Champions League Revisited Part 2

Panathinaikos away 20th October 2004

I have an unfortunate ability to bump into people I don’t want to meet on away trips and this one was no different.

My journey from the Channel Isles required the mad dash across London between Gatwick and Heathrow to change between 2 BA flights. I made it with ease. I was lucky that when I checked in, it was a friend of mine who done it, she works for BA and a nice little upgrade to business class was given on the London - Athens flight, thank you very much. Well maybe not. Boarding the plane I was looking forward to being treated like a chav for the journey, you know free food and free bar. But as I took my seat I had to look twice at who was sitting next to me, fucking David Pleat! David fucking Pleat ex spud. Okay who’s taking the piss, I thought my mate had stitched me up, there was no fucking way I was sitting next to him for 3 ½ hours. I did ask to be moved but it was a no go the plane was full of gooners and press, I even thought of asking if I could be put beside the baggage. All I could think of was to bury my nose in a paper and hope he never opened his mouth. I got away with that much, knocked backed a couple of mini bottles of champagne and a few g and t's in the space of an hour an passed out, didn’t have to listen to him once, however I have a feeling he had to listen to my arse singing, a lot of bubbles in champagne!

I arrived in Greece and the sun was splitting the pavement, I was the stupid cunt who was wearing jeans and a woollen jumper, don’t ask, I looked like a fucking idiot. Even ITV picked it up on camera and beamed it around the world before kickoff.

Before the match a few beverages were consumed in a pub next to the stadium, I was on my Jack Jones so I had to make a bit of an effort to speak to some fellow gooners. Anyhow there was another gooner on his own so I got talking to him, this was about to be the start of something mental. Roy was from Norwich and he was quickly nicknamed Norwich and to this day still is. I was nicknamed stupid cunt in the jumper.

Well, myself and Norwich had a blast that night, starting with the game. The stadium is open air and on the small side but unlike other away grounds where you have a security ring around the ground they had a ring of kebab stands around it.

The game was entertaining and remembered as the game of two Edu’s. They had an Edu who scored both their goals and our own Edu grabbed one of ours in 2-2 draw.

Then the fun began.

I met Norwich back in the boozer after the match and we drank a fair few until about 3 in the morning we were chatting to a couple of Greeks and when the bar closed asked them to show us a nightclub, they looked at us with raised eyebrows. Nightclub = strip club in Greece, we should have asked for a Disco.

Anyway the 2 Greeks said they would take us to a club, one of them went and got his jam jar, a very impressive Audi TT that had me and Norwich crushed on the back seat. So they drove us to the night club When we rolled up at the entrance to the club there was an 8 foot penis pissed as we were we just laughed and had our photo taken with the thing, it turns out that this strip club also catered for women every 3rd or 4th performance on stage was done by Stavros the Chippendale. It was €25 to get in, they paid for us, it was a €10 a bottle of Heineken, and they bought every round all night (A Scotsman’s dream!) they also paid for the “extra services” of the waitresses! I reckon it cost them about €400 for a 2 hour drinking binge with us.

Anyway after that it was up the airport for a 7am flight, “cheerio boys!” we said they replied “see you for the return leg in London, you can look after us there!” ye will we fuck we thought, we gave you the wrong phone numbers.

And that was that, nobody ever believed this story but in the last 16 of the same year I met Norwich again and he told the exact same story to my mates, who had to eat humble pie. I still see Norwich at most matches he just a complete header like me when it comes to the Gunners. Respect.