Everyone's got to start somewhere, and for Rich
and I that was France '98. Although both of us had been to
a couple of games before, growing up on the South Coast of England
meant that information about the national team was very thin on
the ground (as any Daily Record/Sunday Mail reader will testify
to). My university course finished in May 1998, and I had
promised myself a treat at the end: a trip to the World Cup Finals.
It soon became apparent that this was just a pipe dream, as tickets
were like gold dust.
A brief ray of hope came with success in the travel
club draw, but it was only a single ticket to the Morocco game.
However, as the Finals drew closer an amazing thing happened - I
only went and got through on the phone line! No chance of
Brazil tickets, but after a 90-minute call to Paris, and a with
World Cup Wallchart and a map of France next to me I was able to
buy up my maximum 16 tickets to ensure a feast of football.
Rich and I saw 8 matches in 7 different cities,
and covered over 3,000 miles on French trains over two weeks, and
got very drunk at regular intervals. For my part, I learned
how difficult life as a vegetarian abroad can be, after surviving
on Cheese baguettes and Cheese and Tomato pizzas for a fortnight.
These are the matches we were lucky enough to see:
We took the Eurostar and arrived in Paris early afternoon. We had
to trek across the city to our hotel in the Montparnasse area of
the city - at least it was handy for the Bordeaux train early the
next morning. This was a real culture shock for me, as I had not
been in a non-English-speaking country for 6 years, and I was not
very confident in my French.
After a wee kip, we headed off to the Parc Des Princes, where things
were getting pretty hectic. After paying £3.50 for a plastic
cup of warm beer, we watched the French Riot Police chase the German
skinheads round the block in circles like something from an Inspector
Clouseau film. Inside the ground, things were pretty carnival like,
particularly as the Germans coasted to an easy 2-0 win against the
cheesily-supported USA. For our part, we were supporting the Americans
in honour of American Dave, who was to join us in Lyon the following
Saturday.
We headed back across to Montparnasse and tried in vain to get served
in a snooty brasserie type place (sit down and wait or go to the
bar? We tried both and were still ignored!). Probably just as well
we agreed, because the next day was a very early start for Bordeaux.
We got up around 6am for an early Paris-Bordeaux train, stupidly
neglecting to get a carry-out for the journey. Thankfully, some
fellow Scots took pity on our plight and donated a few of theirs
(cheers, lads!). On arrival at Bordeaux station around 10.30am it
was apparent the pre-match party was already underway. We grabbed
a cab to drop our bags at the hotel, planning to get straight back
into the thick of it as soon as.
Now, in order to cut costs we had gone for budget accommodation,
which in Bordeaux came in the form of a Formula 1 motel. This was
situated a good 20 minutes by taxi away from the centre on the wrong
side of the river. When we got there it resembled a refugee camp
- after stepping over prone Scottish bodies to the reception desk
a clearly rattled manager took us up to our bomb-site of a room.
He apologised profusely as he tore the dirty bed-clothes off the
beds, promised us that it would all be cleaned by mid-day and suggested
that we leave our bags in the corner of the room and go and enjoy
ourselves. A free local bus journey later dropped us off at The
Connemara Bar, where after a few £3.50 pints and a meeting
with the Cardonald Musketeers we were reliably informed that a supermarket
round the corner was knocking out cheap cases of Kronie lager. For
the price of two pints, we bought an entire case of 24 bottles each
(12 pints), and drank these on the march to the ground, distributing
spares along the way to any needy causes, both Scottish and Norwegian.
The atmosphere outside the ground was bouncing, but the beer was
taking its toll and a visit to the lavvy was on the cards. Due to
the sizeable polis presence, I took the wise step of popping into
the large bar on the corner of the exclusion zone, only to be confronted
by a massive queue for the loos snaking back out the door. Looking
around in desperation I saw a viking-sized Norwegian shaking himself
down in the corner, by a load of piled up chairs and tables. Never
one to miss an opportunity I nipped in to the corner after him,
and a few minutes and several gallons later I turned around to see
another queue behind me of guys with their kilts hitched in readiness
waiting to take my place. For some reason, Rich has never been comfortable
with the fact that I pissed in the corner of a packed bar in broad
daylight.
