Tuesday 16 March 2010

Apologies for

my unauthorised absence but I'm just back from our annual trip to the continent watching games. This year we chose to take in three games in Holland and got the ferry last Thursday night from North Shields. After an evening of on board entertainment we got in a couple of hours late (operational reasons they said) then headed straight for Eindhoven where we had based ourselves for the Friday and Saturday nights. Our first game on the Friday night was a second division match in the city between FC Eindhoven and local rivals Helmond. We had chosen the City's lower league representatives against their "big brothers" PSV and didn't regret it. Upon the advice of the party's junior member we decided to walk to the ground as it "wasn't too far" Over 5 kilometers later and two pub stops we arrived at quite an impressive wee ground where we managed to get a pre match beer and a blether with a few young Helmond fans we were treated to a 3-2 win to the home side. The ground had stands on three sides and a "fans bar and shop" There was a wee skirmish at the end, nothing really, but mounted police chased some of the young visitors down the street and briefly our party had to quicken our pace to stay ahead of the "7th cavalry" Deciding against the walk back we got the bus into town and sampled a few of the city centre bars before retiring to our hotel. End of a busy day 1.
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