Leicester City Fc AwayDaysBlog

Overnight to Watford?

2009-09-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Just a short entry for this one, an EPIC trip to make the game, and an EPIC game too!

After finishing work at 4, I'd headed over to plymouth for drinks.
I'd already booked the train upto Watford, but didnt think i'd be smashed when I got my train.

The sleeper train to London, leaving at 10 to midnight!

Arriving in Paddington at stupid o'clock in the morning is unreal. It was dead!

As was the rest of London

As soon as the first pubs were open I settled down for the day, eventually my dad turned up too.

The tube upto watford before hittin up some more pubs where I met friends from back home.

It was great to be able to stand outside in the beer garden with a BBQ and a beer! Loved it.

Anyway it was what I'd actually come to Watford for, the game!

FOXES!

The game was brilliant, Fryatt grabbing a brace and putting us 2-0 up! But inspired new signing and substitute Heidar Helguson bagged twice levelled before Danny Graham but the Hornets ahead. A last minute goal from Danny N'Guessan sent us travelling fans into raptures and we headed home with a point.

A good day (and a bit) out f'sure!

Newcastle - Very Tired + Hungover + Smelly = Dedication.

2009-08-31T12:12:00.000-07:00

So, after landing at Luton airport in the morning, we were soon on our way to the next match. It didn't matter if we were tired and hungover. We are HARDCORE! (If I can claim so myself!)

Brinner, with a slightly better looking eye was getting stuck into some of the treasures we brought home with us. We picked up Woof and he soon got involved with the german food.

A de-tour via Leeds was in order where we picked up our two festival-goers,

Spoony:

And Ramp:

As you can imagine they were both pretty tired and hungover too after 5 days of festivities at Leeds Festival.

They were pretty smelly too. Nice. (Erm why did we agree to do this again!?!)

The "Where I am" look:

I'm sure they were still pissed!

We soon passed the angel of the north:

And found ourselfs in newcastle!

(Sadly there was no fog on the tyne)

We parked the car, where Spoony decided to pass out !

We then headed off to the nearest pub as anyone who's tired and hungover would do.

Oh yeah, there was a game on today!

We set off from the pub and headed to the ground:

And the stadium really is as impressive as everyone tells you. So expect lots of photos...(Sorry!)

There's no mirrors hear I promise!

Out of no-where it started to POUR with rain just before kick-off. My idea of staying in the pub for an extra pint definately looked like a bad idea now! Thank god we were undercover.

The teams come out..

The Match;

Well Leicester played amazing in the first half but couldn't quite convert the play into goals. As I'd predicted at half time Newcastle came out for the 2nd half, and city didn't. The game finished 1-0 to newcastle. The away fans had seen a decent performance and left knowing the team had done them proud.

On the way home, we got lost leaving the city and we think we crossed the Tyne Bridge. Here was our attempt to phot it in the dark and rain whilst driving!

A very long and extreamly tiring journey home but all well worth it. (I think!)

What a weekend.

Germany 09 Take 2 - Part 2!

2009-08-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

An early start saw us on the train, heading to a city I'd stopped off at before - Aachen. Though this time the stay was going to be slightly longer! I was hungover to the max. And this terrible photo just about makes me look as bad as I felt!

We were off to Aachen to see Aachen new stadium. The Neu Tivoli... They couldnt have had a much worse start to their new ground, as our favourite Antifa team from Hamburg (St.Pauli for those that don't follow the blog) battered them 5-0 in the first game at the stadium.

Things can only get better I guess! We arrived a little late to the stadium having arrived at Aachen train station not quite sure how we were gonna get to the stadium!

There appeared to be two new stadiums as well, just to be confusing!

You'd have to be blind to miss Allemannia's though!

Inside and we'd only missed the first 5minutes or so, but the massive home terrace was PACKED. We could harly find a spare place to stand across the whole end !

The stadiums was certainly impressive..and erm..yellow! And it was built for half the cost of Leverkusen's 8'000 extension!

Said Packed home end!

The opponnents were FSV Frankfurt, not to mistaken for the huge club Eintracht Frankfurt, this is the cities 2nd team, and clearly, the lesser supported of the two. Not a great following, but no-one was expecting much!

Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!

And soon the (2nd) Bundesliga kicked into life, with what its known best for....GOALS GOALS GOALS! (Or should that be TOR TOR TOR?!)

Scarf action. (I think everyone had got a scarf!!) But us! :(

Happy Aachen fans!

1:0 You say?

Benjamin Auer. He scored in a the 3:3 draw for Bochum when we came over in 2008, our first taste of German footbal, he's Now the front man for Alemannia.

Scarves? This can mean only one thing!

Yep, you guessed it. TOR ! !

So 2-0!

This didn't stop the linesman from being strange..he kept entering the field and drifting from his line for no reason. Very strange. This really bugged me as well.

After getting the essential bratwurst at H/T we moved to seek a better position. Where better than right behind the goal next to the Ultras!

Who were protesting against something!

They weren't the greatest ultras ever and certainly sounded better when we could hear them from outside! However a good effort.

And the game was dead and burried when Aachen made it 3-0.

So happy fans come the F/T Whistle.

We didn't hang around long afterwards as we were heading all the way back to Dortmund for our journey home, but there was a chance to get one look at the impresive Tivoli before we hopped onto the busses to take us back into the city.

The busses went past the old stadium, which you can just make out.

The bus dropped us off in the middle of No-where in Aachen, so we kinda bimbled through the city, in no rush as our flight home wasn't until tomorrow morning! It turned out to be a pretty fine city. Well worth a day's visit!

I told you everyone had an Alemannia scarf! :)

After a boring train ride we got to Dortmund, where we were unsure what to do, so we decided we'd go try find their stadium and THAT terrace. After fumbling around we eventually found a train that could get us out there and back. Happy days!

10 mintues from the main train station...and there she was! The SignalIdunaPark. Phwoar!
Stood right next to 'her' was the everly impressive reserves stadium. Phwoar!

There was no places we could go to get a great shot of the stadium so instead I took lots of poor ones!

The size of the place isn't justified by these photos!

THAT Terrace ! This was as close as I've ever got to it...for now ;)

Club shop!

More stadia phots (sorry!)

Before I decided to show them who the real team in this region were (BOCHUM!)

Brinner "Didn't want any trouble" !

We headed back on the train to Dortmund Hbf, before heading to the airport. We found ourselfs on a bus, where brinner was feeling the bundes-lag as I am now calling it.

The airport was a bit in-the-middle-of-nowhere....But there was still a Maccies just down the road. Time to get rid of our spare pennies in erm...style?

Our flight wasn't untill early doors in the morning, and we'd decided to just camp out in the airport as it'd have been impossible to get their on time if we booked a hotel in central dortmund. What we hadnt expected was that the airport would be completly empty!

We'd stocked up on Kicker magazine's (which are awesome!) to provide some "reading" throughout the night!

Ghost Airport! There was just one plane there, and no people. But us! The airport was a bit creepy, so we decided to head over to the petrol station acros the road (ok this is only just starting to sound un-real!) which was blaring out some very odd music (Even for Germans!) across its forcourt! This is at 1am as well!

We decided a beer was in need to round off a strange but magnificent trip

Spirits were high - And so was the Alcohol % !

We set up base on the viewing deck for the night.

Can you see a plane Brinner?

I show off my array of new scarf's - "Hey, at least i'm not cold"

Brinner declares his eye fit for use again!

But still fails on the bandits! Hmmm?

Adolf paid a visit lately?

After several delays to our flight we finally found ourself back in the UK in the not so lovely Luton at 10am.

With next to no sleep over the night, we would soon be setting off for our trip to Newcastle ! Not the shortest of drives!

Germany 09 Take 2 - Part 1

2009-08-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

So, back to germany!! A smaller group this time, Just me and Brinner. This would be the firsttime I'd arranged most of the trip as well. Unfortunately an early start was needed! Bad news had struck though, Brinner had got steel splinters in his eyes. Not good, and after leaving A&E on the thursday night he was stil in a bad way. Fair play for still coming!

After driving down to Luton we boaarded our very basic easyjet flight to Dortmund After a visit to the local shop Brinner was straight into the local "cuisine"

After catching a bus into Dortmund we were soon off on the train to our beloved city!BOCHUM!

You crowbag!
After checking into our hotel we made our way over for our first game.

Borussia Monchengladbach vs FSV Mainz 05

We arrived in Gladbach where it was pretty clear everyone was football mad. The train station was packed with football fans and there was even a fan shop at the station. We duly got ourselves some Jager and scarfes!

There was a free bus to the Borussia Park. Impressive from the outside.

Even more impressive inside!

The away support (20 mins before K.O)

So we picked a spot on the main terrace, not knowing this was where all the nutters were going to stand. We were right in the midle of them! Brinner loved it!

Banners!

Pre-match Atmosphere !

Teams out!

