I have put it on my site mentioned in my signature below, if yer not logged onto microsoft......brace yerselves:D
Bhoys In Barcelona Tour 2004
2.15am It’s a cold dark morning, a supremely goog looking young lad looks out of his 3rd floor bedroom window optimistically, there is hardly any sound except for the scarce passing of cars outside. The young man sparks up another cigarette, his mood is excited for in just over 7 hours he will be touching down in Barcelona’s main airport. Again he looks out of the window, still nothing, but he’s not nervous because John is always late. Suddenly there’s a honk of a car horn outside. THIS IS IT. The television is turned off, the travel bag is picked up and the journey begins.
Dunno about you, but I really believe I could have been a journalist! If I was reading that above it would have had me intrigued.
John arrived about 2.30 I think and the journey down to Heathrow was mainly used up by talk of Celtic’s chances in the Nou Camp against the high flying Barcelona, you must remember when reading this, that the mighty Catalans have just won 9 games in a row in La Liga and no-one anywhere in the world has given Celtic a prayer of knocking them out and proceeding to the Quarter Finals. We both agreed that the squad would be given a huge lift is Chris Sutton was passed fit to play up front with Henrik Larsson, we were also a bit concerned about Alan Thompson and Stan Varga as they also had to have fitness tests on the morning of the game. We also talked about my mad weekend last week when I went down to visit all my New Order pals in London for the Kraftwerk gigs. John done magic driving down it took us just over an hour to get to “Purple Parking” a place where you drop off you car for parking and their company takes you straight to the airport. Our excitement was short lived, we got into Heathrow at 20 past 4 in the morning and there was already a que formed at our departure desks, that wasn’t the worst of it, the screens said the desk wouldn’t be opened till 5.15, so we had nearly an hour just waiting, at which point I was glad I could nip out for a ciagarrette or two. John had also brought some ham rolls, a couple of bottles of juice and some crisps, so they were scoffed while we were waiting as well. The flight was good, mainly because I slept through most of it’s two hour journey, John wasn’t too happy because Air Iberia never did brekkies.
We arrived in Barcelona just after 9 in the morning and because it was a short stay for one night, we only had hand luggage so we walked straight through the airport and into a taxi (only stopping briefly so I could smoke another fag). The taxi driver was a right mad fooker! John also happens to be a part time taxi driver, but even he was surprised by the way our taxi driver was going, in and out of traffic like Larsson through Rangers’ defense. I think the journey lasted little more than five, maybe ten minutes. As we got to the Hotel we both looked a bit stunned, the place was well fookin posh, loads of Mercdes cars in the driveway leading upto it, and just to the right of the hotel, you could see the top of the Nou Camp! Double bonus! The Hotel had them doors that you walk in and they spin round in a circle, rotating bloody doors, we had a good laugh walking through them. We signed in and found our room, it was ok, but there was no kettle in the room, bit pissed off with that. The funniest thing over there were the lights, we pressed all the switches in the room and the buggers would not come on, so as we were leaving the hotel to head for Barcelona’s stadium, we bumped into a cleaning maid, so we told her our problem and she walked us back to the room, John pressed the switch and again, nothing, the maid started laughing and said “Key for Wall” it took a couple of seconds, then it clicked…..as we signed into the hotel, we were given two key-cards, we just took it for granted that it was one each for the room, it was actually one for the door and one for the lights!!! How mental is that? You can imagine our embarrassment as we wandered out of the hotel lobby and into the lift. I must also mention the lift in that hotel (Hotel Sophia) it does 0-3 floors in about 2 seconds, and it gives you a feeling of being light headed and confused in no time, thank God we weren’t on the top floor. We picked up our tickets from the Consierge’s desk, we paid £120 each for them so you could say we were very happy they were there, the only downer was that the tickets had “You can only get in by Coach” printed on the back, and with the tickets was a letter telling us to catch a bus from Las Ramblas to a bar where we would head into the ground. We headed round to the Nou Camp for a wee look, it took us less than five minutes to walk round to, already there were a good couple of hundred Celtic supporters wandering about (remember it’s only 10 in the morning) most probably they were looking for tickets for the game. John and myself decided to do the tour of the ground, we hadn’t travelled all this way just to drink beer all day (believe it or not) we had a wee wait before our tour started, so we headed to the Café situated outside and got a breakfast, this consisted of a Hot Dog and a cold can of Spanish lager, I should also mention that the sun was out, and while it wasn’t that hot, it was very pleasant to chill out in. Our tour lasted for just over an hour, a tourguide asked if there were any English people were on the tour, one of the lads at the back says “Not English, Irish” then another “Scottish” which the guide found most amusing. I have to say that neither myself or john were that impressed with the stadium…….at first. We got to go round the dressing rooms and down the tunnel to the pitch, inside this tunnel there’s a church where the players can go before a game, very surreal, there is a statue of the Black Madonna in there and she is the symbol of the Catalonians. We also got pitch side and took a few photies, and also a few more in the dug out and stands. It’s not