Feyenoord v Zorya Luhansk. 20/10/16

"If more clubs played Gloria Gaynor at full time I'd be inclined to stay until full time rather than leaving five minutes early to get back to the pub."

Feyenoord 1-0 Zorya Luhansk. De Kuip.
Thursday 20/10/16

Dutch football is bloody fantastic. Yet for some reason it has never become a fashionable destination like its German counterpart. 

While supporters from across Europe flock to venues such as Signal Iduna Park to watch Borussia Dortmundtourist - been there, done that, got the t-shirt twice - nobody seems to take much interest in what is going on across the border in the Netherlands.

Perhaps it is Dutch clubs reputation for stringent membership schemes. Or the banning of away supporters for high profile matches. Or the threat of hooliganism. Or the vicious rumour that it is nigh-on impossible to get tickets for games.

Well it wasn't impossible for our Dutch Double Header. A quick e-mail to two of Rotterdam's finest in the form of Feyenoord and Excelsior and we were on our way to the city that made The Beautiful South famous. This could be Rotterdam or anywhere... 

An interesting design for Rotterdam Central Station

Our request for tickets for Feyenoord might have been helped by the fact we mentioned we were Brighton and Hove Albion fans. Last summer, Brighton parted with £1.5m for Feyenoord striker Elvis Manu who has turned out to be, for want of a better word, crap. You can imagine the scenes in the ticket office now as the e-mail came in. “Oh God, two Brighton fans want to come and watch us play. I suppose it’s the least we can do seeing as we mugged their club off for over a million quid for a player who doesn’t know the offside rule.” 

Taking in two games at a time on these trips always seem like a good idea on paper. But paper doesn't have to deal with two days of solid alcohol consumption. Which is followed by an 8am Saturday morning flight from Rotterdam Airport to Manchester. On a propeller powered plane. Throughout which you are desperately trying not to add "above the North Sea" to the list of places you've been sick. 

Statue of a giant gnome pleasuring itself - tick

Why were we flying into Manchester airport? Ah, well just to add to the weekend of football, Andy decided in his wisdom we could go and watch Wigan v Brighton as it was "on the way home". It did actually prove to be a prudent move given the Albion won 1-0 to go second in the Championship which was remarkable as, as we wobbled dangerously somewhere over Yorkshire, it seemed at the time to be as good a decision as when Mr and Mrs Hitler got a bit randy and headed to the bedroom.

But I digress. Back to Dutch football. Which is bloody brilliant. Our chosen game at the fabulous De Kuip was Feyenoord taking on Ukrainian side Zorya Luhansk. A couple of weeks before our visit, Zorya had travelled to Old Trafford to take on the not-so-mighty-anymore Manchester United. They had, according to The Times, taken a grand total of five supporters with them owing to the troubles in war torn Eastern Ukraine where they are based (although they now play "home" games in Zaporhizia, a mere 236 miles away). 

In honour of the dedication of the fantastic five, we had decided to secretly give our backing to Zorya despite being in among the home supporters. That was until we headed out into Rotterdam and were blown away by the cities passion for football which instead saw us pinning our colours firmly to the Feyenoord mast. Across our travels we met not just Feyenoord and Excelsior supporters but Sparta Rotterdam and bizarrely a Dutch Bradford City supporter. It takes all sorts I suppose. 

Heineken...

...in a Sparta Rotterdam bar

Central to these meetings were the plethora of bars we came across in an area of the city which was named 'Cool District'. Our decision to hang around here and not venture too fat away in the hope of finding a 'Groovy Borough" or a 'Wicked Boulevard' was vindicated as we ticked off no less than nine pubs. Easily the best of these was Café Visser, which featured a scary Santa Claus doll just the two months before Christmas, some weird porcelain dog figure with a set of flowers coming out of its head and a large poster of George Best. Football mad and probably genuinely mad.

Scary Santa Claus - in October

George Best poster

Our hotel for the two nights was also handily located in Cool District. This was the first time I had stayed in an Easyhotel and it was everything you would imagine a hotel run by Sir Stelios would be. Check in on line, the most budget of budget rooms, extra charge for tea and coffee. The only disappointment was there was no speedy boarding for the shower and no option to pay extra to reserve a chosen bed.