On to the match, in which Scotland earned a creditable 1-1 draw,
and a good few hundred fans stayed to sing 'Doe a deer' for almost
an hour after kick-off. By now, a combination of the travelling
and the early drinking was taking its toll, and Rich and I were
both flagging badly. A cheese baguette and a promise to my mate
Mike (who had spent a year in Bordeaux previously) to check out
his favourite pubs hardened our resolve, and off to the Place de
la Victoire we went. The Sports Cafe was showing the Brazil-Morocco
game, but the moment it finished, off went the lights and on came
the music, with Scots, Norwegians and French all dancing and drinking
together. Much merriment followed, including a chance meeting with
a guy wearing his wife's red frillies on his head declaring "Je
suis le garcon, I am the boy don't you know", until Rich came
up to me with a worried look on his face explaining we had to leave
NOW. It was only when we got to another bar over the square that
he explained that the bird he was getting off with had told him
that her husband and boyfriend were also drinking in the same bar
that he felt he'd outstayed his welcome.
At chucking out time (3am) we staggered down the road towards
the station when we met two French guys who insisted that they took
us to a nightclub. They drove us to Dixies, down by the river and
allayed my dress code fears as they knew the bouncers. This was
immaterial when we got in the front door and were piped to the bar
by a fellow TA footsoldier. It turned out that David was a marine
and Thierry was a second-team player for Bordeaux Rugby Club. After
finishing just after 5am, and an bagpipe session outside the club
where the piper was taking requests until 6, the French boys insisted
we go back to Thierry's flat for a session on the Pernod. By this
time, Rich and I were done in and talked them into giving us a lift
back to the hotel we had last seen 18 hours ago, but contained all
our belongings. After eventually mastering the entry PIN code for
the door, and again stepping over bodies in the foyer, we were confronted
with the same bombsite of a room, except all the bedsheets had been
removed. Far too drunk to care, I crawled under a scratchy blanket
on top of my bare mattress and settled down to all of 3 hours kip
before our 10am train to Montpellier.
After less than 24 hours in Bordeaux I had fallen in love with
the people and the place, and was able to answer "yes"
to what became the most asked Scottish question of the trip - "Were
you in Bordeaux?"
We woke up on the Wednesday in Bordeaux after around 2 hours sleep,
showered in a spaceship stylee (as is common in Formule 1 establishments)
and caught our train to Montpellier at around 10.30am, still smashed
out of our heads after the previous day's festivities.
The train journey was a bit of blur - around 5 hours on a local
train, complete with torn leatherette seats and dodgy air-conditioning,
and no people. Bizarrely, both of us were also experiencing some
bizarre shared hallucination as we could both hear bagpipes - yet
two full sweeps of the train turned up no Scots (and very few of
anybody).
We got into Montpellier and quickly found our way to our hotel,
in a back street just off the Place de la Comedie, with a quick
lie down before heading out to the Italy v Cameroon match at the
Stade de la Mosson. On the way to catch the bus, we were approached
by a couple of English lads who engaged us in conversation. We were
visibly wary of them, as was everyone after the events in Marseilles
just a few days previous, but they were quick to disassociate themselves
with that, and wished each other the best and pushed on to the ground.
Once inside the stadium, we took our seats in the corner, just one
row back from the fence, to find ourselves behind another couple
of English guys (who again were spot on, and even helped tie our
flag to the railings), and next to some German Tartan Army lads.
The stadium itself was quite impressive, with its three identical
covered stands, and its one ridiculous three-tiered, uncovered beast
of a stand. Just like the ground, the game was pretty one-sided
as well. Cheering on Cameroon, as the underdogs, we watched as Italy
barely broke into a stride to take a 3 goal win. Now at this point,
buoyed by our result against Norway, and safe in the knowledge that
Brazil should beast Norway and we should beat Morocco, we still
thought that we would be playing the winner of Italy's group, so
this game had added significance. And frankly, after seeing the
Italians in action, I didn't fancy our chances! By the time we'd
got back to the town, neither of us could face a night out, and
still shattered from Bordeaux and the travelling, we took the early
night option ahead of a Thursday morning train to Lyon.
Lyon was to form the base for our two-week sojourn, and I had
managed to book two rooms (as American Dave was joining us after
a few days) for 11 nights at the Lets Go recommended Hotel des Marrioners,
just one street behind the central Place Bellecour, a snip at £13
per room per night. However, after finally locating the hotel door
(think tenement, but with a big locked wooden door) and finding
it very much locked, and no response on the phone number I had,
panic began to set in. We were very much aware of how full Lyon
was for the duration, and made our way to the temporary tourist
office in the Place. After a couple of frantic phone calls the hotelier,
a mad Belgian drunk who looked like Santa Claus, answered and explained
that as he was expecting us later, he'd popped out to do some shopping
(very much a one-man band, this hotel).
Whilst in the tourist tent, we were chatting to an American lady
called Marie (a dead ringer for Suzi Quattro), who was also experiencing
hotel difficulties. She had travelled independently to see the USA,
having first travelled to Italia '90, but hoped to take in as many
games as she could, and mentioned that she was going to try and
get down to St Etienne for the Spain-Paraguay game the next day
(Friday). We agreed to go with her and arranged to meet up with
her the next day.