till you get up high you appreciate it properly, and there were a few players warming up while we were there (Ronaldinhio and Puyol to name two) The biggest thing that impressed me was their Trophy Room and museum, steeped in tradition, and there were football tops and football boots from all era’s including Cruyff, Stoichkov, Maradonna and Ronaldo. Also on the tour they had put out a replica of the European Cup on a stand with a Barcelona mural on the wall behind it, this was quickly covered in an Irish tricolour, John and myself wasted no time in getting our pictures taken with us lifting it! So all in all a cracking wee tour of the ground, afterwards we tried to phone an old family friend called Tommy Mulholland who had been living in Spain for the last few years, but for some reason the phone number that worked when we phoned from England never worked out in Spain, it’s always a nightmare in a foreign country trying to work phones! We headed back to the hotel where we picked up the Scottish Daily Record and Scottish Sun and got a beer in the hotel so we could sit and read them, then it was up to get showered and changed for our excursion to Las Ramblas.
We hit Las Ramblas early afternoon after a fairly short taxi ride, the place is massive, kind of like one of the big long streets that never seem to end in New York, everywhere you looked there was a pub and there must have been several thousand Celtic fans scattered all over the place, I remember saying to john as we got near the Ramblas that we would hear the Celtic fans before we saw them, I couldn’t have been more correct! We turned a corner and all you could hear was “Hail, Hail the Celts are here” about 40 yards further on and one hell of a massive party was already in full flow, there were kids as young as six or seven, no doubt with their dads and granddads, just over to experience a proper Celtic party, there were painted faces, guys with no tops on, people in Kilts, and one guy with nothing on at all except for a Barcelona coloured thong! He was well pished and was jumping in and out of the fountain in the square. Myself and John decided to head on a wee bit to see what was going on a bit further down, we weren’t disappointed, another thousand or so people spilling onto the streets as the pubs were full, people dressed up and painted as statues, and loads of people wandering up and down the walkway in the main part, I think John’s exact words were “Fcuk this, I can’t be arsed waiting ages for a beer” so we proceeded to the first big supermarket for a carry out. It seems a lot of the Celtic fans had the same idea, there were hundreds of fellow tims raiding the supplies, people carrying 3 crates at a time, the supermarkets must have made a fortune from us! The most vivid memory was of one guy raiding the freezer section, he had an old bucket (God knows where he got it) and was just stealing all the Ice from the freezers, the Catalans thought this was great, mind you, I feel sorry for the locals doing their shopping for a loaf of bread, cos the que’s were massive as they only had two or three tills. Luckily enough we found a couple of spare seats outside in the main walkway, so we sat there with our carry out and watched everything going on, just trying to take it all in, it was still sunny luckily enough, and the day took me back to the Ryan Giggs testimonial a couple of years back, glorius sunshine and thousands of Celts taking over the place! There were street performers everywhere asking for a Euro to do something daft, these two Celtic supporters on the other side of the walkway must have spotted this and decided to start their own wee business. I’ll try and explain, one of the lads was wearing a Celtic top and a Celtic Kilt, while his pal was wearing jeans and a Celtic top, they came up with the idea that the guy in the kilt would pose as a statue drinking a can of lager, his pal took off his baseball cap and shouted to the passers by “One Euro, make him move” At first nothing happened, but with more Scottish banter and raising of the voice “C’mon people gies a Euro and make this bastart move” One of the locals decided it was worth a look, as soon as the money hit the hat, the guy in the kilt started doing a mad jig on top of the bench he was posing on then swallying loads of his beer before stopping dead and staying as still as a statue. Within five minutes these guys were local heroe’s, the crowds swelled up to a hundred or so just to have a look at this mad Scottish guy dance, it was no longer one Euro a jig, it was up to 5 or 6 Euro’s! These guys were making a fortune, not so daft the Scots are they!?! This carried on for half an hour before they took their reward over to the pub across the street for some more refreshments. In the meantime, John and myself were sat just in front of a massive Celtic Supporters flag, and this brought unbelievable attention from the passing Catalans, we had people stopping to look at it all the time, and several locals took pictures of the flag (if they were lucky myself and John will feature in quite a few!) Also everywhere you looked you seen passing Celts in these massive Sombrero’s, absolute class, we also had our pictures taken with several Barcelona fans who had stopped to look at the flag. I can’t wait to see these photo’s. After a couple of hours and several cans of lager, we had to try and find the Celtic coach which would take us to Bar Ra La (it would be here where we would catch another bus to take us to the game) Unfortunately we couldnae see it anywhere, the clouds darkened and we seemed to walk forever trying to find a taxi to take us to the Bar Ra La, it must have took an hour to finally find a taxi, and luckily enough, just as we got in the taxi, the sky’s opened, a crazy Hail storm the size of maltesers hit Barcelona and lasted for a good five minutes, it was that bad that the Hail stones settled on the ground making it look like snow! John was also quick off the mark as he looked outside “Hail, Hail” it’s a sign!