De Kuip. Look at those floodlights

From Cool District it was a 10-15 minute tram ride over the river to the Feyenoord area of the city. The first thing you notice about De Kuip are its floodlight pylons. With the ushering in of modern, all seater stadiums proper floodlights you can see for miles away have all but disappeared in favour of boring lights strung along a roof. But not in Rotterdam. De Kuip features four beautiful pylons reaching high into the sky. Floodlight porn, some might say. 

Once inside the stadium, the lights peer down over the roof illuminating the pitch below. Two tiered all the way around and in a bowl shape with a low hanging roof, it ticked every box that features on the excellent stadium checklist. The floodlights, well you are probably bored about hearing about those gorgeous metal creatures by now. The player’s tunnel was the opposite side of the stadium to the dugouts which led to a fantastic procession of coaching staff, medical teams and substitutes at the start and end of each half. And then we come to the atmosphere.

De Kuip complete with the lower half of the bottom tier covered up

De Kuip

De Kuip was partially shut this fine Thursday evening. UEFA had dished out a suspended sentence punishment of a future game behind closed doors after crowd trouble in a Europa League game there last season against Roma. As a result, Feyenoord took it upon themselves to close the front half of the lower tier in a bid to prevent a repeat. Preventative action if you will. This meant around 16,000 seats in the 51,000 capacity stadium were covered up which you would expect to impact on the atmosphere somewhat.

Not a chance. The place was raucous throughout, none more so than when Nicolai Jorgensen scored the only goal of the game. There was even a green flare let off in celebration. If it could be that loud in a game which did nothing to excite with a third of the ground shut, imagine what it would be like when Ajax come to town. Add that one to the bucket list. 

Feyenoord score, the boredom is shattered with a flare

One of the loudest songs of the night was "Don't take me home" which seems to have caught on since it was sung relentlessly by England supporters at Euro 2016. This is a real bugbear of mine as it should surely only be sung when you are away? You can't be taken home if you are already at home, can you? England fans who persist on singing it at Wembley, take note.

Zorya are in the Feyenoord half. Quick, take a photo

That wasn't the only English thing about the evening either as the football was reminiscent of the on-the-pitch-tripe served up by England in their last four games. There were just four shots on target, all from Feyenoord. Brad Jones of Liverpool and Middlesbrough fame cold have bought out a chair and a book he was so underemployed in the Feyenoord goal. Perhaps this is the reason people don't flock to Dutch games. Certainly not those against limited Ukrainian opposition on a Thursday night.

There was one last treat at the end to make up for the mind numbing boringness of the 90 minutes. Plenty of clubs have a song that they play on the full time whistle. But none are as good as Feyenoord pumping out Gloria Gaynor and I Will Survive, complete with supporters joining in as they file out of the magnificent De Kuip.

Dutch football. Bloody brilliant.

Feyenoord: Brad Jones, Rick Karsdorp, Eric Botteghin, Jan-Arie van der Heijden, Terrence Kongolo, Karim El Ahmadi, Renato Tapia, Tonny Vilhena, Jens Toornstra, Nicolai Jorgenstern 1 (Michiel Kramer), Bilal Bascikoglu.

Zorya Luhansk: Oleksiy Shevchenko, Mykyta Kamenyuka, Mikhail Sivakov, Rafael Forster, Eduard Sobol, Olexandr Karavayev, Artem Gordienko (Igor Kharatin), Dmytro Grechyshkin, Ivan Petryak (Paulo Victor de Menezes Melo), Jaba Lipartia, Vladyslav Kulach (Zeljko Ljubenovic).

Attendance: 35,000.

Slovenia v England. 11/10/16

"When I said I was going to have a little nap, the general idea was to wake me up when the second half kicked off. Not leave me asleep for another 20 minutes."

Slovenia 0-0 England. Stozice Stadium.
11/10/16

Insomniacs, your days of sleepless nights are over. For I, Scott McCarthy, have come up with a cure that will send any man, woman or child into the land of nod at the drop of a hat.

You won't find this treatment on the NHS. If you went private, it would probably cost you hundreds of pounds. But, being the kind and considerate member of the human race that I am, I'm giving it to you for free.

