This travel diary starts significantly before the match than is usual for when FFC Sweden are on the road.
30/9-2007
As the date above indicates, I left Sweden already on the last day of September to see Fulham take on the Derby at Craven Cottage a full 20 days later. There were of course several reasons for this early departure and I did not even travel to England, but my KLM flight would transport me to “the Capital of Cannabis” – Amsterdam.
Amsterdam! Now many of you probably think that the man has gone crazy and went to Amsterdam for drugs and happy girls, but of course that was not the case. I was just going to work! The main reason for my trip was that I had changed jobs and was going to “induction” at our headquarters in Amsterdam, nothing else.
Sunday 30/9 – 2007
On the afternoon of the last day of September 2007 I got a ride from my dear family to Arlanda, where I was to board my plane with destination Amsterdam. The Dutch capital would be my home for the next two weeks, where the focus would be more on the commercial than the football-like. You know me though, there is always room for football, in the worst case you have to make do with TV.
After a very pleasant flight with a real airline (Yes Ryan Air, I AM bitter) I landed at one of, in my opinion, the world’s best airports – Shiphol. The weather welcomed me in the best way and with the sun in my eyes I trudged towards the taxi rank. Another thing that I like about Amsterdam is the quality of their taxis, no one drives anything “worse” than Mercedes or BMW of a later model – this makes the otherwise rather boring highway ride into the city center quite pleasant. I had no idea where my boss had decided that I should live, yes I knew what the place was called but not much more. Considering that the name was Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, you didn’t know if it was a top hotel with reference to “Grand” or an Eastern-inspired party hotel in concrete if you were to weigh “Krasnapolsky” in the assessment. It turned out that the company thought that I should live well in style. Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky turned out to be one of the better hotels in Amsterdam and I stayed really well during my time down there.
Monday 1/10 – Friday 5/10
Not much to tell about during this week, which mostly revolved around training and production of strategy documents etc. The evenings were spent at a local with new good friends. A lot of first-class Dutch pilsner went down and lots of good food. Squeezed in some European football Tuesday-Thurs as well. The working week was crowned with a visit to the cinema on Friday evening. Calm and nice, but the movie left a lot to be desired, hereby Rush Hour 3 is NOT recommended.
Saturday 6/10
Saturday would be my tourist day I had thought, and it brought a lot of walking and nice things to look at. The sad thing was that the two things I had decided not to miss, Amsterdam’s Historical Museum and a canal boat ride, were exactly what didn’t happen. Both had hour-long queues and it didn’t occur to me to waste time just standing in line. Instead, I headed for the Sports Café at Leidseplein in central Amsterdam. A sports bar that beats a lot I’ve visited before. Reasonable prices, as TV-dense as on O’Learys Götgatan but above all the owner applied “Sexy Management”. Absolutely crazy that they have been able to recruit so many sinful girls to provide adulteryI think I’m an arch-nerd when it comes to sports, not much that usually distracts me, but here it was hard to try to watch the game while my head went like a wind vane.
Saturday gave several games without having to get too excited, new acquaintances in the form of Dutch people who were just as snowed in on English football as you were and before you took the tram home in the evening you had managed to get a little drunk too 😉
Sunday 7/10
Sleep in, a long walk and a yummy breakfast at my newfound favourite café, This is what my start of the day looked like. Was absolutely the only one who walked around Amsterdam this day wearing a Fulham shirt. It attracted attention and several people stopped me on the street and wanted to exchange a few words about football. FUN!
Towards the afternoon, I headed for the same sports bar that I had used the day before and made sure to get a good seat in the bar where I would have a good view, and be able to order pilsner at my own pace. As you know, this game was not much to talk about, we were bad in the first half and completely abysmal in the second. In a way, it was nice to “just” see the on TV, it would be terribly sad to have to suffer through something like this on site. [Ironically, the upcoming on-site game would turn out to play in the same division as the game against Portsmouth]
Monday 8/10 – Thursday 11/10
A new working week without any major events out of the ordinary happened. The only really different thing was when I got to meet my colleagues from all our offices around the world, a nice mix of nationalities and people from all 18 offices around the planet.