After nearly crashing several times (mainly due to the fact the taxi driver took us the wrong way to the Camp Nou) we arrived just outside the stadium about 5.30, we still had three and a half hours to kill before the game, so we decided to head for the Bar Ra La, a local policeman gave us directions that took us up near our hotel, it just so happens that the bar we needed to be in was 100 yards from the bloody hotel! We were not amused to say the least, in the end myself and John had a good laugh about it. We had missed the coach to the stadium, but we decided to take our chances and just walk to the game with all the other fans. The Bar Ra La was a nice wee place, on one side you had a bar with a food counter, on the other was just a typical bar, the place was buzzing, myself and John got talking celtic with two young lads from Glasgow, one was called Davie, I’ve already forgotten the older one’s name (my memory has always been useless) after a couple more beers the singing started in the bar, this followed through to where we were standing, I can still hear the Catalonian accent of the owner saying “Keep the noise down a little” Poor guy didn’t know what hit the place, we sang and sang just about every Celtic song you could think of, at full voice! The police wandering past in the street just outside were being grabbed by fellow Celtic supporters and having their pictures taken, one thing you can say about us Tims is that we know how to have a party, and the banter and spirit of these journey’s across Europe is always peaceful and the locals are always amused by our antics. Young Davie was worse for wear about this point, they like us had been drinking all day, unfortunately for Davie, he wasn’t used to this, and proceeded to spill his next three pints! I remember looking at the clock and it was already 7.30, luckily enough the stadium was a five minute walk, the bar emptied in the space of five minutes as we all headed to the ground, singing and dancing all the way, just as we got to the ground the nerves kicked in, I can remember my stomach turning with the excitement of it all, afterall it doesn’t come much bigger than Celtic versus Barcelona in the Nou Camp does it? When you think back just six or seven years, none of us believed we would see nights like this. We were here to enjoy it and very nearly we NEVER. As we got in the stadium myself and John’s tickets were joined together, they were handed to the steward to rip off the spare part of the ticket, but unfortunately for us he ripped up one of the tickets, we didn’t realise till we got to the turnstiles, we begged and pleaded with the security and tried to explain one of the tickets had been destroyed, all they did was pass us on to someone else, then someone else and so on, eventually we decided to head back to the gates to see the guys that were sorting the tickets, next thing I know is that I’ve been thrown out of the stadium gates, I thought they were helping us, all they were doing was trying to get rid of us! John (who was already going mental before this) tried to bargain with them, they were having none of it, they just didn’t believe us, I even shouted to a Scottish guy in one of the security jackets and that fcuker just disappeared as well! I sat with my head in my hands for what seemed an eternity, I just couldn’t believe what was going on, I even told John just to go in and try and enjoy it, his words are still as loud now as they were then “I ain’t going in without you, if you don’t get in I’m going to Jail” John’s always been as mad as a brush, so this sparked my temper as well, I shouted like fcuk at the guys on the gate “£600 I paid to get here and you won’t even let me in…..I can’t believe it, I had a ticket…….£600 fcukin pounds!!!” I think they finally clicked that we DID have tickets and opened the gates, I just dived straight through them and myself and John headed towards the first opening at side of the ground. Unfortunately we ended up in the section for Sponsors and we couldn’t get in, we explained to two stadium assistants of all of our hassle just to see the game and the bloke took us up several flights of stairs till we were at the entrance to the top of the second tier of the Camp Nou! Funnily enough there were two other Celtic supporters stood at the end of the tunnel looking down onto the pitch, they must have had similar problems to us! Myself and John introduced ourselves then looked out into this mental stadium, we were surrounded by 30,000 Barcelona fans!!! I just looked to John as if saying “Fcuking Hell!” We missed the first ten or 15 minutes of the game thanks to all the carry on with our tickets, and from outside you could clearly hear the “Oooohs and aaaaaaaagh’s” of the Barca fans, it wasn’t till we got home and watched the game we saw why! Young David Marshall who is only 19 stepped in goals for Rab Douglas who was suspended by UEFA for taking part in the first leg tunnel bust up at Parkhead (in which he