After half an hour BMG broke the deadlock! Argie Raul Bobadilla opening his account for the "foals"

Corner action, with our favourite man Guiness!

The 2nd half was played under the moon!

The teams came out to play but we had moved! We'd left the crazy antics of the terrace and moved to our actual seat (!) in the upper tier. Luckily Gladbach have two terraces and we were right next to the other terrace, and the fans in their were even more mental!

Substitute Marco Reus looked brilliant and scored a fantastic goal to round off his night. 2-0 was how it finished!
PARTY TIME!

Humba

Overall throughourly impressed with BMG, a great ground, great fans, and a decent team too!

We eventually found our way back to bochum, and it was very late, so we headed to our favourite pub! Bermuda!

Fiege was the only choice! With the best bottle lids too!

We drunkenly made them into "Flamin'Fiege' "

We grabbed one of the worlds best pizza's and headed to the hotel!

Next mornin' whad a bit of a lie-in. We headed off to the RurhStadion where we met up with some familiar faces.

Pete! Chris!

Olly!

We then headed to Leverkusen, for our game but we had to go onto Koln first to drop off some bags! So it was back to my favourite German Bridge

And my favourite German Church!

But before long we were back in Leverkusen and heading to the game

Bayer Leverkusen vs VFL Bochum

The BayArena had recently had a referbishment to turn it into a world class stadium. Only adding 8'000 seats to take the capcity to 30'000 but a huge new roof and a lot of building work totalling 100million euros. A lot of people in germany didnt really understand why they spent so much money!

It looked impressive anyway.

The away entrance

Inside it looked just as good.

Different to other grounds i'd been to the home terrace was in the corner

The rooooof!

Stadium filling up. Safe standing (Note - Nobody was hurt!)

Home fans make some noise and demonstrate the array of flags!

The away end

Make some noise!

The teams come out!

noise levels rise!

Bochum go 1 up totally against the run of play. Diego Klimowicz with the goal

Heerwagen in goal shows appreciation to the travelling support. He had a great game.

At half time it was 1-1 unfortunately bayer had got the equaliser, a deserved one at that.

Sami Hyppia!! The big gunss get thrown on.

Bochum supporters still making plenty of noise, trying to get a winner

But it wasn't Bochum who got the winner, it was Leverkusen and Stefan Kiessling.

Final whistle the bochum players had battled hard but played very badly up top, Leverkusen were deserved winners but we were still proud of VFL.

The Bochum players were gutted.

Fans won't let a defeat stop them having a good time!

The home fans were delighted to!

Photo time afterwards

It was soon time to say bye to the BayArena

And Bye to the cockneys as they head south to Basel to watch a game!

We headed back to Bochum where we met the Germans who had invited us to their "Gun club" party.

We were VERY sceptical about this, but it turned out to be great. We were treated like VIP's and there was LOTS of free beer and people kept bringing shots to us.

Thanks can only goto Philip and Nina! Obviously with some much freee alcohol things got messy!

No-one has any recolection of this photo!!

We got the tram back into the centre of city and tried the nightlife..the VERY patchy memory recalls Hooters and being thrown out of a pub....and not much else! Click here to read about the rest of the trip!

Ipswich Away - Is there a game being played today?

2009-08-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

Ipswich is an away game that I rarely look forward to in any shape or form, but after a long time out and me having recently joined the Royal Navy, this one was going to be interesting.

Technically not the first away game of the new season as we'd had a mid-week excursion to Macclesfield in the cup, but it was a low key affair.

An early start in weatherspoons was clearly in order.

Brinner wonders what to order...

I know what I'm having though!

A typical away day breakfast!

After a stop off for much need fluids (Car and Humans) we hit the road.

Wine was in order for ramp...Again!?

Mexican beer you say? - Oh yeah!

We entered Northamptonshire..

And soon after took a nicely timed toilet break

An empty bottle of wine

And some happy Leicester fans!

The wine however soon caught up with Ramp! No Surprises.

Woof and Spoony weren't in a much better state!

So we hit the road again! And passed the Bury..where the sugar factory is! (Random Knowledge for the day - Check)

And finally arrived in sunny Ipswich!

We parked the car and headed for the game.

Well I say we headed off to the game. I mean they headed off to the game. I'd decided that the ridiculous price and the terrible away end at Ipswich didnt add up so I headed to the pub instead!

The sun was shinin' so the beer garden was a definate. I have no idea why Spoony did this, but at least he didnt completly take his shirt off eh?

I was right in not going. It finished goal-less. I can safely say I didnt feel like I missed out on anything.

After the suckers who'd just been to watch the sack of shizz met me at the boozer, my day got even better.

Guess who walks past the pub!?

Milans army!
The walk back to the car proved to be a drunken one. Spoony decideds to blow up this "balloon"

And then wear it.... (Oh dear)

Brinner gets a Mcflurry!

The beer and sun were definately getting to Spoony, who after threating all day, did actually go topless. All I can say is thank god I called shotgun!

Yes that is the ghost of Leicester.

Oh dear.

A great day despite the nipples.

Southend - Promoted!

2009-04-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

After we got Relegated to the third tier for the first time in our history I made this entry I thought it would be fitting to do a similar entry after we get promoted. So Here it is.

See you in the Championship next season.

Masterpiece!

Aldershot vs Barnet !

2009-04-13T03:24:00.000-07:00

So Leicester are playing what is probably their biggest game of the season against Leeds...live on sky as well...So what are we doing? Making our way down south to watch a completly meaningless game in the bottom division of our country. Hmmm. Mad you say??

The main attraction was the fact that our german buddies would be over to watch the game (yes they are craazier than us!)

So with this crazy idea being mine it was no surprise to see I was driving! After a beer stop in Hemel Hempstead (And you thought that this wouldn't get any wierder) to catch the first half of the Leicester game on sky we arrived at Aldershot, parking 5 minutes from the ground right next to a pub! (Of course)After a few pre-match beers and hello's to our cock-a-ney/german friends we headed to the ground. Alex was suitably dressed!

The que to get in the away end was un-real. I mean come on, everyone knows Barnet are a massive club so it would make sense to open up more than 1 turnstile!
When we finally got inside the ground, I was impressed. I'd heard a lot about the ground being very old and having a bit of character for a small club.

The away end was basically a third of one end behind the goal. There was a big segregated area and on the other side were the Red & Blue Army Ultras - Aldershots noisest and most colourfull supporters

Barnet fans were in colour and good voice too.The germans added some blue colour!So the game kicked off and the to my surprise the standard wasn't that bad really. Barnet had Paul Furlong upfront. Still going at the age of 40. Impressed?

Albert Adomah was easily Barnets best player giving the shot's full backs plenty of problems.

A bit of strange football knowledge here but John Motson actually sponsors Albert!!

An early goal from Micheal Leary, which was superbly taken had the bee's buzzing!They went in 1 up at the break so it was silly photo time!

A few pics of the away end:

And the home end:

The shots got one back early in the 2nd half which raised the noise from the noisey home fans But this didnt dampen the spirit of the Barnet fans.

And thats how it finished as both sides missed good chances. A point a piece and both sides just happy to be in the league for another season.

After the game we headed back into aldershot where we picked up the germans bags and took them back to London. And obviously we got lost. Big time. To cure the boredom, Brinner decided he'd try to get numbers from passing women. Epic fail was written all over it.

We did eventually get back to Barnet After a few beers at the locals it was time to say bye, but not before Brinner got his German present.

And we had a few group photos After a previous nights antics we'd "taken" a tigers flag off one of their scummy fans. We duely gave it the correct treatment at one of our stop-offs on the way home.

All in all a great day. Oh yeah and Leicester scored a last minute winner too....

Hereford. Epic 'summer' drinking session...

2009-04-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

After a defeat to Peterborough and a disapointing draw at home to Carlise, this game had a bit more importance. Just two points clear at the top.

We were going to make this a big occasion. An early start, trip to tesco to stock up on the essential away day fluids and a most important SPOONS breakfast!

Say hello to Bernard the Beer....

Nicely decorated woof's car.

Spoons breakfast!

Ramp foolishly bought Rose. Never a great sign!Meanwhile in Joeb's car things where a little calmer

Back to our car and things weren't getting any better. We found an awesome pub on the A road on the way into Hereford. We decided to meet everyone here.

(Awesome pub - 10/10 simply for the German beer mats!)

JoeB's car turns up and the pints are flowing!

Potter enjoying a summers beer.

Even Dave was enjoying the sunshiiiine and beer.
Toms car makes a brief stop for a pint.

Brinner and Spoony decide that taking their shirts off to celebrate the sunshine is a good idea. God knows why.
We soon decided to leave and head into Hereford. Joe's car lead the way (For once !)

Our car didnt get any quieter

Next Stop. Edgar Street!

A subtle ground right in the town centre.

Under 5'000 fans attended the game, we must have had at least 40% of that!

Potter was behind bars.