So off on a recce to St Etienne we went, Rich, me and Suzi Quattro-a-like
Maria. After an hour on the train we bumped into the Inverness Boys
at the other end. We'd chatted to the four young lads from Inverness
(David, Brian, Allan, a tall lad whose name I've forgotten) in Lyon
the previous day, and they seemed to haunt us at every turn (this
continued after the World Cup, and over time led to the formation
of NATA's Inverness Branch), however on this particular occasion
they were one down, due to a bout of homesickness. The details have
been abridged in order to protect the guilty party's shame, but
as we stood talking in the station foyer, who should appear up the
escalator but the runaway himself!
We bid the boys good luck in finding tickets, as we found our
way to the Main Square, where we paid £50 each for three £25
tickets (at least they were all next to each other) - we later found
out that we would have managed to get them outside at near face-value
- nonetheless, all of us had ear-marked "tout cash" for
such eventualities, and thought no more about it. After taking up
residence in a posh cafe-bar before the game (as it had a toilet
that was cleaner than any of our hotels - I didn't want to come
out!), we made our way onto a tram towards the stadium.
We were all looking forward to the game, as Spain had a reputation
for free-flowing, attacking football whilst Paraguay were cast as
the plucky underdogs blessed with South American skill. Paraguay
also had a fat, free-kick taking nutter in goal. We were supporting
Paraguay. We finished our carry-out at the edge of the exclusion
zone, just as a marching pan-pipe band walked through the barriers.
The atmosphere was building up a treat, and we were happy to be
surrounded by Paraguayans at the top of the stand behind the goal.
The game itself was a complete anti-climax, as Paraguay defended
in numbers, stifling Spain. Chilavert only had a couple of chances
at free-kicks, and these weren't dangerous, so towards the end of
the game our alliance shifted away from the spoiling underdogs towards
Spain, who we felt deserved on the basis of their better football.
0-0 it finished, and back to Lyon for beer was our only course of
action.
The following day American Dave arrived at Lyon airport, 7 hours
late and without his luggage. I had waited on my own at the airport
all this time, mastering the World Cup 98 Gameboy game, and when
Dave did arrive I almost found myself arrested for being 'airside'
without a passport or flight ticket whilst trying to communicate
in French with the luggage guy. That night was a bit hazy, as we
found ourselves in yet another lock-in in the excellent St James
Pub, where we had to plead with the barman to open the metal shutters
at 4am so we could get out! Back at the hotel, Rich was challenged
to a lawnmower race by the Scot in the next room as they spoke out
the window, shortly before Maria tried to get into bed with the
hotelier ("I got lost on my way back from the toilet",
she explained the next day).
Waking up on the day of the USA-Iran game, Dave's luggage was still
missing, so I lent him an old-style USA top that I happened to had
(a long story, but it is the shirt they wore when embarrassing England
in the 1950 World Cup). We mingled in the main square with the Iranian
fans, their numbers boosted by the majority of the Scots supporting
the underdogs (nothing to do with the stunningly attractive ladies,
then?) - out of loyalty to Dave, Rich and I were backing the USA.
As we stood in a queue for some snacks on the edge of the square,
a wee old Iranian guy with an ill-fitting baseball cap came right
up to us and stuck up his finger with a big smile on his face. This
cracked us up as we smiled back at the old guy, but the Scottish
lad (the lawnmower man from the night before) in the queue behind
us was not amused - "you can stick yer politics up yer arse,
pal" was his considered response to the exchange.
Given that Lyon is about the size of Birmingham, we were shocked
to find that the vast majority of bars were shut on a Sunday, and
we were relieved to find one that was open in the backstreets. This
enabled us to warm up for the match properly before catching a taxi
to the ground. When we got there, we faced a massive security operation
to get in, and I almost had a Lion Rampant flag confiscated for
bearing the word "Scotland". Strangely, around 15,000
Iranians managed to get through with T-Shirts bearing the word "Rajavi"
in tribute to their exiled leader (one fan actually posted me one
of these T-Shirts after I got back, as he didn't want to part with
his own at the time!).
The USA were just as dire as they were against Germany, and Iran
obviously wanted the result so much more. I was very impressed with
Iran as they stormed into a 2 goal lead, with only a last-minute
consolation for the US giving the score some respectability. Back
into town, and the party was jumping. Unfortunately I wasn't, and
had to go to bed after the game - but reports reached me the following
morning of Rich flagging down a car in order to drag out it's beautiful
Iranian passenger for a dance in the street.
