From Russia with Alcohol
I promised in my last post that if we won the European Cup that I would do a good blog on the Friday. Well, that was two weeks ago but it’s been quite a couple of weeks!
It would be rude not to start with Moscow, I’m not going to bang on about the match and give a detailed tactical analysis because that would be dull. What I am going to concentrate on is our experiences of Moscow and just how funny John Terry’s penalty miss was (and still it).
We (Stuart, the old man & I) decided that a day trip to Moscow wasn’t what we were after as it would be nice to see a little bit of the Russian capital. We therefore decided to travel out on Tuesday and head back on Thursday, this meant that we had the whole day Wednesday to explore the Irish Bars of Moscow.
Our journey began in Manchester Airport with a cup of tea. I figured it was perhaps a little early to be on the bloody marys (grammar check: is that a proper noun?) as we would be in Heathrow in a couple of hours and could get on them there, it was still before 7am at this point. The best laid plans and all that… I managed to stay off the grog in the airport but once the Gin Trolley came round on the aeroplane it was curtains.
It was a very staggered journey to Moscow as we went via Heathrow & St Petersburg. This is always dangerous when traveling with BOTT or the old man as it involves trips to many bars and frequent visits by the Gin Trolley, the drivers of which haven’t worked out how drunk you are yet.
We left ourselves 4 hours in St Petersburg in order to deal with Russian immigration. We were in a unique position as the Russians waived all visa requirements to anybody who was able to produce a match ticket at immigration. However we thought that as we were entering in St Petersburg that we may struggle as the vast majority will be going straight to Moscow and the good folk at St Petersburg may not have any idea what’s going on. We were wrong, there was a specially cordoned off line at passport control marked ‘For Those Traveling With UEFA Final’ and we were straight through.
That left us with 2 hours in St Petersburg airport before we could even check in for the short flight to Moscow. Fortunately we all had our luggage with us (hand luggage only, I’m not trusting B&stard Airways with my luggage again after the Acapulco fiasco, in my luggage was a deck of cards so we sat down and had a good couple of hours of ‘alcoholic Snap’ and ‘alcoholic Brag’.
I can only assume that from then on we managed to check in fairly smoothly, board the flight and get to Moscow as I have no recollection whatsoever. Again, I think was a masterplan as we were flying the legendary Aeroflot (????????)…
I knew nothing of Aeroflot before this trip, it was only when The Don said that we would have to say our goodbyes that my mind started to wander. It’s important to have a comparator in situations like this; Aeroflot is Russia’s largest airline so we shall compare it to our very own BA.
BA have had five incidents attributed to mechanical/pilot error, the only one of these where people died was a mid-air collision with an Indian aircraft and this was blamed on Yugoslavian air traffic control, 63 fatalities. The other incidents involve such things as volcanic dust in the engines and that crash landing last year. The only other incident involving loss of life on a BA plane was (and I find this brilliant!) when a BA plane landed at Kuwait City Airport FOUR HOURS after the Iraqi invasion in 1990. The Iraqis executed a passenger: talk about rotten luck! BA Wikipedia page.
So, how do Aeroflot stack up against this record? Again, we’ll refer to Wikipedia for the answers.
Aeroflot have had a staggering 127 accidents and they’ve killed off 6,785 customers (plus 20 people on the ground). They were the Soviet national airline and as a result were unlikely to invest in trustworthy aircraft built by American defence corporation, Boeing. So they had to come up with their own and have a fleet of Russian built Tupolevs. These aircraft are known locally as ‘Flying Coffins’ so I was quite happy that I was passed out on this journey (Stuart has a cracking picture of me dribbling).
My next memory was on the subway in Moscow. We were debating on whether we should go to our hotel or head into Moscow for some food. I was firmly in the ‘hotel’ camp as I was a total mess, it was approaching midnight and we had a long day ahead of us. I was well and truly outvoted and we ended up in the middle of Moscow and found a lovely little traditional Moscovian restaurant called ‘TGI Fridays’ where we tucked in and met a couple of locals who came across as being very friendly.
They let us know that our hotel was a good hour and a half outside of the city centre and kindly offered to ring a taxi company that his firm uses. He was also offering advice on where to head to the next day and offered to meet up with us.
Things started to get suspicious when he asked us to stay with him and his girlfriend. A couple of raised eyebrows later and we realised that this taxi seemed to be taking forever, we ventured out on the street and found a queue of taxis but this chap seemed insistent that we wait for the one he ordered. We opted for one that was on the street and left in no doubt that the innocent, polite young man had called his mate who would take us in his car and rape & murder us.
So we eventually got to our hotel, Le Meridien Moscow Country Club, and settled in for a couple of nightcaps at the bar. There appeared to be a healthy mix of United & Chelsea fans as well as it being the base for Vodafone’s corporate hospitality (which we couldn’t jump onto for love nor money).
So to Wednesday, match day. After breakfast we had to struggle to get a taxi once more; again we couldn’t jump on the Vodafone buses. We ended up in cahoots with a Scotsman who got more and more angry by the second so we cut him loose and stole what we thought was his taxi. We’d heard a lot about the Moscow traffic so we decided to get a cab to the nearest underground station and take it from there. Our taxi driver couldn’t speak any English and tried to take us down a little short cut that was blocked off by some sort of security so in true Russian Hospitality style he got out of the cab and walked us the rest of the way. What a nice chap.