Much to Ramps amusement

Things didnt go great to start off with...We gave away a penalty and they converted. Thankfully this kicked the foxes into gear and Matt Oakley (Moakley) levelled. The 2nd half was much better and we ended up taking the win 3-1. Happy days.

Definately for Spoony!

Happy Foxes!!

The way home was a bit more low key. A Piss stop was clearly in order!
The lovely countryside

And the village idiots!

LEICESTERSHIRE LA LA LA Back in our village of Whitwick we went for "One last pint to round off a top day"

Several hours later and in another pub...Brinner and damo found themselves in this situation. Hmm.....

The big game against Leeds is next up....We won't be there though...we'll be at a much better match! ;)

Millllllll.

2009-03-14T04:28:00.000-07:00

Estonian beer drinking. Tower Bridge antics. Germans. Cockneys. Train Hijacking. Oh and a football match! What a day this was.

And an early start too. We headed on the train at around half 7 in the morning. Well equipt with a fine aray of foreign beers. Potter gets stuck into "Judas", whilst brinner leads the line up with a hefty "Kwak" - Remember those?
Ramp stays local with a Rutland Panther

After polishing off the Belguim beer brinner goes for a fruity twist

The much acclaimed Estonian beer!

Nigerian beer anyone?

Not bad when you consider the pubs aren't even open yet!

After arriving in London we made our way to London Tower and the landmark bridge

A spot of sightseeing for us

Bit of anticsAnd a spot of posing for the camera!

Whilst we were being general fools on the bridge Mikey and Lil'Dave were making there way down on a later train.

We hit the pub for opening hours were the alcohol was in full swing

Soon other people wanted in on our drunkeness and started turning up!

Dave shows up and so does Katy!

Cockney Chris shows up!

Ramp, Dave and Mikey

Katy & co.

Katy hits the shots

Chris wants in on the action and buys a round in like all good cockneys do! ;)

He was now loved by all! (Espcially brinner!) Brinner uses his "charm" on katy....

Germans! The Bochum lads had come over espcially to see this game. Effort lads!

We got our jigsaw pieces out! (On one trip we all got a jigsaw peice to keep. Most of us have lost them now!)

It was time to make our way to the ground. We passed...

To the den then!

Just before Kick off

Packed out Leicester end!

We won the game 1-0. Superb stuff! (As you can tell from the match report I dont remember much of it!)

Afterwards we were held back like livestock, but to be fair the Milwall fans generally did want a scuffle. They couldnt get to us so they decided to fight with the police instead

Back to central London us, the cockneys and the germans headed to a pub! *again*

Things got a little quier...

Even Mikey hit the shots!

The beer was affecting different people in different ways.

Normal:

Happy:Very Happy:

Miserable/Tired:

There was a lot of man-love in the air - We didnt want the Germans to leave!"Vat iz dis...Vhere are ze bubbles??"

So off we walked (Stumbled...Same thing!) to get the last train out of St.Pancras to go home! Mikey..One to many shots mate?Potter looking odd as per.
Wine ramp?

The food trolley had been left so things soon got out of hand and a food fight was in order

The carrige suddenly became empty (I wonder why!) so we decided to have a DISCO!

Padamonium ensued.

Outcome of the day: MORE AWAYDAYS LIKE THESE. Please?

Tranmere - 23 games Unbeaten...24 please?

2009-03-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

After a fine run of 23 games unbeaten we though Tranmere wouldn't be much of a problem to make it 24. And another ground to tick off the list in Prenton park.

Tom agreed to drive, another mid-week match meant the train was impossible!
In the car, Dave
JamieAnd of course, myself!We arrived at the ground Where we met up with Katy

Lisa
And Fez..Some blurry pictures taken during the game in which city didn't play as we were used to. I think this one is of the penalty for Tranmere...Putting them 2-0 up late on and ruining any chance of our run being extended!The chavy scousers to our left were highly amused by their win, not that they spent much time watching the match...Just staring at us!

After the match it was the drive home.A few beers got consumed..German of course.(c)Andy King at the service station!Some real food!We drive past Stoke...And one last stop at Maccy's for dave.Where Wee'Dave turned into a car.And then looked like a tramp eating McDonalds at silly oc'lock on his own. Not forgetting a tramps best friends..Beer!

Millwall away at the weekend. Something to look forward to. A proper away day. Not this mid-week rubbish!

Hartelpool - Real Football. Real Supporters.

2009-02-17T03:11:00.000-08:00

After our epic second German trip it was time to come back down from the dizzy dancing of So gehn die Bochum for a 300 mile drive to Hartlepool on a tuesday night. Is that devotion or what?! (Some would call it plain stupid)

What was actually stupid was that I'd had a prang in my Fiesta a few weeks before and was still travelling with the damage! After a stop off at the Services we got to see the great look of the car.

We also got to inspect Lil'Daves atire for the evening. Leicester shirt as usual but something a lil' different..I'd brought the scarf's from Germany back..The mob walking to the 'Stadium'
And here she was...A bit of free advertising for Tom....After Suuuper Steve put city infront, a somewhat dubious penalty was awarded to the home side and Joel Porter (Mr.Hartlepool) scored after winning it himself.

A lovely dive by Bruno Berner was enough to con-the-ref deep in the second half.. Steve picked up the ball and scored from 12-yards out. We thought we'd done it... Picked up three points. But like good old Leicester we couldn't hang on. A fantastic goal by Monkhouse meant the points were shared.

A bit of a bummer bit still 19-Games-unbeaten! This was the best stuff since the early 70's! So we weren't so down beat after the match.Jager Time!

Scarfes time!A stop off for a bite to eat on the way home revealed jamie's femine side.Yep, that is actually a salad bag from McDonalds...!

I was dead and seriously wondered why I agreed to drive just days after coming back from germany... I may have fallen asleep behind the wheel. *

* I Didn't actually. This is called - 'Face Drive'.

You may remember all entries to the blog finished with a picture of Dave... Well this one doesn't, but its close enough....Dave's cat gets the blue army fever!

Germany '09 - Return to Ze Motherland.

2009-02-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

The excitement had been building for some months, since late 2008 when the trip was sorted out and booked, confirming we had 4 (yes FOUR Foxes!) plus 8 Bees & 1 Tree (Forest fan!). This would be the biggest group we'd had on a German trip, and also the largest contingent from Leicester so far. Hopefully it'll increase again come the summer & our next planned trip.

Our trip began a day earlier than everyone else as we had to make our way down to London on the Thursday. My trip started with a fine British ale:

Also joining me on the trip from Leicester were the two debutants, Potter & brinner

Ramp also joined me for a second time, someone should have told him we were going to Germany not Poland!

A good ol' game of cards on the train too. Somehow we lost the cards and they never made it out the country We got to St.Pancras, where the usul photographs were taken!After checking in at our hotel we headed out to the pub. We found a good old English pub and played a traditional English game of darts!Obviously we had to do some English activities before going all continental on you!

After quite a heavy drinking session in the pub we only got to sleep at about 3am, the main problem being that our Eurostar across the channel was leaving at 5:55am!

Somehow, we managed to wake up (well, I say we, Potter just stayed up the whole night!) and hauled ourselves over to St.Pancras, which wasn't busy, for once!

We also left with enough time to put potter through some embarrasment After a seemingly short trip on the eurostar we arrived in Brussels. We decided that before we hit the Belguim beer, we'd try one of Brussels other famous treats. Waffels!

We found a nice Hagen-Das cafe just next to the station and sat down, this tunred out to be a fatal idea! When the bill turned up we found out that we had just paid 25 Euros for 3 waffels and a bit of iced cream! We also had to make a visit to our favourite vending machine in Europe, to fill up on nosh & important liquers for our journey to Koln.

We were booked on the Thayls (Belguim express) train to Koln. Brinner caught up on his FrenchHe then decided to try the cheer beer we got from THE vending machine: The result:Potter found a friend.......Ramp tucked into his Desperados...

The Stella factroy at Leuven:And it wasn't long before we arrived at Koln hbf
We met up with a few familiar faces from our last trip (Chris & Ollie) as well as a new face - Graham (Left on picture). We were soon in the local pub.

When we visit a new city it's fairly un-often for us to get cultural and start taking pictures of buildings, but Koln's Cathedral deserved it!After a short, local train ride to Duisberg, we met up with everyone else who had flown in, bar Peter who would be flying in after the match. Oberhausen was the next stop down from Duisberg Hbf and this was the location for our first game of the trip!

Rot-Wiess Oberhausen vs St. Pauli

Niederrhein Stadion:

The St.Pauli team coach!

The stadium was different to any other german stadium I'd visited before. Apparently this is a typical lower divison stadium.The scoreboard was amazing!

After our visit last year to see Pauli at home, we were obviously going to go in the away end. This and the fact that most of us are lefties anyway -Bar ramp, of course! (Pauli are famed for being a Left wing club, in fact the most left-wing in the world). Pauli fans:

The Oberhausen Ultras were different to any other fans I'd seen. They chose the seated section as their home isntead of the 8'000 capacity terrace at the other end!

