Monte
Carlo or Bust !!Monte
Carlo or Bust !!Here are some photos and anecdotes from the biggest trip Saints have undertaken in our history as St. Sandy's Euro Crusaders went fresh from dumping the Finns to a trip to the millionaires paradise of Monaco to take on the French superstars. For most of us, Monaco was always going to be too expensive so it was off to Nice with good old British Airways and Wayne's Bar for the pre-match beverage consumption.
Wednesday
3.30am - Hey what do you know, it's another get up in the middle of
the night for a trip to Edinburgh for a 5.30am check-in for the Gatwick
flight. Fail to see anyone else in Saintee colours until sitting in the
departure lounge when a series of striped hats appear and head for the
bar.
11.10am - Take-off for Nice. Well we're supposed to but thanks to
some old biddy (must have been since we were the only people under 70 on
the flight) missed the plane. So whilst they unload her zimmer from the
hold we miss a take-off slot.
11.50am - Take off this time. Spend the entire 2 hour flight
speaking to an American heading for Cannes and telling me how she doesn't
know if her house in the USA will still be standing when she gets back -
Check the paper to see that theres some Hurricane on the go - hadn't
noticed it whilst reading the enthralling Pulitzer-Prize winning stuff
about Danny Griffin and a pack of cards in the Sun.
3.20pm - Land in Nice. It's hot. Get to the bus stop for the trip
into town and spot the first kilts. And the first young girlies in short
skirts etc. Get slapped by wife for ogling. It won't be the last time.
4.30pm- Check into Hotel and meet some more Saintees - here
tales of what the stadium looks like and start to get excited about the
match. A quick tour round the old town locates Saintees scattered round
Scarlett O'Haras and a few other pubs. We head off to
Wayne's Bar for the vaguely arranged
meeting point.
8.30pm
- The gang start to appear with the Easyjet crowd in first. Beer is an
unhealthy 40FF for a half-litre but is eminently drinkable. There's a live
band on as well but the Saintee repetoire soon starts to drown them out
much to the annoyance of some of the local under-agers who soon leave. The
band finishes and the table dancing starts up.
Just
as we think it's getting a bit too quiet Paula arrives with her
crowd and the Saintees start to take over. A few beers later and the
traditional pathetic attempt at a group photograph is made with the
until-now Richard Arnott finally made known to us - strange what sort of
mental image you get of someone from 4 years of e-mails.
Thanks
to Graeme Ferguson
for the some of the photos on this page.
Anyway, with Wayne's closing at 12.30, it was off to Scarlett O'Haras (remember the traditional Irish pub). Well it wasn't traditional but it had a neat basement bar and decent beer on tap so with some celebrating of the Valencia v TFOD result we lasted there till 3ish before heading off to the hotel.
Thursday 12 noon - A morning seeing what Nice had to offer (French people and scooters mainly) then it was off to la gare to get the train tickets for Monte Carlo. 20 minutes later after a journey which saw Paulas cunning linguistic talents come to the fore (ie she translated the pre-match crap from Barthez in L'Equipe), and we were there ........F**KING MONACO !!!!!
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