Friday 12/10
I saw the end of two rewarding but somewhat tiring weeks in Amsterdam and when Friday started to approach early afternoon I took a taxi to the central station with my far too heavy luggage. With my usual luck, the train was delayed and there are more fun things than littering at Amsterdam Central. Finally, the train rattled onto the platform and I could begin my journeyagainst Brussels. I had to travel an entire station with plenty of space, the rest of the trip felt as if Ryan Air had taken over the train operation in the Benelux countries. Crowded, hot and uncomfortable, if it wasn’t for the insanely sweet lady that I sat and talked to the whole trip, it would have been unbearable at some moments.
Well, once in Brussels I was met up at the station by my old partner in-crime Ian. Ian has had Brussels as his (wife’s and knot’s) base for several years, but embarrassingly I hadn’t been down to Belgium since the premiere in Euro 2000, but now I would finally get to see how they live.
The wife (G!) welcomed us at the door of their very tastefully decorated villa and Little William immediately charmed me as usual. It was in love with children yes 🙂 All the while I read fairy tales to William, or did William read to me? The sentences can differ, fixed and donated Gabriella in the kitchen. Soon enough, the food was on the table and we tucked into traditional Belgian sausage with accompanying mashed potatoes, with bacon and other goodies in it. Too bad that both Ian and I would drive all night, otherwise the meal could have been crowned with a big Leffe lager.
After an hour or so of socializing, we decide to leave. Into the car and out onto the highway south. We left Belgium pretty quickly and rattled into and through Luxembourg “in no time”. With the exception of fog that you could touch and some car tolls that we lost speed at, the trip went smoothly. After 5-6 hours, we stopped outside Radisson SAS Basel in Switzerland. Quick parking, check-in and a wirre from the minibar then bums in bed. It was 4:00 a.m. Just after 08.00 the bell rang and announced that it was time to jump into the match jersey and find the train station in Basel.
PART 2
Saturday 13/10
It was 08.00 when we were woken up at Hotel Radisson SAS in Basel on the match day of the match between Liechtenstein and Sweden. We quickly got ready and went downstairs to have breakfast. However, it was not a great idea, the same as lousy service, quality and selection of a hotel breakfast has rarely been seen. A little milk and cereal had to do, the coffee was so bad that it had to wait until we got to the train station.
Basel in daylight was not the most charming thing you have seen, something like Skara, Linköping or Sundsvall I guess. However, the fact that we were in an alpine country quickly became apparent as the distance to the train station was about 600 meters, but the height difference was on the other hand 80-100 meters. Tough start to the morning! At the station we took out some francs, as Switzerland just like Sweden refused to go but in the monetary union a little local currency was needed to get through the day. We quickly located our train and sat down on one of the most modern trains I have ever seen, that Switzerland is a country without any economic problems was clearly visible. However, it was not completely cheap. After the most beautiful (what huge views) train ride through basically all of Switzerland, we got off the train to change to a regular local bus that would take us the last mile or so into Lichtenstein.
The bus transfer was quick and uneventful and we were soon standing on the main street in Vaduz trying to figure out where we could find a pub for beer, food and international matches on TV that were played during the day. Since we were centrally located in the village (everything was more or less central), it didn’t take many minutes to locate a pub that at least met the first two criteria. Finding a pub with the opportunity to show football on TV proved impossible in the small principality. Well, the beer was fantastic and so was the giant wiener schnitzel. The sun was shining and life was beautiful.
After a couple of beers and food in our stomachs, we went on a small tour to find the arena and village square where we knew that most of the Swedish fans were. As I said, the city/village is minimal and both arena and square we found immediately. We cut a table outside in the sun and continued to enjoy the late summer weather and the beer. Of course, the Swedish “FFC Sweden” flag was flying at the square.