The flooglights were quality:
The Sankt Pauli fans had brought a good contingent from up north with them. Taking into consideration the fact that a round trip is 440 miles (Leicester's longest trip is to Carlisle which is 460 miles). We were originally gonna go in the section with their Ultras but it got so rammed I could hardly move to take a picture! They filled this section and also had a couple of other blocks. I'd estimate that over 2'000 away fans turned up.
It was bloody freezing, so fair play to them!

Anyway, to the game. And right from the word go, there was something intresting to see! A Female ref!!
And before long the home fans had something else to cheer about ! They scored!After 20 minutes, they'd made it 3-0!Pauli gave themselves a glimmer of hope by getting one back just before half-time. This also kept up my German Football law of averages of 4 goals a game. The guy who scored the goal was acually an ex-Bochum player -Filip Trojan - he linked nicely to our sunday gsame as well, as he has signed for Fc Mainz next season! Who would have thought one man could link all three games!At half time whilst I visted the little boys room, (which was basically a muddy slope with a hut at the bottom of it, with that hut covered in German Ultras stickers!) I left my camera for the posers (after taking a few with myself in obvs!)Gays:

The 2nd half started similar to the 1st with lots of chances and a fair amount of sloppy play. THE RWO fanswere enjoying themselves anywayMaking his debut for St.Pauli was Davidson Drobo-Ampem, a 20 year old Ghanaian. Didn't think he played well, but he deserved a mention for his name & the fact he looks like Alvin Jarvis!He was brought on as a substitute, also on the bench with him was David Hoilett, an 18 year old Canadian loanee from Blackburn rovers. Watch out for him!

Pauli won a penalty late on, and our man Trojan finished it off, but 3-2 was the final score.Party time for the RWO fans:
Despite the result, It was also party time for us, as we headed to Bochum to meet up with the German lads. After a few beers in the pub, we headed to Riff club. What a fine night this was, shame we were too busy with the german women and moshing to seven nation army to take any photo's!

We didn't get back to the hotel untill 5am, so we were all a little fragile in the morning, but the drink carried on, regardless.

We hit the Brinkhoffs outside the hotel where we all, eventually re-grouped. From there it was a short walk accross the city to the pub near the stadium.
Being hungover, tired and already feeling the drink, we all found this cat hilarious for no aparant reason!

The Brinkhoffs outside the stadium was already guarded by police even though hardly any fans were around.

We were met by some more Friendly German faces!After a few beers, we moved onto the shots. Kummerling, Jager and these were in order. BEST SHOT EVER!Soon the anthems were out and so were the scarfes:So, full of spirits (and in high spirit) we set off for the ground!Bochum v Schalke then.

Game numero two!It was also the big derby for Bochum. Schalke were the next city north (gelsenkirchen) and this was the Ruhr Derby! There fans started to fill the opposite end hours before kick off. Around 8'000 of them (If not more) were expected! !The Bochum team warming up, our man Sestak closest to the camera:The Bochum fans warming up

What they thought of Schalke!Soon over the tannoy the anthems were out, first You'll never walk alone and that was followed by the "bochum anthem". The scarf's duly followed

The teams were soon out and the noise levels rose from both ends Megaphone time!
The Schalke team was put out on the big screen. Kevin Kuranyi (22) was starting. I'd been raving all the way there how shit he was!As with anything I say, It comes back to bite me. Early on, the donkey scrambled in a parry from the goalkeeper, Fernandes, to put Schalke 1-0 up.But Bochum were not put down and the derby atmosphere carried on. Bochum pretty much dominated and by the end of the first half had 13 corners to Schalke none. Shame most of them struggled to cause any real threatGerald?Beer, football and terracing? (And Gerald!)
So the first half was done. The enemy went in 1-0 but we were confident we could get something back. Off to erm...fill up on beer and sausages!

Early on in the 2nd Half, a thundering strike from ex-Schalke man Mimoun Azaouagh swerved into the top corner to level the scores and send our fellow fans on the terrace bonkers! The schalke fans hadn't given up hope either! But their hope wasn't rewarded, and the home fans got what they were after. A goal mouth scramble lead to Christoph Dabrowski putting the ball into the net to give VfL a 2-1 advantage
The game was excellent and with Schalke looking for an equaliser it became even better. A good old fashioned hambags scuffle duly completed itOur man Sestak takes a poor dive. Shame on you Stani!
The final whistle

The 04 Fans weren't happy. A smoke bomb ended up on the pitch!However, at our end of the stadium, the fans were obviously much happier. As were the players who got ready to do the victory dance! "so gehn die Bochum"Picture time! THe original group of the Official supporters group 'VfL Britain'The away end soon emptied!Time for one last sing song, with scarf's...obvs!So it was back to the pub where we hit the drink again and celebrated the derby win, GERMAN STYLE! Brinner was soon repeating the previous nights antics by mingling with the nationals women!

We all got exceptionally drunk!

Potter though was clearly having trouble keeping the beer down. So we took him back to the hotelWhere he continued to be sick. Everywhere [Warning on these next photo's]We left him to sleep...in his own sick, of course!Brinner was still in high spirits, and was still doing the "So gehn die Bochum" dance!
After an infamous visit to the laufhaus we retired to the hotel around 3am. An early start was in order for our sunday game...

Tom went for a Magnum

although we opted for something a bit stronger!

We travelled through munster before arriving at our destination of Osnabruck

Who wouldn't find this funny after a beer?

Danny Dyer would be proud of a mob like ours!

Vfl Osnabruck vs FC Mainz 05

After a short walk from the Hbf we arrived at the Osnatel stadium. A nice ground set in a local neighbourhood, outside were little fan tents selling food, BEER and merchandise.

We got on German TV

Unfortunately we weren't in the main Terrace, we had to settle with the terrace at the opposite end of the stadium, next to the "Kinder Tribune". The main Tribune looked a lot better than ours with lots of flags and a bit of noise.

Our quieter terrace:

Noiser terrace:

Kinder tribune:Luckily for us we had the away fans of Mainz next to us so they would provide the soundtrack for most of the game. A good following too, for a sunday in the snow! Their team chasing promotion (Which they would later get!)

The game was actually pretty good, but I doubt I'll remember it for that....It'll always be remembered as a cold, snowy, quiet game with possibly the single worst view at a football match I have ever seen, I mean come on!At least there was some interesting players to get excited about. First off, we have the Burkino Faso international striker.... Aristide BanceHe is better known as "Guinness" - 'Black body with a light head'...

Also we had Stephan Wessels in goal for Osnabruck!

Osnabruck also this fine specimen:Darlington Omodiagbe was what they called him.

Anyway, enough of the awesome players...Back to the match and it wasn't long before we saw what the Bundesliga (Or the 2nd Bundesliga) is all about. GOALS!

Osnabruck nipping infront early on through Gaetano Manno, funnily enough, an ex-Bochum player!

Our man Guinness had picked up a knock and clearly wasn't feeling up for it. He was subbed and probably went back to the bar for a pint of his namesake..

Shortly after his departure Mainz starting showing why they were looking like the team about to go up. An equaliser through Markus Feulner (Recent signing for Borrusia Dortmund)

Sotuh African internation Delron Buckley then scored a superb goal on the half volley to fire Mainz into the lead

The 2nd half was a bit quiet, but half way through Mainz picked up a penalty and Slovakian International (over 90 caps!) Miroslav Karhan picked up the ball to make it 3-1.

And that ladies and gentleman is how it finsihed. Mainz looking up whilst Osnabruck were definalty looking over their shoulder at relegation.

Our trop to osnabruck was definately a memorable one but mainly for the wrong reasons. Terrible view, freezing cold and a lack of atmosphere, with the away fans providing the only drum beats.

But I could well imagine Osnabruck to be a bit of a better place to go on a bit of a sunnier, warmer day!...And after the match we moved to the back of the emptying terrace and it shows that there is a good view! We all headed back to the train station where we would split up and go our seperate ways home. Luckily ours was by far the best way to go home!

We had one last group photo and said our goodbyes. Same again next year please.

We travelled back to Bochum, with Chris, Olly, Pete & Tom..Who had clearly had enough!Whislt Tom slept we decided to get back on it, with some gold ol' fashioned Jager's, accompanied by the glasses we..erm...Borrowed from the bar the previous night! The train ride was pretty normal untill we came across this:

Yep. Thats a genuine parrot..On a train...With its droppings too. Nice.

As we got nearer "home" we had to say by the the rest of the bees! As they were flying back home whilst we stayed an extra night. It was an emotional goodbye....

We decided that after a heavy weekend on the beers we would havea quiet sunday night in.

That was, untill we visited the shop. And bought beer.

Kummerling was in order.
Jager too!