The next day in Lyon saw us take in some sightseeing, followed
by a massive session in the Albion Pub, before we were led by a
suspicious looking geriatric American woman who had latched onto
Rich to a club called The Soul Kitchen. I had been warned to give
this place a wide berth by some friends who had studied in Lyon,
for no particular reason other than weird things happened there,
and sure enough, they were right. After Maria had managed to score
a touted ticket for the Scotland-Morocco match the next day in the
toilets, a massive argument brewed, and with me and Dave close to
blows (for the first and only time) we left, shouting at each other
down the street. The curse of The Soul Kitchen had struck again!
23/06/98
- We're the Famous Tartan Army and we're gaun tae Tokyo
We were in Lyon for a week and a half, apart from one night in
Nantes near the end, and looking back now 3 years after the event,
it's hard to accurately place everything that happened. Whilst in
Lyon I was hit with two bouts of acute homesickness (quite embarrassing
to look back at), and this combined with a general feeling of lacklustreness
stopped me from going out on two occasions: one was after the USA-Iran
game (above); the other was after an incident in restaurant either
the day before or the day after the Morocco game.
Our hotel was one street behind the Place Bellecour in the centre
of Lyon, in a street packed with cheap restaurants (a sort of French
"Chip Pan Alley"). And I managed to fall out of one of
these restaurants. It was the night Chris Rea was playing a free
concert in Place Bellecour (I kid you not), and the four of us were
sitting at a table outside a Pizzeria on the decking that sat on
top of the cobbles, as the waiter put my plate on the table I moved
my chair forward and one of the legs shifted off the decking - the
resulting shift in weight caused me to topple off the decking, taking
the plant-potted railing with me as well - it was the only the quick
thinking of a diner at another table grabbing the railing to stabilise
it at an almost 45 degree angle that saved me from actually hitting
the ground. But it was too late, it seemed like the entire street
was in hysterics at the mad Scotsman - I mumbled some excuse about
not feeling too good and made by way back to the hotel past the
still-sniggering diners.
Anyway, the Soul Kitchen incident definitely happened the night
before the Morocco game, and when I awoke on the day of the match,
neither Dave nor me could remember much about it. Rich and I donned
the face paint (he did his entire face, I just did my goatee beard,
which seemed a good idea at the time) and we walked to Lyon's town
centre station with Dave and Maria.
After a crowded and very hungover train journey, we got off at
St Etienne - a town already jumping with the Tartan Army. We found
a backstreet restaurant where the chef himself ushered us in - his
wife being the maitre dame. My stock-phrase "je suis un vegetarian"
brought the instant reply (in English) "But you didn't get
so big by eating only vegetables" had the rest of the table
in tears. I had a specially cooked mushroom omelette, except I couldn't
be too sure if they were mushrooms or kidney, and at the end of
the meal the chef, who we now knew was medically insane, got a bottle
of something off a shelf, brought it over and said "Now you
drink with me". Inside the bottle was an entire pickled snake
- giving me grounds to excuse myself with the old vegetarian routine,
Rich wasn't so lucky - "But, I hate snakes" brought about
my response - "You can't turn down his hospitality, he'll be
offended. Maria refused, so Dave and Rich had a shot each, which
I smelled before they downed it. Strong? I thought it was going
to make my eyes bleed! As soon as they had done the deed, the chef,
still stood over our table, patted his wife on the derriere and
announced "It's good for your libido" as Rich and Dave
continued to cough, splutter and sweat.
After we had paid up for the meal, we walked down to the main
square where the party was very much in full swing. We found seats
in a bar at the back of the main square, then got hold of a carry
out and caught the tram to the environs of the ground (we missed
the march by setting off too early), where we sat outside the exclusion
zone and finished our beers. On the other side of the road a CRS
riot policeman undid his uniform (a kind of all-in-one romper suit)
to reveal a Scotland shirt - as the photograph above proves. As
we walked through towards the turnstiles, Rich was stopped by several
camera crews (his face paint was quite menacing - small children
were running away in tears!), and the party atmosphere continued.
Into the ground and the nerves were taking hold, but there must
have been at least 20,000 singing Scots in there. Unfortunately,
we were terrible and got gubbed 3-0 by a tactically and skilfully
superior Morocco side. As the final whistle blew, the Moroccans
were in full party mode, until the shocking news came in that Norway
had grabbed a last minute winner against Brazil. Both sets of fans
trooped disconsolately back to the station, and the atmosphere for
the hour-long journey back to Lyon was pretty sombre, until the
train pulled in and everyone got off, when a rousing chant of "Tokyo,
Tokyo, we're the famous Tartan Army and we're gaun tae Tokyo"
rang out.