was an innocent party) the youngster provided a truly world class save after only 56 seconds, Gabri raced onto a Ronaldinhio pass and somehow young Marshall got his fingertips to the ball and took it from Gabri’s feet, the look on the Spaniards face said it all, it was a look to say “There’s bugger all else I could have done” luckily we didn’t miss too much else, by the time we started watching Celtic looked fairly composed, on the back foot, but composed. Marshall was tested again by a header from Gabri again I think and he was up to the task diving low and saving with ease, I think it’s safe to say I was a wee bit worried, the atmosphere was truly electric, and it didn’t take long for John and myself to start going absolutely mental “C’mon the Sellick….Get stuck intae them Bstards…….diving bstard ref!! …..Go’on Henrik” To be fair the Barcelona fans just looked at us in a bemused type of way, they must have been thinking “who are these eedjits!” Celtic didn’t create too much, but they did have a couple of half chances that weren’t put away in the same manner as Celta Vigo and Liverpool last year. Half time whistle sounded and I personally, was scared to move in case we were grabbed by security and thrown out, so John headed down for a pint for us, heaven sent it was! John even missed the start of the second half cos the que’s were that long! I eventually got the courage to go for a pish, and was lucky to find a fag machine (although Lucky Strike are not ideal) I must have smoked near a full packet during that second half, and the two guys we were stood with were more vocal as well, the elder of the pair just kept shouting “MOVE” as loud as you could imagine, this not only annoyed myself and John, but also a few hundred of the Barca fans who shouted for him to quiten down. The game for Celtic was now just a case of defending with everything they had, Barca were constantly on the attack, and while they are great on the ball, they couldn’t break us, young Marshall pulled off another two world class saves, the best tipping a Garcia (or Enrique) hammer drive over the bar from 10 yards! The last 20 minutes seemed an age at the time, John kept saying “We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it” I kept silent not wanting to jinx us, the final whistle blew and that was it, we had just knocked Barcelona out of the UEFA Cup at the mighty Camp Nou, I can’t remember being happier at a game, and I was one of the lucky one’s who was at Parkhead to see us beat St Johnstone 2-0 back in 98 to stop Rangers winning 10 in a row. John, myself and the two other fans were jumping up and down in a big huddle, while the Barcelona fans had to barge past us to get out (as we were right in front of their entrance) John held out his hands to see how many people would shake it, to be fair a few did, John just had a cheek smile on his face as to say “Yessssss”
As the place was emptying of Barca fans, we decided to head down a wee bit so we could see the rest of the Celtic fans as they were in the highest tier (the one above us) there were about 5000 at one end and another 5000 at the other, plus there was maybe 2000 in the main stand, and another 2000 scattered all over the ground, an old lady and her granddaughter were leaving the stadium, the old lady shook my hands and said “congratulaions” in a broad Catalonian accent. That was magic, then the young girl asked if we wanted our picture taken, superb, can’t wait to see that picture! Myself and John were in no hurry at all, and as we looked round the Celtic fans were still going mental, we had a few choruses of “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “Hail, Hail” a truly memorable night, we were just trying to take it all in, we were kind of hoping the players would come back out, but after 20 or 30 minutes or so we gave up and headed out of the ground, as we were leaving a Barcelona fan and his mate swapped scarves with John and said “Celtic, magic” I don’t think anyone from Barcelona had ever seen anything quite like the Celtic supporters before, and again all I can say is how proud I am to be part of a magnificent travelling support. Not one sign of trouble all day or night. As we were walking out we were still in disbelief and couldn’t believe it when we bumped into one of our pals from Corby (Steven Gribbin) he tried to whisk us off to a Barcelona pub, but we already knew we were going back to the Bar Ra La as it was right next to the hotel. We headed straight there for a couple of beers, still taking it all in, and that was that. I remember seeing Eurosport news before falling asleep and Villareal had knocked out Roma! Liverpool had been dumped out by Marseille which we found quite amusing, and Newcastle had also made it through. I didn’t care too much though, we had just knocked out the favourites and even better than that, we had done it at the Nou Camp!
A very quick thank-you to my Uncly John, what a fcuking trip Unc! Cannae wait for the final!!!