Firstly, you want to book yourself a cheap flight to Munich. There, visit six or seven of this great cities finest beer halls. At 3.30am, board a bus to Ljubljana. Five hours later you will arrive in Slovenia's capital city. Have some breakfast. At 10am, recommence drinking for the next eight or so hours. At 9pm, attend Slovenia v England at Stozice Stadium. By 10pm, you will be out for the count.

GERMAN BEER!!!! 

In typical Bavarian style, a group of around 20 elderly ladies come
and join me for dinner

If you forget the turgid 90 minutes Gareth Southgate's England side served up in Slovenia - which it is bloody easy to do given sod all happened - this was another excellent trip. Munich remains one of my favourite cities in Europe. It has the perfect mix of beer, sausage and history, which made it the ideal starting and finishing point.

So, what does one do on a Monday night in Munich when one has to wait around until 3am for a bus? Augustine Klosterwirt, Ratskeller, Hofbrauhaus, Augustiner am Platz, Weisses Brauhaus, Palais Bar. In that order.

Pint of Hofbrau please bar keep

One of the many cost cutting measures you can take on these sorts of trips is overnight travel. It means you don't have to pay for accommodation and your time sleeping is put to good use getting from A to B, leaving more time to explore wherever you happen to end up.

This is all well and good in theory until the bus driver decides somewhere up in the Alps at 6am to whack the air conditioning on full blast, ruling out any more sleep. Cheers mate. There is of course also the washing situation. If you are sleeping on a coach for two consecutive nights, showering becomes a problem. Thankfully, I had my friends Lewis and Mark to sort me out in this regard with the use of the facilities in their splendid apartment in Ljubljana.

Ljubljana drinking at 10am with complimentary blankets

The best way to say thank you to Lewis and Mark was clearly to drag them to the pub for 10am and get the beers in, after which we could explore Ljubljana. There have been plenty of beautiful places on these footballing trips and Ljubljana ranks up there with the best of them.

The tiny Ljubljanica River meanders its way through the middle of the city with a plethora of charming bridges connecting the cobbled streets on either side. High above the city rises the castle, keeping an eye on everything going on below. A cable car takes people up to the top, from where stunning views of this quaint corner of Europe can be had.

Beautiful Ljubljana

Drinking on the banks of the Ljubljanica

Unfortunately, I never made it onto the cable car, instead preferring to try out a number of the bars situated along the banks of the river. In the height of summer, you can imagine the throng of people drinking outside these places as the sun beats down. It wasn't quite that pleasant on a cold October day with intermittent showers but, thanks to the Slovenian penchant for blankets we had a real good go at remaining outside while pursuing a range of local beers.

Monk Lewis is all wrapped up for our boat trip

It wasn't all drinking, mind you. There was some culture involved as Lewis, Mark, the recently arrived Ciaran and myself decided to take a cruise down the Ljubljanica. This featured a complimentary beer when boarding the boat and lasted for approximately an hour. I slept through approximately 45 of this which was a sign of things to come. At this juncture, I’d like to take the opportunity to apologise to any of my fellow boat passengers who may be reading this and who, in their attempts to take photos of the scenery around us, will probably have a Seth Rogen look-a-like ruining every one given my prime position at the back of the boat. Sorry.

Boat trip over, we were soon trying to make our way to the ground. On route, we passed a hotel with a coach outside and a mass of people. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but here it allowed us to see the England team boarding their transportation to the stadium. Wayne Rooney got the biggest cheer from the crowd, a far cry from those who shamefully booed him at Wembley three days previously. There was also a high five from Southgate who thanked us all for coming. With the benefit of hindsight with regards to his sides eventual contribution, I could've returned the favour and thanked him for aiding my pioneering work into insomnia.

Stozice Stadium

The birthplace of the cure to insomnia

Stozice Stadium was a 20 minute cab ride outside the city and at first glance appeared to be tiny. Only upon entry did it turn out that the entire place was sunk into the ground, so that you entered at the very top of the stadium with the pitch below you. It was a smart little place although on this occasion relatively empty.  A combination of the fact that England had played there less than 18 months previously and a disastrous Euros meant that the away end wasn't sold out. It was even less full by the end as supporters began streaming out from as early as the 15 minute mark in favour of the warmth offered by the city centres many great bars.

