LIVERPOOL 5 DEPORTIVO ALAVES 4 #alaves #deportivoalaves #liverpoolfc #lfc #bookreading #audiobook

"It was not long past midnight when my travelling companions and I went in search of the luxury coach that was going to propel us from the city of Liverpool to the German city of Dortmund and back again, and hopefully with the prized European UEFA Cup trophy too. Charlie was the senior of the three of us travelling together and with his Germanic roots (and surname) proudly spoke the language and lived the pragmatic Germanic way of life too. His son Peter, as big a Liverpool fan as you could wish to meet travelled with us, and to say we were more than a little excited at the prospect of what lay ahead of us over the next few days would be a world record shattering understatement.

As we passed one coach after the other in a huge train stretching as far as the eye dared see, we couldn’t wait to board, settle in for the journey and while away the many hours to our Dover ferry crossing and then on through Europe via the borders of Holland, Belgium and France before entering Germany and a small town by the name of Schermbeck, and the site for our one night stay before the transfer into Dortmund on match day.

As we finally reached the ending of the train of coaches awaiting their departures for Germany, all seemingly luxurious and kitted out with multiple television screens, card tables, ample room and the height of early 2000’s luxury, we found our coach and, well, suffice to say it wasn’t quite as luxurious as all the others seemed to be! In fact it wasn’t luxurious in any way, at all, and perfectly encapsulated as we dumped our bags in the hold and upon finding out we couldn’t close the antiquated lock the driver simply jumped down from his cab and kicked it firmly shut! It was not the most auspicious of starts to say the least and nor was the driver’s decision, at the very first junction he approached, to go in the opposite direction of the motorway and so we circled around the Anfield stadium and joined the back of the departing queue we were, until then, at the very front of.

“Turn the heat up!” became the mantra of 60+ disgruntled and cold Liverpool fans aboard our particular charabanc ghost of the 1960’s and soon Charlie and I had nicknamed our rolling ice cube on wheels “Ice Station Zebra”. The toilet (singular) overflowed. The television (singular) had zero volume and the card tables and spacious room of the other coaches was severely absent on ours. I don’t recall the coach being a particularly rowdy or loud one as we were all no doubt huddled together trying to retain some bodily warmth, but when our esteemed driver ignored the Police Outriders on the edge of Dortmund a couple of days later, and guiding us directly to the stadium, before he veered off in a completely different direction, I rather think he was on borrowed time by then.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves".

The above brief extract is from a very long and personal chapter, one of eight that dot their way throughout a book I'm immensely proud of, and which I self-published at the end of May 2023. The immediate link below is for this very book, together with other ways and means of supporting me, if you are able, to continue to thumb the eye of the traditional publishers who refused to read my original manuscript!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6W6TYCL

https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.paypal.me/TheBlackfordBookClub
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/steveblackford

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