The train the previous evening was a little blurry so it was good to be able to take it all in this morning. We once again felt that we would be raped & murdered in a series of highly over engineered facilities and folk who look like they should be queuing for bread. The trains themselves are a product of solid Soviet bullishness; there’s no warning beeps before the doors close and should you be in their way the will chop your legs off, the trains hurtle underground at a phenomenal pace and there must be an average of 10 minutes between each stop giving you an impression of just how big the city is.
We were once again in the City of Moscow and made a bee line for Red Square which is as impressive as you imagine it to be; in the height of communism it was important to have such an iconic and powerful symbol for the minions to look up to. We did the whole tour taking in sights such as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Lenin’s Tomb, The Kremlin and the iconic St Basil’s Cathedral.
I can’t make my mind up whether it’s a good thing that the ‘Champions League Village’ was based here. In many ways it is entirely the right place as the Final should encapsulate the vibe of the host city and there is nowhere more ‘Russian’ than Red Square. On the other hand with sponsors logos epitomising the height of commercialisation in football you get the feeling that Lenin looking on from his tomb would have found the whole thing a little bit vile. I loved it, we met Brian McClair!!
Pics: (1) Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; (2) Lenin’s Tomb; (3) Handsome chap outside St Basil’s Catherdral?; (4) Champions Festval in Red Sq.
Spending 20 minutes in Red Square really can work up a thirst. We remembered what the rapist & murderer from the night before told us and headed to Arbat, a road with the promise of lots of bars. This road didn’t look too far on our tourist map of Moscow (it rather helpfully had Hard Rock Cafe & McDonald’s marked on it) but it took about 30 minutes to walk there, much to the disgruntlement of Dad who was starting to dry out. Once we found Arbat it was awash with Reds and we enjoyed drinks, merriment, singing and our newest game of ‘Spot the Chelsea Fan’.
We spent several hours here and found a few gems of bars to congregate including a wonderful underground Irish Bar (normal looking bar with a Shamrock outside it) that was drowned in United flag and songs. We had a lot of time here due to the fact the match didn’t kick off until 10.45pm local time to make sure it was suitable for TV across Europe.
Pics: (1) View from a rooftop bar; (2) Enjoying a singalong; (3) Both Southport reds?; (4) Unbelievable; (5) Singing the Owen Hargreaves song in the street & playing ‘Spot the Chelsea Fan’; (6) The Irish Bar.
And so we get to the good bit. We arrived at the stadium a couple of hours before kick off, once again we see Lenin proudly on display. I really wanted to climb up and wrap my scarf around him but I would have been shot/raped/murdered:
We started to see more Chelsea fans around here.
Inside the stadium (another example of Soviet over-engineering) you could feel the of occasion. It reminded me of the old Wembley in the sense that you are miles away from the pitch but nobody cares! It was a rainy night but we were well sheltered. During the match the atmosphere built up and it was a good game as far as Champions League Finals go. At half time we were all in a very confident and cheery mood…
.. as things were very much going our way.
By the time they had equalised and we sat through a nervy period of extra time we were less enthused by the prospect of penalties…
Once Ronaldo had missed his penalty dad wanted to leave but we would not let him. I could see his point as being in a ground with 30,000 fans cheering around you is not much fun unless you’re joining in. He is quite happy we wouldn’t let him leave. The John Terry miss will go down in folklore, it wasn’t even the penalty that lost the shootout (as I’m sure my old neighbour Mr Anelka will thank him for) but the fact that it WAS ‘England Lionheart, Mr Chelsea, Mr Dependable, Chelsea Hero’ and the manner of his miss with the hilarious slip made it that little bit special. How fitting it was also that Giggsy slotted home United’s final penalty in the game where he broke Sir Bobby’s appearance record for United.
I’m sure you’ve all seen a few mocked up pictures like this poking fun at JT’s failure but for a comprehensive guide with all the JT jokes and pics made by people with seemingly more time on their hands by me click on this link.
After the hour long on-pitch celebrations we had to wait another hour or so for the Russians to let us out, probably a sensible idea as Chelsea fans down the years hardly have the most impeccable record. It was about 2.40am before we left the stadium; this part was, to be fair, very well organised as there was an escort straight to the train station and even at this hour there was no waiting for the trains. Once we were back in the centre of Moscow the haggling for taxis began with the going rate being up to £80 to take us back to the hotel. Our driver took us initially to the Crowne Plaza where the United Team would shortly be holding their infamous all nighter, we foolishly turned around and telephoned the hotel so that they could give directions in Russian to the cabby.
It was again time for a nightcap; we were surrounded by some very glum Chelsea faces and a few United fans trying not to gloat.
The journey home is worth mentioning. It should be half an hour to get to the airport but allowing for Moscow traffic we gave ourselves two hours to get there. We still missed the flight!! We managed to get home safely but it did mean 4 hours in the airport watching highlights of the match; and this time there was no way I’d turn down a bloody mary!!
That’s it from Moscow. I’ll have another post on Monday as there’s been loads going on since then such as Foe’s UK Stag Do & Girls Aloud!
Andy
xxx
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