European Football Weekends

Stuart Fuller kicks off a week long look back at the third annual European Football Weekends Oktoberfest.....

Life sometimes just isn't fair. Like the fact that I missed out on the lottery jackpot once because the winning numbers were exactly the same as I had picked in my head but couldn't find a lottery machine nearby, or when you just go past an exit on the motorway to be hit with the traffic jam from hell around the next corner. Alanis Morrissette called it "Ironic" but to me being in a plane crash is not ironic, it is just bad luck. Oh, and Ms Morrissette, when you do "meet the man of your dreams" you could just offer him a threesome with his "beautiful wife". Just saying.

No, for me life wasn't fair because I had to spend 10 days travelling. From one side of Europe to the next and I would only get to see ten football matches in that period. Just ten. I can see you crying on my behalf now.I would be taking in five countries on my travels, meeting up with numerous old friends and drinking pints (and litres) of beer ranking from €1 Pilsen's in Prague to €8 Amstel's in Zurich.

The reason for such gallivanting? Well it was the start of the Oktoberfest season. Now in its third year you can read all about it here. After our successful jaunts in Holland, Germany, Hungary (well apart from the dysentery I picked up last year) and Slovakia in our previous trips, it was the turn of the Czech Republic this year. That was until fate dealt us a lucky card, an Ace in the hole. Europa League football just over the border in Slovakia. Our EFW/TBIR charter says in paragraph 3, section 2:-

"If a game in a city/stadium is being played whereby transport is freely available and journey time is less than 4 hours and there are no alternative destinations, you have to at least spend an hour finding mitigating reasons not to go".

So that is why at 6.30am I was on board Ryanair 385 to Bratislava. Or actually, to Vienna (Bratislava). Why let hundreds of years of diplomacy get in the way of border agreements eh Ryanair?



Known as Pressburg until 1919, Bratislava today is home to hundreds of stag/hen weekends every week. As I decamped from the plane and waited for the bus into town I was handed a leaflet offering me "Pussy Galore" at a club in town, that was apparently open at 10am. I asked the spotty youth whether it was the name of a person, since the capitalisation of the words suggested otherwise, but he simply said "girls, boobs, fanny, sexy time". He failed as a sales person trying to win me as a customer so I declined to visit, although I kept the leaflet for "research purposes".

I travelled into the city with the Barnet boys, finding our hotel with ease and then looking with curiousity at the hulking floodlights in the distance.

An hour later I was standing in what can only be described as a war zone. Around me was the rubble from what looked like a bomb attack, furniture smashed, weeds growing where once there was concrete and finally silence. Silence as if the whole city was in mourning. I was standing on the sweeping terraces of the Tehelne Pole, once one of the biggest stadiums in Czechoslovakia and preferred home of the national team.

Here was a ground steeped in history which now had been pillaged. What could have been broken up had been, and the sad netting still hanging down from the goal posts, the huge weeds growing from the terraces and the remnants of the light blue seats just made you shake your head. I felt a bit wary walking around too much, remembering the "Charlie says" videos of my youth, and seeing the electric cables and holes in the floor around the ground. Game a day John found a ball and took it on the pitch. He became the last person to take a penalty in the stadium (for now), and mirroring his hero, Chris Waddle, he ballooned it over the bar.

Nostalgia over we headed into the old town and sampled some local cuisine before meeting up with the rest of the advanced party who had arrived by train from Prague. Our first home for the evening was the Arena Bar, next to the hotel which had the cheek to try to diddle us by serving pints (well, half a litre) of fine Slovakian beer for €1.50! It got worse as we moved to a pub round the corner that had the cheek to want €1 a beer. Our host for the evening was Dan Richardson, a west country lad, who lived in Bratislava, supported Slovan and ADO Den Haag and worked on a rig in the North Sea. He is a season ticket holder at Slovan and proudly showed us the ticket which cost him just €41. The tickets for this game? €20. And who says clubs try to rip off fans these days?

But for our €20 we also got a Slovan t-shirt and a nice shiny flag to wave, which is more than the travelling PSG fans got. As they (apparently) approached the gates of the stadium en-masse, they were told they weren't welcome and the police moved them into a local pub.



Despite a major renovation of the Pasiensky in recent years to bring it up to UEFA 3 star standards so it can host games like this, it is still basically an open air athletics stadium with the biggest scoreboard known to man. That didn't stop the home fans whipping up an excellent atmosphere to try to spur on their team against their big spending opponents. Without a point from their opening two games in the Europa League few gave them a chance against the French side.

It wasn't a surprise to see the French do all the early running, with the Slovan keeper Lukáš Hroššo the busier of the two keepers. However, the home side seemed content to try to frustrate the French whenever they could and the first half ended with few chances and certainly no goals. Still, we found amusement at the littlest things, as we always do. An old fashion fire-engine, ready to douse the fires of Slovan ambition? Check. A mascot dressed up as a Slovan badge with white tights on high fiving us? Check. Big Deaks falling off the seat and tumbling down the terraces? Check.





It was much of the same in the opening exchanges of the half. But the first talking point came on the hour mark as PSG's Chantôme was sent off for a second yellow. That sparked Slovan into life and Vladimir Weiss's team started finding a bit more space and created their best chance soon after.

The night got even worse for the visitors in the 80th minute when Siaka Tiéné was sent off for a late challenge. We were standing in the "Ultra" section and sections of fans around us broke out into choruses of monkey chanting as the full back walked off. It was a shock to hear it to be truthful and Andy Hudson walked out. Slovakia had had its problems with this before, famously when England visited back in 2002 and Dan Richardson has written at length about the situation here. Having now read the UEFA match report is it surprising to see it wasn't mentioned at all? Not really. And if they did what would they do? Fine them another couple of thousand Euros? I will get the broom if you want to lift the carpet Michel.