After hours of football talk, memories, beer and new and old friends, we walked down to the stadium in a united troop. Outside the small national arena, the host nation had built a small marketplace with beer tents, market stalls, etc. Since we still had plenty of time, we took a splash here too and stood and enjoyed the views from this most different place I’ve seen football.
Looking at search routines and the number of police/military, you would think that it was Germany-England we would be looking at, but what do I know Sweden might be classified as a high-risk match down here. The process went surprisingly fast anyway and soon we were inside and spread the flag on a slope at one corner flag and then searched for our seats. These were absolutely fantastic, right at the center line, close to the pitch with good visibility over the entire pitch.
We leave the match itself aside as everyone knows how it went and probably watched it on TV. A little anecdote that was a bit fun I want to mention, though. On one occasion Concha faked out and pulled his feet away instead of finishing in a 50/50 situation right in front of ther where we sat. This caused me to scream:
“Hey DjurgÃ¥rdsdj*vel, follow through in the situations!” He looks up at us smiling and replies
– “But what the hell, you don’t want to ruin the pedicure!” –CLEANLY!
After the game we were both tired and hungry and decided that we would find a restaurant for some food as we had quite a lot of time before our pre-ordered taxi would pick us up. After a bit of searching we found a bistro/wine bar where we could have a glass of red, some food and an espresso that cheered up a bit. Then it was time to find our taxi driver for the ride back to the train station. The timing was good and we didn’t have to wait long before we boarded the train back to Basel. The whole trip we slept and it felt like we had only gone for a few minutes when I was woken up when we rolled into Basel again. The walk back to the hotel went quickly as this time it was downhill. Before long, John Blund had taken control of us again and we slept like toddlers.
Sunday 14/10
The next morning we slept a little longer than planned and skipped the lousy breakfast. We picked up the car from the garage and steered the radiator north, it didn’t feel like we needed to stay longer than necessary in Basel. After an hour or so of driving, Ian asked me to turn off the highway. He thought we should make a beach stop in Alsaces and buy some wine, then he wanted to show me some of the small picturesque villages that he had visited many years earlier on a wine tour. Said and done, we left the highway and headed up towards the vineyards on the slopes. It was very beautiful and we found a vineyard that had its own sale where Ian bought a box. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was flying and already overweight, I would have done the same.
After this unplanned detour, we headed north again towards Brussels. Another hour or so later I started to get stomach ache and asked if we could have lunch, I assumed it was hunger that was arguing with me. But no, the food didn’t help much and I had to ask Ian to take over the wheel. The rest of the way home was for me a torment, nothing helped with the pain. However, as you can imagine, I survived the trip and we came back safe and sound to the villa south of Brussels. Now we were going to have dinner and later in the evening Ian was going to drive me to the airport in Charleroi where I was going to fly Devil’s Ryan Air to Stanstead.
My body wanted something else and it soon became clear that I was not fit to fly anywhere. Little William 1.5 years old had with his winter vomiting sickness completely covered me. It was just a matter of letting herself be tucked into the guest room and skipping the flight.
Monday 15/10
That whole night was like running interval training between bed and the mug, but towards the morning I started to feel a little better. Ian went to work and Gabriella and William went to kindergarten etc. I myself got on the phone to the head office and asked them to book me on a flight to England as soon as possible. This was quickly arranged and at two o’clock Gabriella came home and picked me up. William had gotten sick again so I took the wheel and Gabriella sat back to keep an eye on him. Charleroi was not dangerously far from Brussels and 45 minutes later I headed to the departure hall. A couple of goodbye hugs and 800 SEK in excess weight later Then I could board the plane and fall asleep. The problem with flights like this is that they are very short, you barely had time to take off before you landed again. But on the other hand, I’m grateful for every minute I don’t have to be on board Ryan Air’s cattle transports.
It felt like I came “home” once I got my luggage and walked down to the platform under Stanstead to buy a ticket to Cambridge, which was the final stop on my lengthy tour before I headed back to Sweden.