Off to the Albion Bar to commiserate, Dave swears he was flashed
at by a drunk Scot sprawled on the stage at the back of the ground
floor - "Dude, he was looking at me and playing with himself,
man!" At this stage, Rich and I were seriously contemplating
just cutting our losses and heading home two matches early.
The day after the St Etienne massacre we just bummed around -
Dave's flight back to the States was the day after the USA played
Yugoslavia in Nantes, and he couldn't make it to Nantes and back
in time, so he was going to have a day on his own in Lyon. Rich
and I had made the decision to stay and try and enjoy the rest of
the trip, although thousands of fellow Scots were packing up and
leaving for home.
The next day Maria, Rich and I set off on for the train to Nantes
leaving Dave and most of our luggage at the hotel in Lyon - I later
found out that Dave spent the day in an underground pool bar. To
say our journey was ardous is putting it mildly. We had reservations
for seats - this turned out to be in a carriage full of screaming
American kids on a slow, cross-country train with no air-conditioning
and leatherette benches to sit on (no tables or anything). The journey
was sheer hell, and after a very uncomfortable 7 hours we pulled
in to Nantes station. As Dave was unable to come to the game, I
had passed the ticket on to my father, and he met us at the Station.
After finding the hotel (the best one we stayed in for the whole
trip) we found a great bar near the central tram stop. After a leisurely
tram journey out to the ground and a quick beer nearby, we made
our way into the Stadium. The Stade de la Beaujoire is for me probably
the best ground I've been in, although the beautiful summer evening
may have had something to do with that (see the sunset in the photo
above).
The only thing that spoiled it slightly was the presence of large
numbers of Yugoslavian (i.e. Serbian) hooligans, who greeted their
national anthem with nazi salutes and hurled abuse at all around
them. The game finished 1-0 to Yugoslavia, and the American coach's
strange idea of a 3-6-1 formation continued to make for appalling
football.
Afterwards, we went back to the same bar, before walking Maria
to the station (she had an early flight home from Paris the next
morning). The town was still buzzing as we made our way back to
the hotel, and dozens of dodgy-looking Yugoslav fans kept coming
up to us to shake our hands and tell us how much they loved Scotland
(we had Scotland shirts and tartan trousers on).
After leaving our friend on his own in Lyon, and travelling the
width of France in extreme discomfort to see a terrible match (albeit
in beautiful surroundings), the only thought that kept us going
was that we were booked on a nice, fast, air-conditioned train for
the return journey the next day.
Still on a downer after not qualifying, and now back in Lyon both
Dave and Maria-less, Rich and I agreed that we should still go down
to Marseilles to see the Italy-Norway second round game. We had
already seen both teams earlier in the tournament, and given the
rapport we had with the Norwegians we decided to back them.
As we made our way down the main road from the Station to the
port, we popped into a sports shop so Rich could get a Monaco shirt
(he was already getting carried away with all the "John Collins?"
comments). We were getting real hostility from the customers and
shop assistants until we explained "Nous sommes Ecossais"
- this was only a week and half after the English hooligans had
wrecked the place. We had a few beers down by the waterfront and
then made our way onto a stadium-bound bus. On the bus was a tattoo-ed
English sailor, bragging to us about how funny it was during the
riots, and taking the mickey that we were on our way home already
- "At least we're welcome back" came the reply, which
shut him up a treat.
We had to walk the long way round the ground to find our turnstile,
and we were sat level with the 18 yard box in the uncovered side-stand
- the sun was relentless. By half-time I was shivering and covered
in cold-sweat with the onset of sun-stroke, and by the end I was
grateful that Norway couldn't find an equaliser for Italy's first-half
strike as it meant no extra-time to suffer. The entire game was
dire, and my whole memory of Marseille was soured by the extreme
heat and the attitude of all the English fans we had the misfortune
to meet there.
We got the first possible train back to Lyon, only to find the
bars beginning to fill up with English fans preparing for the Argentina
game in St Etienne a couple of days later. With the streets no longer
safe for Scots, Rich and I decided to get an early train up to Paris
the next day (a day early) to try and bring our Eurostar tickets
forward. The worst case scenario would be spending a night in Paris,
but this was far preferable to staying in Lyon any longer than was
necessary. As it turned out, we were sat on a Eurostar within 30
minutes of arriving at the Gare du Nord, and were back in London
on Sunday afternoon. One person who wasn't best pleased to see me
back early was Helen, who hadn't done the dishes or shaved her legs!
And that was that, the story of the Netley Abbey Tartan Army's
(except we didn't know it then!) first away adventure.