We stuck it out. At half time, I informed Mark, Fiona, Kevin and Sara who I'd miraculously ended up with having lost them after our little boat voyage that I was going to take a nap. The intention here was to catch up on some sleep during the 15 minute break. Silly me presumed somebody would wake me up if I was still out when the second half kicked off. My associates decided that, rather than do that, they wouldinstead focused on taking a load of pictures of me fast asleep while the game was going on.

One of the photos my lovely friends took instead of waking me up...

Sleeping beauty

Eventually, I woke up  into the second half, in time to see an absolute wonder save from Joe Hart. Hart was the only player to emerge with any real credit on a dire evening of football and that save was about the only thing of note that actually happened. Without him, England could easily have lost the game. But then at least there would have been some goals. Every cloud and all that.

Still, that snorefest had set things up nicely fit the return journey to Munich, this time at the slightly earlier time of 2.30am. 2.30am duly rolled around at the fabulous facilities supplied by Ljubljana Coach Station (a street with some bus stops) and there was no sign of the bus. 3am rolled around and a bus turns up. Brilliant, Munich here we come. Except, this isn't the 2.30am bus. There is a two hour delay on the border with Croatia owing to passport checks due to the migrant crisis and this is the 12.30am bus. Eventually, the 2.30am bus makes an appearance at 4am and we are off and running. That sleep in the stadium isn't looking such a silly move now thanks to that lack of efficiency from those at the Croatia-Slovenia border.

Odeonsplatz

Lowenbraukeller

One man who knew a thing or two about efficiency was Adolf Hitler and you can't really go to Munich and escape the cities links to the Nazi Party. One I'd finally arrived back in Bavaria, there were more beers to be had in amongst visiting several sights such as Odeonsplatz, where Hitler made several speeches and the Beer Hall Putsch came to its bloody conclusion and the Lowenbraukeller, one of the places frequented by Hitler and his henchman. Remarkably, I stumbled across some sort of rally going on in Marienplatz in front of the domineering Rathaus led by the far right Pegida party with plenty of anti-Muslim propaganda going on and a lot of people listening. Munich a hot bed of the far right? Things don’t change that much.

Nazi Congress Hall

Inside the Nazi Congress Hall, which would have held 50,000 if it
were completed

 A short 90 minute train journey from Munich is the city of Nuremberg, where the Nazi Parade Grounds are. This was where Thursday was spent, checking out the fascinating museum about the Nazi's rise and fall and standing on the balcony from where Hitler would inspect the troops. The whole place was fascinating, from the lake which was where the Nazi's had laid the foundations for a 400,000 capacity stadium (the Americans didn’t know what to do with it after the war, so just filled it up with water) to the Congress Hall, a 50,000 seater version of Rome's Coliseum which would have been where Hitler made grand speeches.

Nuremberg Parade Ground

Hitler's balcony

Nuremberg itself was a great little place, a smaller version of Munich with pubs and town squares galore. Having only half a day here was a travesty and a return visit to watch FC Nurnberg has to be on the cards. Their stadium? Part of the Parade Ground, of course. It would be nice to return to Ljubljana as well at some point. If the city was this great as Autumn kicks in, I can only imagine what it is like in the middle of summer.

Best do it soon as well. After all, thousands of people will be flocking there in the not too distant future to visit the city and see the spot where that great medical breakthrough happened. Ljubljana - where the cure for insomnia was discovered.

Slovenia: Jan Oblak, Aljaz Struna, Miral Samardzic, Bostjan Cesar (Miha Mevlja) Bojan Jokic, Rene Krhin (Nik Omladic), Benjamin Verbic, Valter Birsa (Rok Kronaveter), Jasmin Kurtic, Roman Bezjak, Josip Ilicic.

England: Joe Hart, Kyle Walker, Gary Cahill, John Stones, Danny Rose, Jordan Henderson, Eric Dier, Theo Walcott (Andros Townsend), Deli Alli (Wayne Rooney), Jesse Lingard, Daniel Sturridge (Marcus Rashford).

Attendance: 13,274

Slovakia v England. 04/09/16

"I probably should have warned you before we booked a boat down the Danube that I was once seasick when totally sober on the Isle of Wight ferry."

Slovakia 0-1 England. City Arena.
Sunday 04/09/16

Of all the great philosophical questions throughout human history, one has never been truly answered - what happens if a man who suffers from notorious seasickness visits 27 pubs over 72 hours in two Eastern European countries and then takes a boat up the Danube?

