although, to tell the truth, they looked pretty bored. We went in and up to our seats passing some very dodgy looking chicken that was served along with non-alcoholic beer in lieu of pies and Bovril. As we stepped out into our section the atmosphere was electric, the buzz of a European game kicking in. The ground obviously had had problems with missiles being thrown onto the pitch, as there was netting up in front of our section, which was pretty annoying.
It was indeed a good turn out by the boys in blue with Chelsea having half the top and bottom behind the goal and some immediately to the side. The support pre-kickoff was loud and the expectation was high.
So to the game. It was a frustrating game; this communicated itself through to the crowd who became agitated and fidgety. The atmosphere was tailing off as the Prague fans hardly made a sound and the team weren't really providing much of catalyst for the Chelsea fans. We were in the upper tier above the goal and there seemed to be more tickets than seats as it was very crowded with many people unable to find a seat.
Everyone was in good spirits though and the banter was good-natured. We went into half time goal-less and I realised that my 4-0 prophecy was unlikely to be fulfilled. The second half saw the introduction of Lampard, Duff and Hasselbaink which improved the game but still there was hardly a hint of a goal. The atmosphere was more or less dead by now and most had resigned themselves to a stalemate. Not a bad result, but not a good one either. Just as we had given up hope, up popped William Gallas to do the biz and send the travelling mob wild. The guy next to me clutched me round the neck so hard that it still hurts, but I'll forgive him it was a Champions League goal after all. The whistle blew. We had won, job done.
We went to leave the ground but were kept in on the balconies for a short while. The riot police were below us and I was sorely tempted to chuck some of the discarded chicken pieces at them but thought better of it.
We were finally let out and I was surprised not to find a little Czech mob waiting for us. I think most people were more concerned about getting back to their hotels. The trams were full and there were no cabs so we started to walk. We were quite hungry and the need for beer was felt by most of the lads. So we spied a pizzeria still serving and made ourselves comfortable, Within 5 minutes at least a dozen or so police fans wailed past us in the direction which we had been walking. We found out later than Chelsea fans were being attacked, as they got out of taxis in the old square. It had obviously been a good move to stop. After the worst pizzas in the world and a few drinks we found some more cabs and headed back to the hotel.
The drinking then started in earnest. The German girls were there again and seemed pleased to see us, despite Alan's unprovoked attack. The beers were flowing rather too freely and soon we had gone even past the talking rollocks stage. Alan and Gatey started arguing about the merits (or not) of Crespo with Alan being rather unreasonable bearing in mind the fact that he had played no more than 60 minutes for us. Still the beers flowed, as did the argument of Mutu vs Crespo with Gatey finally betting Alan that Crespo would score more goals than Mutu over the forthcoming season. It got to 2am and my feet ached, my vision was blurred and my bed beckoned so I bid the boys good night and went up to my room knowing full well we had an early start in the morning back to East Germany.
So the next morning came and there were some very sore heads at breakfast. Gordon with his barely opened eyes was compared to a newborn hamster. The very loud Americans of which there seemed to be many in our hotel did not help the hangovers. Why is it that anyone from the USA speaks at 5 decibels louder than any other nationality??
So we settled our bill and went to get our car and bus out of the car park. Our worst fears were confirmed, when we couldn't get the bus out as the exit ceiling dipped to low and it would have the top off. So after much wrangling and discussions of letting tyres down etc we decided to get it out via the way in if you get my drift. Which worked just.
So we headed out of Prague with mixed feelings. It was a beautiful city but the tourist machine in full flow has taken something from the experience and from the people. I will however be going back as the sites were many and our attentions were diverted elsewhere.
Despite taking a different route back, as we neared the border there were more hookers; they must be at every border town. Somehow it was even more bizarre seeing the "ladies of the night" in broad daylight. One especially, with exposed voluminous breasts, almost caused us to test the validity of our travel insurance..til I remembered we weren't insured within the Czech Republic. We sailed through the border control and arrived at the airport in plenty of time for our flight home. The wavers were in their position. Another suspicious looking sausage and beer and we checked in.
We flew home knackered but content. The trip was rounded off beautifully by listening to the commentary of the Arsenal/Inter game on the way home from the airport in the car.
And so to Rome.