A quiet sunday night in. German Style:

We were all very drunk and therefore automatically hungry , so at 1am on a sunday night (well if your being pedantic its monday morning!) we set out for a pizza. a 5 minuite walk from the hotel we got ourself stone-baked pizzas. Lovely.

Next morning was a fragile start, an early start at that. Our train leaving for Koln...Where we actually started to wake up.

Ramp takes on the Kid bar.

And our impressive ICE Train turns up. Taking us all the way to Brussels at 330km/h! Everyone soon fell asleep!

And woke up in a different country! Belguim. And more importantly the capital! Brussels!

We soon found a bar the was serving beers at lunchtime. Infact it was the same bar we went to last year, and we went there for a particular reason...KWAK!

We were soon drunk and back on our way.....To the same train station we had been at sober just a few hours ago! We borded our Eurostar and headed back to Ing-er-land. There was a stop off at Lille..Where Brinner got the chance to step onto French soil for the first time. The Eurostar can tend to be a little bit boring when your going through the tunnel. So I came up with a genuis plan to get into the Record books.

We rounded up all our spare Euro change....and bought some Gin.

We were going to be the first men to drink gin whilst under the English Channel. Surely?

As you can see the Gin tasted...well I'm sure you can see how it tasted.

And there is our proof:

So, back in London...And potter (looking very German) found his favourite shop!

Whilst we started on the beers we'd bought on the Mainland.

And after a relativly short train ride back to Leicester we were home sweet home.

Walsall - 'Alrite mate, we're not from Biiiiirmingham"

2009-02-03T13:43:00.000-08:00

So off into the land of Horrible accents.

Walsall vs Leicester City. Hardly a mouthwatering prospect, but a pretty local game for us which meant we could get the train there and back, which is a rarity for a mid-week match. It was also, for most of us, a new ground!

Afternoon came, we hit town, and as usual ended up in the SPOONS. A few beers, Miguels (Obviously, pound a bottle, credit crunch n' all that), Jelly Baby's and some Jager we were ready for the short walk up to the Train station.

Needless to say this short walk was done via the Off-Licensce, for the much needy cans-on-the-train.

Potter gets into some Red Stripe whilst Ramp goes back to the ol' favourite Pikey Juice (Strongbow!)

Also Joining me for this one, was Lil'Dave. Of course. Mr 100%.Joe & Ched also joined me, and shockingly Tom wasn't driving to a match! He was accompanied by Bert, as ever wearing the daft hat.Ched, clearly, wasn't thinking about the evening of football that was ahead!A few bottles of Stella were in order for me & Dev:Yes, Dave was drinking :OMaybes joined us as our train stopped off at Narborough:The weather had been awfull in the previous days and the snow still lingered, credit to the grounds-staff at Walsall for getting this game to go-ahead. Fantastic job boys.After a scare just a few weeks before on the way to Palace with a child ticket, no-one expected me to do it again, but It had to be done really.

Theres the train ticket, heres the match ticket!The train journey was decent and after a change at Birmingham new street, we arrived at the Bescot Stadium stop. Somehow, potter managed to break his phone along the way! Bescot Stadium:

We had been allocated the whole end behind one goal and a block down the side of the pitch. Decent following from the foxes I thought. The match was over by half time, erally. A dominant performance from our team, and nothing from the saddlers saw us go into the break 2-0 up.

During the interval I decided to remind everyone of the away day earlier in the year, a mid-week away to Brighton that everyone would quite happily forget, the first halfs had been very similar, we were cruising 2-0 up in the match, so easy, and ended up, somehow losing 3-2! My bold claim that it would finish as a draw was shattered just two minutes into the 2nd half when Tom Cleverly made it 3-0. Loverly!

5 minutes past and Big Steve made it 4-0! It was turning into a rout! But Walsall did pull one back, greety by Ironic cheers from the 2'000+ away support, which in an attendence of only 5'500, was very good.

So, it finished 4-1, us happy foxes quickly exited the away end so we could catch our train back to New Street to get us on the last train back to Leicester. The other happy foxes made the most of the snow!

A bit quieter than the train there, so no pictures, although we did pass Villa's ground, which reminded me of the time Leicester beat them and also that very special night!We're off to Germany in a week, so looks forward to a mega blog entry for that!

Yeovil on a monday night!

2009-01-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mr.Murdoch and SKY TV, we faced the prospect of spending a Monday evening in January on an open Terrace in The middle of nowhere (Better known as Yeovil).

I'd agreed to drive to this (don't know why) a while back seeing as there really isn't any other way It could be done!

A meet up with The chaps in Tom's car was done, and after a quick stop off at the services we were on our way at sunset!

In my car was JamieDave & MikeyAnd a last minute addition of James (C-Man) who despite having an exam the next morning at uni, text me on the saturday whilst we were up north watching Coalville in the FA Vase asking if I had a spot!

He did bring along some exam notes but I'm not sure they got much of a look over!

Oh & of course, I was in my car too!Somehow Tom got lost following me and ended up heading through Bristol and towards Bath! He did make it eventually, just 20 minutes after KO!

We arrived in Yeovil with plenty of time, parked just off the industrial estate that the ground is on, inside a little housing estate. We arrived at the ground, took up our place on the terrace, and met up with the usual DIEHARD awayers.The ground was pretty basic, not a shed, but nothing fancy either.
As you can see the spot we picked on the terrace wasn't great, with the crossbar blocking a good section of the goal!Our end had no roof, but it did have a scoreboard ! !

I think Yeovil take the award for Shittest mascot!Jamie flies the VfL Bochum flag.
Fez turned up with the flag which resulted in lots of flagdance (See later on)

Anyway, to the match.

Our team looked quite good, although you couldn't tell due to the rubbish view. Mark Davies was immense and we looked like we'd be holding onto a solitary 1 goal lead given to us by Big steeve! This was untill Joe Mattock, for once, showed why he's highly rated and put us 2 up.

A nice little terrace surge ensued in the goal celebrations and lots more flag dancing. A 2-0 win to send us even further ahead of MkMongs and silly points clear at the top! Good times.

We made our way around the ground to have a look in their club shop afterwards. This is quite unsual for our lot and we were even more surprised when the shop was just a shed.

The 'shed' did have probably the most impressive collection of programmes you'll ever see though!It was only untill after the match we realised that Sky had shown us dancing with the flag on TV! Not only this but the LCFC offcial website had put pictures up too!

Chris, Katy, Joe, Dave & C-Man (Hiding at the back!) become "famous"
Katy, Dave, Fez, Jamie & Me right at the back get a slice of the action!
Here's a freeze frame from the TV!

And this is what it looked like underneath!
The Journey home was just as eventfull as the rest of the day. After trying to take a shortcut to avoid the traffic we ended up going the long way through Bristol, a quick stop off for Petrol and food and we passed a local Topps Tiles 'shop'!C-Man picked up some Walkers Sensations crisps, C-Man and the Sensations (50's Band?)

We somehow ended up going under Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge which looked VERY impressive at night.

Because of our de-tour via Bristol the team coach had got infront of us on the way home. Some superb driving by me caught them up.

Not sure the players appreciated us beeping and waving scarfes out the window. Big Steve was probably tucking into a 6-pack of Newcy Brown and the rest were probably trying to sleep!One last service stop for a visit to the little boys room and to get some much needed drinkAnd that was it, Bobs your uncle..

Palace - The Once a Season Away Day

2009-01-14T03:25:00.000-08:00

Even when we aren't in the same division, we somehow seem to get Palace away. And thank god. The hype leading up to this in our group was massive.

An epic drinking session had been promised.

A 1 O'clock start in the Spoons was in order where the Jelly Baby's where ordered:
As well as the San Miguel's (Can't argue with a quid a bottle!):Oh and a few shots of Jager for good measure.As with all Palace aways, there is only one way to get there. TRAIN! Even if it means getting back at silly o'clock.

Joining me was Jamie & Lil'Dev:Ched, Joe & Potter:A few tins of Red Stripe for Pauuul:Stella for Dave:I was clearly already under the infulence!It was a good journey and we had comical moments with dave trying cheds glasses on (Flying scarf too)Cheds reaction:NoLips Paul:Bit of Trainspotting sir?
We arrived at St.Panras. The home of London aways!Champagne Bar:Statue Photos:We headed to Leicester square where we would meet up with the group in Tom's car:We met up for a good ol' Maccies.

Bert, Lofty and Shaun where all in Tom's car:Casuals:Paul and Wee dave tuck in:Shaun's footwear for the evening:A short walk down the road to the Leicester Square spoons!

More Jager was in order:And More Miguel's!
Tom, Shaun and Bert looking slightly tipsyWe met up with Sussex Fox in the pub:As well as Fox in Essex ( Dave ) who joined in with a few songsLil'Dave has more beer :OThe night gets a bit patch here onwards for me after drinking Polish lager and Jagerbombs for a few hours. We left the pub in groups but just outside was Will Smith's premiere for Seven Pounds:We all met up again at Victoria station where we met FezAnd Monk:

And had some more drinks! We also met Alex somewhere along the line! (patchy memory!)