England playing away in Slovakia finally gave us the chance to answer it once and for all. The plan was simple. Fly to Budapest on Friday for a night out; bus to Bratislava for a Saturday evening of more beer; train on Sunday to Trnava to witness the first game of the Big Sam revolution and then the ultimate test - a boat from Bratislava to Vienna along the Danube.

The Danube is a bloody fantastic river so whatever sickness might occur would be a price worth paying. From its source in Germany, it passes through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria. Moldova and Ukraine before emptying into the Black Sea. Sailing the length of it with a football game in each country would be quite the European Football Tour (makes mental note for next years 30^th birthday).

Beautiful Budapest

But first things first. Destination one – Budapest. It wasn’t hard to see why this has become an extremely popular city with stag and hen parties alike. At around £1 a pint if you headed off the beaten track – which proves a vital tactic if you want to avoid the aforementioned stag and hen do’s – it is very cheap. There are also a plethora of pubs. I hardly scratched the surface having spent the morning and afternoon sightseeing yet still managed to visit 13 in less than 36 hours.

Budapest Castle

Houses of Parliament

Europe's largest Synagogue

Heroes Square

All of those pubs were in Pest on the eastern side of the Danube. Buda sits on the west and they were separate cities until 1873 when unification occurred. Buda is home to the cities castle and provides a stunning view of the Parliament building situated the other side of the river so technically I can say I did two cities in Hungary as well as visiting the biggest Synagogue in Europe, the site of the Ferenc Puskas Stadium which is currently being completely rebuilt except for the fantastic old school ticket booths and the iconic statues of Heroes Square. And there you were thinking this was a trip dedicated purely to drinking.

Great visiting supporters ticket office at the site of the Puskas Stadium

Love an old school set of ticket booths

Not much left of the Puskas Stadium

The Hungarians are a laidback and friendly people which you would expect when you can have Jägermeister for 80p. The only time they became anywhere near angered was in a karaoke bar in the early hours of Saturday morning. By this point I’d met up with the rest of the scientists aiding the sea sickness experiment – Mark, Fiona and Kevin – and the former two had performed a wonderful version of Nightboat to Cairo. My version of Delilah was not quite received in the same way, not helped in part by the fact I was unable to read by this point and this resulted in being removed from the stage area. It turned out that we had wandered into some sort of X Factor Finals night style levels of ability competition that the locals were taking very seriously. And I thought butchering one of Wales’ favourite sons most iconic anthems in Cardiff once had bought a bad reaction.

A karaoke display the locals didn't seem to appreciate

After a night asleep on a table in a corridor in my hostel due to being unable to find the correct room, Bratislava was next up which entailed a three hour bus journey. Bratislava is, I am reliably informed, a beautiful city with its own castle situated high above the Danube. And being reliably informed is all I have to go on in this instance as the one photo I took of Slovakia’s capital city was a blurred effort at night of the castle such on the mission to visit a number of bars on stationary boats along the river.

"Sightseeing" in Bratislava complete

One rule of McCarthy’s Football Travels is that, where possible, you must always imbibe the local brew. Bratislava proved troublesome when it came to this, as nowhere seemed to sell Slovak beer – it was all from the near neighbours the Czech Republic. One barman explained why this was in brutally honest terms. “Slovak beer is shit, Czech is better.” Cheers mate.

There was still hope of finding some local stuff – the game itself would not be played in Bratislava but in Trvana, an hour journey away by train. With a population of 65,000 and so many churches it has been named the Slovak Rome, perhaps this would be the place to try beer from the country we were actually in. Or if worse came to worse, some communion wine.

Welcome to Trnava - another Slovak city with no Slovak beer

Sightseeing in Trnava complete

Ah, but this was England away and the first England away game since our reputation had been done the world of good since visiting Marseille in the Euros. That meant that in a mysterious coincidence quite a few bars on the main street had “run out” of beer. And the first two pints we were able to find in backstreets? Pilsner Urquell and Bernard, two of the Czech Republic’s finest. We even had to resort to pre-game cocktails as the thousands of riot police and their dogs lay on the ground in the searing heat – one officer felt so threatened he’d dozed off while his colleague devoured a kebab – such was the trouble they faced in policing the rowdy English hooligans.