With PSG down to nine men, Slovan smelt victory. Only the timely intervention of Zoumana Camara prevented Karim Guédé slotting the ball into the net. However, they couldn't find a way through and had to settle for a nil-nil draw.

It would have been rude to simply ignore the hospitality on offer in the fine city, so we went back to the Arena bar and contributed significantly to Slovakian economy. Despite a 4am start we carried on until the wee small hours, donning our Slovan t-shirts and re-enacting various tactical subtleties of the game using shot glasses.

8am and we were all (well mostly all) up and trying to find something edible at Bratislava train station for the four hour ride through Hostel country to Prague. Oktoberfest had started with a bang, and with six games due in the next sixty hours was going to continue to just get better and better.

In the run up to this game - I hated Grenoble Foot 38. They withdrew internet tickets sales for the match, didn't answer any emails and refused to answer their phone. They became the most inaccessible club in Europe.

So why did they do it!? Well, evidently the world and their wives are scared of the Paris Saint-Germain fans. They have a - some say justified - reputation for hooliganism. Opposition clubs, the National Gendarmerie, Inspector Clouseau and even the government are wary of them.

In the end we were indebted to Stephane Lievens for sorting us out with tickets. Our (French speaking) friend from the EFW Facebook site worked tirelessly for weeks trying to get hold of someone at GF38. Eventually - a couple of days before the game - they gave in to his persistence and agreed to keep three tickets by for us to pick up at the stadium. We had to be there five hours before kick off to pick them up mind you or the deal was off.

Blimey, I've been serious now for a record equalling three paragraphs....and relax. So where on earth is Grenoble and who are Grenoble Foot 38 - surely one of the most splendid names in football!? Well, the City is situated in Southeastern France at the foot of the Alps and the football team was formed in 1997 after a merger of Olympique Grenoble Isere and Norcap Olympique. Why all the 'Olympique' references I hear you ask (really!? - Ed) - that'll be because the City of Grenoble once hosted the Winter Olympics in 1968. I thank you. The '38' refers to the postal district of Grenoble. I thank you once more.

To get there - Big Deaks, Nicky Boy and I flew into Lyon Airport from Gatwick at a very unsociable 06:35am. Easy Jet got us there early (early!) doors, which was nice. We then picked up a hire car and Nick 'the wheels' Waterhouse drove us down to Grenoble. First impressions were very favourable. It's a stunning place surrounded by mountains - as one might expect in the Alps. However - we hadn't come here to ski or become gays on trays (snowboarders) - we were here for some European Football.

First up we had to pick up our tickets. After all the fuss it was anyone's guess if we'd actually lay our hands on them. The ground looked a picture with the sunshine bouncing off from the solar panelled (hello to you) roof. The stadium was situated next to a large park which had red squirrels running around dealing with their nuts. The moment of truth had arrived and I was in the zone. Armed with my best French accent I dealt with the ticketing issue in hand and without any complications we were in. Three lovely match tickets in the bag. We would go to the ball after all. Lovely job.


Hotel admin completed we headed down by the riverside to a family run restaurant and helped ourselves to some local cuisine and a couple of well deserved beers. After that we had five hours to fill before the match. A pub crawl anyone!? Rather. First up we were served some reassuringly expensive pints of Edelweiss by former Smiths miserablist, veggie sausage jockey, sardonic lyric liking Morrissey or rather by someone who looked quite like him.

More and more pubs followed as we slowly made our way to the ground. There appeared to be a large mountain at the end of every street. It really was a delightful setting for a pre-match session. At one stage - between pubs - we found ourselves joining in on a Communist march through the streets. When in France eh!?

At the ground there were 350 police on duty for this Grade A match. A helicopter flew overhead and there were reports of some trouble before the match which was later confirmed in the local paper. We didn't see any violence though and everybody we met was as good as gold.


Once inside, we made our way to the VIP section (as I say, beer had been taken) and pulled out our EFW business cards. Nick the wheels asked if we could have a look behind the scenes just for a giggle. What followed surprised me somewhat. The head of security said he'd heard of the European Football Weekends website and that this wouldn't be a problem. So in we jolly well went. Luckily, the comment Nick made about it all looking a bit 'sterile' was lost in translation. We made our way through all the sponsors areas and eventually ended up in the players lounge. A bright white room with some ghastly looking sofas and five bottles of champers on a table.


As usual I won't dwell too much on the match itself. There was a brief outbreak of football in the last ten minutes but aside from that it wasn't the best. Grenners Footers (as they are not known as) were well chuffed with their good point well made though. As well they might be as PSG had won their previous four matches in a row and were in serious danger of removing Lyon from top spot in Ligue 1 for the first time in umpty thrumpty years.


On European Football Weekends, you can normally always rely on the fans to provide some alternative entertainment to the football. They didn't disappoint here I can tell you. It was relentless, non stop singing, flares, pyrotechnics, the works for ninety minutes. FANtastic effort from both teams. Behind the goal where the hardcore GF38 fans sat were two flags which to the uninitiated looked like drawings of both Tommy Cooper and Juliet Bravo. What's not to like!?


After the game we walked back into town and embarked in another welcome pub crawl. The pubs got better and better. We'd been up for 22 hours but I'm happy to report we did make it until closing time and furthermore we weren't really that drunk AND we could still see. This might have been something to do with downgrading our beers to Stella at the end of the night from the Leffe we'd been quaffing earlier. Sensible.


So a huge tick in the box to Grenoble and all the fans, bar staff, Morrissey look-a-likes and punters we met there. A really nice City with friendly people and a fancy new stadium to boot. Next up for us the following day was another match in Ligue 1, namely St Etienne v Bordeaux. Good old life!