It was a short (atmosphere) train ride to get to Palace, Shaun has some time out to read the local rag:
C-Man and Smuts join us:
How we got to the stadium I don't remember much of either but I do remember it being very empty and cold.We weren't in the usual away end (Pictured below) so the atmosphere was horrifcally poor, much to my displeasure.

We met up with Lisa and co. from FT

A couple of my Barnet supporting mates joined me to, but again, I don't really remember much.

Sporoni did recieve a fair wedge of abusive, one-sided banter too, I've been told!

After a woefull performance from fans & Team we were out of the FA cup for another year. Ah well, at least we're doing good in the league for once! You can't have it all.

After the match is patchy too. Wee Dave & Tom's lot headed to Westminster whilst I headed to the pub somewhere.

We got the last train home which took a stupid amount of time to get home, so everyone was verrrry tired

We got back to Leicester at Silly O'clock and realised we had no way to get back to our villages really so we got a Taxi and stayed the night at Daves house.A good day, shit match. The usual.

Boston United vs Fc United of Manchester - First AwayDay of 2009

2009-01-11T12:11:00.001-08:00

A late decision in the week saw me trying to organise this trip. Basically I'd seen it when the fixtures came out and thought "I wouldn't mind going to that". Didn't think I'd be able to rope in enough muppets to come with me though :D

By Friday night we'd confirmed a car full and the trip was on. Saturday morning was a bit of a rush and wasn't helped by the fact that Ramp & Brinner ordered food at the pub at 12:30...Which was when I planned to leave.

We left at 1ish, with a good 1hr 30 drive ahead of us, I pelted it down the A roads so No photos thus far.

We got to Boston in good time, I only had my camera phone (So Rubbish pics) but we parked (For a very reasonable price) this close to the ground:

So it was a nice short walk to the ground, unfortunatly no pre-match pub time!We were, obviously, going to go in the away end, which gave this view once you'd gone through the turnstiles and past the "Save Boston" charity appeal - (It is pretty horrific when you think how far they've dropped! Needless to say our group gave a fair wedge to the club)This would be our home for the afternoon:Looking back at the trip, I know think I am in love with the stadium, opposite the away end was one of the strangest stands I've ever seen: (The picture doesn't do it justice!)To our right, and housing the voiciferious Boston fans was a long terrace stretching the whole length of the pitch. To our left was a seated stand, which would have been quite normal, had the seats not looked like they'd just been randomly painted different colous!Ramp And Brinner were my fellow chums:Along with potter & Spoony (Camera shy boys?)

So to The match! It was pretty entertaining, one of the best matches I've seen this season with the challenges going in VERY strong, a few handbags thrown, a 20 man brawl, and some decent passing movement, just lacking a bit of technical skill & Finishing touch.

FC united went on to score in the last 5 minutes as the keeper was nutmeged. This sparked WILD celebrations as the 500 strong contingent mainly from Manchester (There was a group from Torino next to us!) The away end Went completly barmy.

This was my, feble, attempt to capture it:The Pro's managed to do it a bit better than me, suprisingly!I managed to get a short video just after the goal too, rubbish quality though:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JPC7Vs1HpXQ

The FCUM fans had been in fine voice throughout, the song book was immence, and witty, whilst the songs seemed to last for more than 10 seconds unlike Leicesters!

We were pretty visible in a number of shots from the pro's of the away end, with a couple of us wearing white, the whole of the away end decked out in black!

After a Fantastic rendition of Sloop John B and "I am an FC fan", the final whistle blew sparking more great scences from the away end. Needless to say the home end emptied preeeety quickly! They'd deserved a point at least.

The players, were very passionate, espcially the keeper, the all came right up to the away fans to show the appreciation for the away support.With no dave to take a strange picture of to finish this post I'll put this one up at my own expense.

As you can probably tell I have used photos from a few proffesional websites, so -:

Thanks to Andy Barker of http://www.fcutdphotos.co.uk/index.html and Mick Dean of http://www.fcumick.me.uk/gallery2/main.php

Leeds Leeds Leeds - Boxing Day !

2008-12-27T16:33:00.000-08:00

So the biggest game outside the premiership was our next away day, falling on boxing day!

After a good Christmas everyone was looking forward to beating the yorkshire puddings (again!).

Dave's dad had offered to drive, in a van! I was told there was to be a playstation in the back and it meant I could get on the beer so I wasn't going to complain!

My dad, and JoeB joined Dave & his dad in the van. Tom Drove the Megane up as well with the rest altho there was a distinct lack of convoy!

I wan't disapointed on the playstation front either. Despite the teeny screenWe managedto have a good laugh on Joe's Red Card Football. I managed to give everyone a royal whipping despite having never played it before. A stop off at the service gave me a chance to get a pic of the van
The back:

And My dads views on being "made" to drink fosters!

We made good time & arrived at Leeds for about 2, parked up in an industrial estate 5 mins from the ground for £3! My dad headed off to some rough pub, I thought I'd give it a miss and go and see who I could find in the ground!

Walking towards Elland Road:Billy Bremner Statue:In the Que for the turnstile (Which was massive!!!) we met up with Chris, Katy & StezKaty and Me:Big Stand!
We'd been allocated just under 3000 tickets which sold out well in advance. We'd got the "Cheese wedge" and half of the south stand.
The match was good, spoilt by awfull stewarding only bettered by Huddersfield this season and Our idiotic fans asking us to sit down but not wanted to swap tickets. Morons.

After Matt Oakley put us infront, with a sweet shot from the edge of the box, we looked comfy untill the last 15 minutes when we started to sit back and play hooooof ball, you could tell an equaliser was on the way, and sure enough it was, 91st minute. 1-1 at FT. Ah well, most of would have taken a point pre-match, and we're still top of t'league!

I think many of us would love to have beaten the scummers though!!

The way home was less intresting and focused around watching family guy and trying to undo bottles of stella without a bottle opener. Dave finally gets into his after about 30 mins trying when his dad stops for petrol!

Next up is Yeovil on a Monday nite. Vundevall!

Carlisle - 400 Mile Drive

2008-12-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

The day started early like all good away days. 9 O'clock meet at SPOONS (opening time!) to get the juices flowing. Pre-match Jagerbombs were in order for those in my car. Brinner gets started:Spoony tucks in:Ramps reaction:After a trip to the bookies to waste a couple of quid on a few ridiculous accy's we met up with Tom in Coalville. A short trip to Tesco ensued to stock up on petrol and beer. A rule of travelling in my car is that no mainstream lager is to be consumed.

Brinner enjoys sushi (Wtf??) and a Leffe:Corona is probably mainstream, but I allowed it. Spoony bought a crate. He weren't letting go of that!

Leffe was the order of the day. Everyone had one. (And loved it)

Woof:Spoony gets to grips with some real beer:Ramp, looking more retarded then ever, likes his Leffe:A long car journey need some good tunes, which wasn't a problem.

House of Pain and ring of fire seemed to go down well in the back!
Tom's car was slightly more civilised:

Brinner purchased a Kwak...not quite the same without the glass:A nice car wreck was the only problem we had traffic wise getting up there. This was the furthest north I'd ever been so I got a bit strangly excited and started taking pictures of random snowy hills whilst trying to drive along the motorway! (Not advisable)We managed to get kinda lost in Carlisle and ended up going round in a Circle. It didn't help that no-one had bothered to look on a map to see where the ground was!!

We got there with a good hour to go and parked up for free at the Premier Inn 5 minutes from the ground.

The ground was different to anything I'd been to before. Once inside you could see why it was different, the stand opposite was a strange one with mixture of terracing and random seats.A nice terrace down at the home end too.We'd been allocated the section down the side, another strange stand. Newer than the other stands, it spanned longer than the pitch and loooked like a building you'd find on a 90's Industrial estate.This meant the away terrace was empty!Brunton ParkTeams come out:We met up with everyone inside the ground and thankfully it was unreserved seating so everyone could stand together!

Tom looking rather camp:Wee Dave, C-man, Ched & Joe: Spoony, Brinner, Ramp with Lisa & Carl behind:Spoony gets a bit excited:Maybes: Micky, one of his calmer moments:

Lisa - Going for the Hooligan look:Katy:Fez:C-Man:Bert & Tom with a bit of Bochum:We got behind the foxes:
After going behind to a Bridges goal, we came out in the 2nd half and dominated, and our support was paid off with two goals to take the match 2-1. Superb. The 400 miles had been well worth it, three points keeping us top of t'league.

After a few celebratory drinks at the pub and another petrol/beer stop at Tesco we headed out of Carlisle...I was expecting everyone to drop off in the back but the journey back was just as evenfull!
Unfortunatly no-one bothered to take any pictures (I was driving!). The best parts were probably cutting up the Birmingham city team coach and Brinner waving his shirt out the window at Kevin Phillips & Liam Ridgewell !