City Arena was handily placed slap bang in the middle of the city which meant a nice leisurely stroll. It is the home of Spartak Trnava and was completely rebuilt between 2013-15, during which time Spartak continued to play there in front of just one stand. As a result, the new stadium has the highest UEFA ranking of any in Slovakia and has become home to the national team.

City Arena

Thanks to a quite spectacular cock up from the FA, it was the local supporters who I would be joining for the evening. Despite having been given a ticket in the England fans ballot and carrying out a transaction to purchase one, somewhere down the line something went wrong which left me ticketless. Thankfully, England are not the draw they once were and for €35 – which ironically worked out at less than I would’ve paid to get in the away end – I was in the home end.

There was a new experience on entering City Arena which involved having a photo taken before entry. Each turnstile featured a small camera you had to stare into, presumably so if you caused any trouble inside you were easily identifiable by the name on your ticket. No need to worry Slovak man whose name I was using – I behaved like an angel, even if it was far from ideal being among irate home supporters when Adam Lallana banged in a 93^rd minute winner.

In with the home supporters

The wonderful City Arena

City Arena was a tiny but smart ground, two tiered all the way around except for one small single tiered stand along one side. It was reminiscent of stadium:mk in that that concourse occupied the gap between the two tiers and as such you could walk around it, buy food and drink beer all in view of the pitch. The pitch itself began cutting up almost immediately, although that couldn’t be used as an excuse for the dirge that followed.

Great pitch this one...

The Slovak fans were a passionate lot for the first 20 minutes until 18,110 people in the ground fell asleep through sheer boredom. The one person who managed to keep up a level of excitement throughout the 90 minutes was a rather rotund chap in a blue t-shirt who had an irrational hatred of Theo Walcott. Every time Walcott would warm up in front of him, this man would bellow “THEO WALCOTT HOMOSEXUAL”. This was clearly factually incorrect as Walcott has been with the lovely Melanie for as long as he has been famous. It was also extremely bizarre as, if as suspected this was just abuse of a player, there are surely more high profile members of the England squad to target such as Wayne Rooney and Joe Hart? Anyway, the homophobic abuse couldn’t last and he was eventually tackled to the ground by no less than five stewards and bundled out with beer flying everywhere.

"THEO WALCOTT HOMOSEXUAL" man before his ejection

That forced removal was the highlight of the game as the Big Sam era continued where the Woy Hodgson one had left off in being uninspiringly dull to the point where it really didn’t matter that I was in the home end. Martin Skrtel finally seeing red for trying to steal the leg of Harry Kane after he’d earlier failed in an attempt to behead him raised a little interest, but even with a man advantage England looked on course for a repeat of the 0-0 draw in the Euros. That was until the last minute when Lallana struck, after which a loud cheer escaped me. This was followed by a hasty retreat out of the Slovak end and back to a pub on the square to await the rest of the traveling party with a beer – Rebel, which I’m sure you can already guess was Czech. On arrival back in Bratislava we finally found something homemade thanks to Fabrika, a lovely bar which brewed its own beer on site.

Boat time...

On the boat, no sickness to report so far

Monday morning arrived with a sense of nervousness as the boat trip to Vienna loomed. To settle the nerves, it was a pint for breakfast (another Bernard, Czech). The trip itself was an absolute delight, passing past old towns, forests and finally into historic Vienna where we were able to eat a schnitzel which contained at least six whole pigs, have a few more pints and then fly home.

Most importantly, we finally had the answer to that great philosophical question – it turns out that if a man who suffers from notorious seasickness visits 27 pubs over 72 hours in two Eastern European countries and then takes a boat up the Danube, he can be absolutely fine. Good news for that 30^th birthday plan.

Slovakia: Matus Kozacik, Peter Pekarik, Martin Skrtel, Jan Durica, Tomas Hubocan, Viktor Pecovsky (Norbert Gyomber), Robert Mak (Frantisek Kubik), Jan Gregus, Marek Hamsik, Dusan Svento (Filip Kiss), Michal Duris.

England: Joe Hart, Kyle Walker, Gary Cahill, John Stones, Danny Rose, Jordan Henderson (Dele Alli), Eric Dier, Wayne Rooney, Raheem Sterling (Theo Walcott), Neil Kane (Daniel Sturridge), Adam Lallana 1.

Attendance; 18,111