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| A Greek Odyssey MemberJon Wharton on his Athenian adventure Michel and I initially had no plans to go to Athens for the match, but were instead going to watch it in a pub in Liverpool, which we felt would be the next best thing. That all changed when we saw two tickets for 1000 euros, Category One. Great! Of course, as some of you know, that turned out to be a con, and consequently I lost 500 euros. (I’m in the process of trying to sort that out, but that’s another story.) We had already paid for flights and the hotel, so felt we would go anyway. My dad and three brothers were going too, with only my older brother Paul having a ticket. He got it last minute from a colleague, who insisted he pay face value. Paul protested but gave in gracefully after not too much of a fight! So anyway, we left HK on the Friday night before the game to fly to London, then flew to Athens on EasyJet on Monday morning at 6.30am. We had booked a hotel on Aegina, the closest island to Athens, just a 40 minute ferry ride to Piraus, which itself was 40 minutes by train to the stadium. Skipping to when we got there, the hotel was very nice, basic but fine. Spent that afternoon wandering around a bit, dinner and a few drinks. A few other reds around but not many. The next day, Tuesday, we headed over to Athens to meet the family. A day of looking at ruined buildings, or rather the ruined remains of ruined buildings. Very exciting. We had to head back to our island at 7pm, as that was the last available ferry.  Match day! All kitted out, we checked out of our hotel and headed again to Athens. After dropping our bags off at my family’s room, in a hotel in the city centre, we again went sight seeing, after meeting up with my oldest brother who arrived that morning. The Acropolis was less ruined than the previous day’s exhibits, and so was a bit better, but it did chuck it down. We, along with a hundred or so other Reds, were holed up in the museum for an hour or so, waiting for the downpour to end. While there, we discovered another funny law of Greek antiquity viewing. You are free to take a photo of one of the statues, with no flash of course, but you are not allowed to take a picture of a statute with someone standing next to it. Never did work out why that was.  The day was getting on, so we trooped off to the restaurant for dinner and beers. We took a few turns round the square, in pairs, to see if we could scare up some tickets. When she was on her way to answer a call of nature, Michel bumped into a bloke who was lucky enough to have found tickets. They had a chat and he told her that he bought some fake ones prior to purchasing genuine ones. He reckoned people could easily get in with the fake ones and offered them to her for 120 Euros each. We discussed it but figured it wasn’t worth it so did not buy any. We got one tip from someone who had bought tickets from a bloke down the road. Off we went, but no sign. We were also told by someone who had a ticket that he’d heard of them going for 3000 Euros. The whole place was packed with fans, as you can imagine. Lots of singing and chanting. The odd pocket of Italians and it was by and large all good natured. The Italians had a limited English repertoire of songs, and generally sang "Gerrard f*ck off, Gerrard f*ck off". The frequent reply was "Three-nil and you messed it up, three-nil and you messed it up..." Good stuff!  Fans from all over the place were around, with some good banners. The day before we were asked by some Serbs if they could take a picture with us. There were Australians, who generally shouted, "We love Harry Kewell" more or less constantly. Oh, and there were one or two scousers around as well.  We went back to our table having had no success in getting tickets, and after a bit Paul went off to the game. We had been given a leaflet about a nightclub, called the Gas Works, that was setting up a big screen to show the game (the only screen we heard about, not many of the bars had TVs and even fewer had big screens). It had indoor and outdoor bars and an outdoor area that could hold 5,000 people. It was billed as Stanley Park in Athens and was only open to Liverpool fans. Only 10 Euros to get in, which seemed like nothing after the 1000s we were thinking of having to pay for actual tickets, and we could have a drink during the game. Quite a long walk, and we got there. It was brilliant. Full of fans, all singing away. And a truly huge screen. We got our dad a seat and got ready for the game. This involved going to the bar and getting a few extra cans so we wouldn’t have to miss anything.  Watching the game there was sort of similar to a big night at Amici, just outdoors and about 100 times as many fans, with the consequent increase in volume and variety of songs. Sorry - can’t reproduce any here, but was kind of otherwise occupied!  After the devastating result (’nuff said), we all trooped back to the centre of town to drown our sorrows. The previously mentioned pockets of Italians were in better voice now, singing "Campiones, campiones..." This was generally met with applause as they walked past. We didn’t see any trouble in the town at all, apart from one drunk scouser who tried to start a fight with some Italians earlier in the day. He was lead away by his mates. All the trouble we heard about was at the stadium, and I’m sure you’ve all heard about that too. My brother got pepper sprayed and had to scramble over one fence and knock down another to get into the game. We heard about this when we met up after the game. So that was that. Michel and I headed to the airport at, I guess, around 4 or 5am. We hadn’t bothered with a hotel for that night as we were flying at 8.30am. Many fans had done the same. Thousands of bodies (they truly looked like dead bodies, only the occasional snore to give them away) lying on every inch of floor in the airport. Some were leaning against the wall for a rest while most were sleeping.  We were transported to the "express service" after we joined those bodies for a couple of hours. The "express service" was in fact a non-air-conditioned temporary marquee. Our flight was delayed by at least an hour, the reason being...the crew was late! The pilot said that the airport told some passengers that the crew over-slept, but the fact was the crew had to spend a night in a hotel far, far away from Athens because of too many supporters in town, and the van they booked did not turn up. When we turned around (we sat close to the front), all except a few Greeks sitting directly behind us were in red, eyes closed and drooling...  |
| Features and Submissions Original writing by Club members Peter Thompson - On a Wing and a Slayer 50,000 and Counting! A Greek Odyssey! We welcome submissions from our members. Send your contribution to: info@hongkongreds.com The Big Red Quiz All the questions and answers from our previous quizzes Chelsea v Liverpool - 17.09.06 Everton v Liverpool - 09.09.06 Sheff Utd v Liverpool - 19.08.06 Supporter Spotlight Find out more about our members Roger Shuttleworth Jon Wharton Ken Abela Meko Oh Lily Lam Chin Ian Agass Jason Li Rob Kelly Simon Betterton David Thomas Legend Spotlight Interviews with LFC heroes Mark Walters Alan Kennedy John Barnes Steve McMahon Referee Spotlight Focusing on the men in the middle Mike Riley Hong Kong Reds Around the World Our members in glorious technicolour Kiki Hon |