Tom's car got back well before us as they didnt stop for a post-match beer or have to stop every 10 minutes for a piss!

Tom still showed us what he thought of Stoke though: (the sign says stoke if you can't see!!)

Next up is Leeds away on boxing day which should be a fine away day.

Aston Villa vs MSK Zilina - Away End

2008-12-05T08:11:00.001-08:00

I, pretty randomly, decided I wanted to goto this game. I'd always wanted to be in the away end with a Foriegn team at an English ground. Most of the time, theirs never been foriegn teams anywhere near Leicester! But with Villa qualifying I thought I'd finally get the chance.

They were drawn at home to Ajax & Zilina. Ajax would probably have been extreamly mental and not sure if they'd welcome english people. I didn't think I'd have a chance of getting a ticket either.

Didn't expect Zilina to bring many fans at all, certainly didn't expect them to bring about 700 like they did! I didn't expect them to be to violent either and attack us just because we didn't follow their team!

I managed to rope Brinner & Ramp into coming with me. Due to traffic and the usual lateness we didn't get time to look round Villa park.

Holte End:Trinity Stand:North Stand:MSK Zilina fans:Tommo?Teams come out:
Ashley young comes over to take a corner. There was a very small minoirty of racist chanting from the Slovak's. My only problem with them really.
The Zilina fans were quality, a small group of Ultra/Nutters gathered just infront of us.

None of us actually expected Zilina to even stand a chance but they played some nice stuff and then scored, rather luckily from a cross which the keeper couldn't deal with. The goal celebrations were pretty mental really.I was taking a video of the fans just after they'd scored when they went and got a 2nd. I got the goal celebrations on video too!

(I have spent about 2 hours trying to upload it to youtube, and it'll probably only get removed due to copyright laws. If anyone wants its i'll email it to them!)

It was a well built up goal as you may have seen. Some lovely football that Arsenal would have been more suited too.

I took another video on my phone too as my camera was playing up, this chant I didn't understand, but it involved jumping around like a loony! Quality!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=STPvTxG1jag

Villa got one back and probably deserved a point but Zilina held out despit loosing a man. They will forever remain in our hearts for coming to one of their biggest games in history and playing some great football and winning. Their fans got even more lively towards the end, and our favourite chant involved half the away end singing "MSK" the other "ZILINA!". Loved it!

Final Whistle:Players celebrate with some funny dance:
At the end of the match the players all came over to the away end and the thing where they all link arms and raise them with the fans. (If that makes sense). The victory dance or whatever the europeans call it. I love it, one of the reasons I like european fooball over English, when an English team wins they clap their fans off, if your lucky. After every win, and sometimes draws foreign team players will celebrate with the fans properly!
A memorable day f'sure. Next up is Kettering vs Notts County, but Doubt i'll make a post as theres only 2 of us going, everyone else seems to be feeling the pinch or just generally being boring!

Carlisle on saturday. Oh the fun.

Most of my reports end with a picture of ben/dave looking daft/like a 12 year old, but he didn't come to this one so I had to improvise.

Compilation of recent aways

2008-12-03T05:48:00.000-08:00

I've been busy recently and not found the time to do my blog for the recent aways, but with another trip to Germany in the Pipeline for Febuary again this has motivated me to start finding time for the blog.

I thought I'd post some pictures from our recent away trips. I have only missed Cheltenham & Oldham through family commitments (Hartlepool as well if you count that joke of a competition!). The rest of the group have been at all of the aways!]

One of the reasons why there has been a lack of updates to the blog is because I drive to most games now and therefore don't have time to take pictures as much!

Heres the motor on the m1 to Fulham:
We parked up next to wemberleeee
Mental away end at Fulham
The Foxestalk flag out again
Foxestalk flag
We tried to get a picture with wembley after the match but it didn't quite work

Next up was Leyton Orient,

Me & Dave on the train:The boys
St.PancrasTower Bridge is behind us!

Orient - Brisbane Road
Pub after the match

General Drunk antics on the tubeDamo's Sex AppealAnd the train home!

Colchester on a tuesday night was next for me. Good win but a crap stadium and a right treck.

Me driving

Middle-Of-Nowhere Stadium

The Packed home end
Huddersfield followed. Not many pictures as the group was split up, I stayed the night in sheffield.

Stadium picturesBrighton was the next, another treck on a tuesday night to a shit stadium.

We used a park & ride which was literally a country road that was closed off and people parked on with a bus to the stadium!

Car:Bus:There was some pub action pre-match, Maybes was behind the bar:
Possibly the worst stadium in the Football League:

We met up with Jamie, katy & chris etc at the stadium

Next on the list was Rotherham in the jokers cup on another tuesday night!

We met up with Tom and his carfull at Donny Services which has become a regular thing now!
JoeB was also in the convoy, but disappeared up the motorway but still ended up getting there last!
What remained of the convoy at the stadium

The stadium had a very Italiano feeling about it!

Our away end did all stand untill the stewards waded i
Micky Gets the crowd goin'

Me & Dave

The picture Jimmy Bullard took of us. Was in the programmeOn the way home we stopped off for a KFc, which was closed. We then had to wait about 30 mins to get served at Maccies, Micky tooked into a nice late night ice cream

Swindon was next up, only 1 car was needed for this one. Tom was the driver. (No idea why the pics have gone small here)

Ben & Joe in the back.
Magic Roundabout

County Ground

I ended up in the Stretton Bank whiulst everyone else was in the Side stand. A good piece of stewarding allowed anyone who wanted to stand to go into the Stretton Bank.

Side Stand
Stetton Bank pics

Us:

Tom& his car in the dark!

Scunthorpe followed. We needed 2 cars for this, so less pics as I had to drive!

The casual "No shirters"

Glanford Park:

The Away Days Return - Stockport County

2008-08-17T06:32:00.001-07:00

After a fairly comfortable win over Plastic F.C in the first game of the season and our clubs first at this level, our fans hopes were very high going into the game at stockport away. Over 1700 fans made the journey. .As this was the first away day for some considerable time, a big group of us were expected to travel.

Our journey started with an early morning trip to WetherSpoons at 10am. Brinner made the call to have a curry.
Curry at 10am. Quality.

Also joining us in our morning pubbery were, Potter;

C-Man:
And Ramp. Leffe at 10:30 - 6.8% Beer to get us started off. Quality shout. Brinner enjoys some Leffe to wash down the curryMorning drinks:
We set off for the 11:05 Train to Nottingham. We met up with everyone else at the train station, and after sorting out all the tickets, we were well on our way.

Jamie & Ched - Ireland (Ivory Coast!) Flag:

The 3 J's - Jasmine, James, Jamie:

Mikey, Dave, Joe, Cory claim a table:Joe, Jasmine, C-Man: Cory -Potter & Brinner - Feeling the effects of the Leffe already? :]
After getting off the train at Nottingham we had a swift connection to make for the train direct to Stockport. The train was far to small, and was packed to the brim. Not the most enjoyable journey having to be squished for over an hour, we did however, manage to find seats. Eventually.

Ched likes seats!

Brinner:Mikey & Ramp:C-Man, sorry, Potter....
We arrived in Stockport, and after a trip to home bargains to pick up some German lager, we headed to the stadium. Stockport is right next to Manchester airport so there was always a distraction with planes flying very low near the groundThe ground was pretty tidy, with a big home end down the other end of the ground, known as the Cheadle end, which was 3/4 full. This is where their noiser fans sat, and made a fair noise when they got going..
Down one side is the old looking Main stand, which was fairly full.
Down the other side was the Popular side, a former terrace. It was just about empty, with one block housing our additional fans.The away end had no roof, which didn't create a great atmosphere really.

We claimed the section on the far right (No polictal connections please!) of the away end.

Jamie, Ched & C-Man
Some of the boysBert & maybes turned up with with this beautyTeams come out:The Foxestalk flag made an appearnace but there was no where to hang it so we used it as a flyer instead. European Style
The game was dire. Chances few and far between, with both sides wasting them when they came around. No surprise it ended goaless really, although we probably should have taken all 3 points at the end, after virtually dominating in the 2nd Half.
Slice of the action:

The atmosphere was a bit weak, with no roof it was hard, but the players could hear us, and we all managed to have a laugh as well.

After the game it was back to Home bargains to stock up on the ol' Warsteiner for the journey homeThis was situated on Stockports lovely high streetWe Headed back to the station for the 17:55 train home, the wait, provided plenty of time to mess around with Dave's camera.
We boarded the train, which was once again far to short, and therefore very packed. We did however, bump into Macclesfield Town striker Francis Green on our journey. The ex-Lincoln man, is currently banned from driving and was therefore having to catch the train home. We certainly had a laugh and some very interesting conversations with him.Me & Francis -
After some friendly advice from the conductor we decided to get off at Chesterfield, which turned out to be the best decision of the day. We were going to get a connecting train direct home to Leicester from there. On the other platform were a small bunch of Bury supporters, still jubilant after a fine away win at Chesterfield. Obviosuly, the banter commenced.

(Anyone get any videos?)

The train back to Leicester soon turned into Atmosphere train, with the fine Maxi Gradel chant being sung for the first time. Great train ride home.

We met plenty of QPR fans, on their way back from a thumping at Brammall Lane. One of them (Left) agreed with my views on "Sombrero man" at Loftus Road - "Bellend."An old boy walked past us as well, que the chants of Franky Wortho etc

All in all, a fine day out. Hopefully Fulham will provide us with a good night out as well.

Stoke - Relegated :(

2008-05-09T14:20:00.001-07:00

What a crap day. We drew 0-0 with stoke, but it wasn't enough to keep us up. Completly gutted. No proper entry as I'm going to mirror the players efforts over the season.

We'll meet again at Quorn for the Pre-season games.

Roll on League one!

Barnsley - 3 massive Points

2008-04-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

Just a quick entry.

This result had too much riding on it to be bothered about taking all that many pictures (It had nothing to do with the awfull hangover from the friday night that made me feel sick all journey. Honest!)

We had a massive following, 4000 city fans going, and we had a big group on the "atmosphere (lacking) train".

Kenz, Me & Chris:

Kenz:

Me & Chris:Ld3, Joe & Cory:

Jasmin & Matt:

Joe & Ld3 (Wtf!?! Lmao):

Tommo(in the middle) Can see the back of maybes as well!

Plus loads more :)

Anyway, after a much more pleasant police escort than Sheffield, we arrived at Oakwell at 1pm (Not aloud to the pub!!)

We decided to make our own fun in the concourse. Hence the birth of atmosphere concourse.

Normal Concourse:

Atmosphere Concourse:

Our gang (only a few missing!)

Left to right Matt, Matt, Joe, Me, Cory, Ld3, Shauny Wilkes, Steve, Remi, Tommy, Jonny!

Well we one the game 1-0 thanks to Huuuuuuuuuuuume & big Barry Hayles (Oh and the fact that Barnsley were shit). A good day out and our fans were just superb. Ring of fire sounded ace, and we all headed for the exit happy boys and girls (Oh! How PC of me ! :O).

Tommo rather happy with the day:

Ld3 looking rather odd. Perfect place to finish.

We'll meet again at stoke. The big one.

Sheffield United Away - Shoes off & Atmopshere Train

2008-04-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

A day that promised so much.

Some were mildly confident we could goto Bramall Lane and pick up all three points, whilst most of us thought a point would be a good result. For just about all of us, it was our first visit to Bramall Lane as well....

The day set out with the much talked about 12:36 Train To Sheffield - Well dubbed "Atmosphere Train"

The Crap Train service was delayed at Derby station where that video was taken. The workers certainly found us amusing shame the Police didn't, they decided that we were making too much noise and decided to make themselves known by dragging off SamL where he got a good talking too...Good work boys. We had a massive following, The usuals were there as well as many others...

SamL Joined us (Plus Shannon & Staf off camera):Ramp Enjoys his pikey juice:We were graced with Tommo (The Nazi!) Presence:Me getting some window action:(From Left to Right) - Lil'Dave, Joe, Tommo, Ched:Potter & Jasmin:

We were met by South Yorkshire Police's Finsest who decied to hurd a load of mainly-under-age lads into the nearest pub so we were 'No longer on the streets' Anyway needless to be said, some under-age-drinking was in order...even it was cat piss & pikey juice.
We manged to completly miss the hail storm and headed to the ground in sunshiiiiiiine...

Bramall Lane

Inside the ground:

The buzzing away end:
Anyway, the game was shit. We lost 3-0. The less said the better. We moved from our position in the first half and decided that we'd just enjoy the game anyway even if what we were watching was crap. We met up with Fez, Alex Bert & Maybes etc over there as well.

Alex and his peadophillic gloves:

General Dispair:This was when the genius "Shoes off" chant started, which made the day much more fun and set the 2nd half up for a barrell of laughs, despite the crap on the pitch...A cracking picture (Taken from http://www.foxestalk.co.uk/):

Lots of funny, witty & silly chants kept us entertained and it spilled out onto the streets of Sheffield where about 100 city fans walked back to the station escorted by the lovely police.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-rD4pGkRj4

The police didn't like the sit-down if you love leicester chants, and they were as surprised as us when Some united "Fans" (Chavs) decided to launch some bottles at us from the pub garden of the Rutland arms.....The police seemed to take it out on us, with anything "out-of-line" being punished by a kick in the back or being slammed against the wall with a fist in your face...Nothing quite like being a footy fan!

Anyway the police hearded us onto a train back to Leicester, not letting the fans who drove to the game out of the escot (Nice one!?). Another fine show from the old bill, and they wonder why everyone thinks so highly of them?

Plenty of Pics on the train home....

Trainspotter at Sheffield..Joe *nice pose* and Chedllllly
Me & Ld3:
Ched and the Ing-Er-land flag: C-Man!!
Tommo the germanian:SamL & Joe:Tommo & Cory:Wilkes' hand cream. Public Disgrace: The group split with some getting off at Loughborough and others at leicester, as well at the few from Market Harbo. All enjoyed a great day out and looking forward to Barnsley, although personally I don't think it'll match the greatness of today. See y'all again in 2 weeks?

Oh one last thing....

Ld3 Looking, even more, like a '12 Year old' on the bus home...:

Baggies Away - Boing Boing (15th March)

2008-03-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

A massive game.
With WBA pushing for automatic promotion & with arguably the best squad in the division and us fighting for out lives at the bottom, everyone thought we were going to get a thrashing, especially after the 'performance' on Tuesday night. Oh boy were they wrong!

Setting off a Half 11 was quite refreshing for an away game, with most of the starting at silly o'clock in the morning. Numbers wise was disappointing for us, despite SamL & mate (Photo-shy?) coming with us.

Due to the excellent English Rail service they had put a bus on between Leicester & Birmingham so we had to go via derby, which provided picture time!

On the train from Derby to Brum two of us managed to get locked in the toilet. It had absolutely nothing to do with my constant pressing of the buttons. Honest!

Upon arrival at Birmingham, we had the famous meal deal, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Picture Near the Church/Bullring...

Erm...Gay Pose?

A short 10 Minute train ride to the Hawthorns ensued. A pretty impressive ground, with more character than most places these days...

The game was a cracker, going in at the break at 1-1, we were content, but after a reasonably poor show (So far!) it didn't look good. Surprisingly we went onto win the game 4-1 and send the 1500 Travelling fans into a frenzy. Some cracking goal celebrations at the back of the stand!

A bloody fantastic result and a much needed 3 points to lift us clear of the dreaded relegation zone.

The stewards & Old bill up to the usual antics:

Final Whistle:

The damo-look-a-like outside the away end! The walk back to the train station...The police hearding the Leicester fans onto the Metro, getting their overtime money.After purchasing some celebratory beers, we headed back to Birmingham for the train home. There was time to terrorise the shoppers (Boring, boring shoppers!) at the bullring, namely in Selfridges!Dave looking like rather surprised as we head for another mealdeal... (Meal Deal & a beer. Oh yes heaven!)

On the way home we found Bernie at New Street who then followed us onto our train. We managed to get sandwiched in the isle next to first class. They were not impressed with the singing & banter (As you could tell from the looks as we got off, priceless!).

Our Isle was packed with pissed (And they were fooking pissed) SheffWeds fans, Bernie & A deaf Plymouth fan. It was probably the best train journey ever, with lots of banter between the two sets and the one drunk 40 year old bloke trying to pull an 18 year old lass. It was so good, we forgot to take many pictures :(Anyway, it was a fine end to a perfect away day. Sheffield United up next, oh yes! Should be a good 'un.

Cardiff - St.Davids Day (1st March)

2008-03-03T13:09:00.001-08:00

Just a brief entry for the single welsh away day of the season.

6 Of us made the journey by train to South Wales.

Wee Dave & Ramp:

Myself: As well as the others who do not like to be photographed *cough* Potter

There was a distinct lack of pictures, but when we got to Cardiff we had a few spare minutes, so went to the Millenium Stadium...
(Upsidown again Dave!...)

Fiji!

Ninian Park was a classy old ground with a real character & a good atmosphere from the Cardiff fans, despite their team playing worse than city!

We scraped a deserved 1-0 away win. Our first since that magical win at Bristol in November. Great atmosphere and a top laugh was had.

We had the pleasure of Alex, Fez & Manwell for the train home which included;

Celebratory Beverages:
The wierdest and most random & surreal group hug on the Platform at Birmingham New street! :

(As well as many great laughs in between)
All in all, a great day, but more pictures next time please.