This was my 2nd trip
abroad with Hearts, and I went with my pal Karen, and 13 guys from the
Ace of Hearts supporters club. My boyfriend of the time couldn't get the time
off work so I just went without him (he'd have done the same to me).
We were flying out
form Manchester so we got a wee mini-bus down, quite well behaved on the
way down, we were driving down through the night.
Our hotel was actually
in Brussels as that was a better place to stay than Liege itself. We had
a mini bus to take us to the game, very organized this lot.
On the first day we
went to a few pubs in Brussels, it was a good laugh but we didn't bump
into loads of Hearts fans. I fell and hurt my knee when I was trying to
run up a down escalator (as you do), the boys went through all the red light
areas as you do in these trips ....then we found this wee pub near the hotel
and had a brilliant night there, singing songs and stuff. We got the barman,
Pierre (who we all called Peter) to make us cocktails and things. We
noticed that he was giving us the same receipt for all the drinks and was
obviously pocketing some of the money, after all it was a Monday night
so he probably wasn't that busy usually, terrible. A few locals were in
and were very amused by us, we were singing loads of 60's songs as well
as Hearts songs, and a few of the boys were having a wee snooze in their
seats. It was a really good night and it was even funnier in the hotel
when one of the guys had to get put to his bed by the night porter after
trying to get in a room on the floor above and all these sorts of things.
Breakfast the next
morning was hilarious as we all tried to piece together what had happened
(a lot of funny looks were put our way by the hotel staff, who'd watched
a lot of our escapades the night before). We found there were actually
a few other Jambos in the same hotel as us so we arranged that they would
come on our bus to the game as well.
Quite a funny thing
happened when just after breakfast I decided to go out and get some bottles
of water and juice to keep in our room (a wee bit dehydrated we all were).
I was coming back from the shops with some carrier bags and I just had
normal clothes on so I guess I looked like a local. Two Hearts fans walking
past me must have assumed I didn't speak English and one said to the other
'Look at the t*ts on her', you can imagine the look on his face when I
turned round and said 'Aye, and look at the mouth on you......'. Quite
funny. The guy was in shock.
Anyway, later on we
got the bus to the game, and went to a pub near the ground. It was heaving
with Jambos and we had a great laugh, especially when we found that the
game kicked off an hour later than we thought so we had another hour drinking
time !
In the ground itself
we were drinking beer and feeling cool, although we later found out it
was non-alcoholic stuff !
We met up with loads
of people we knew then had the swapping of scarves with the Liege fans,
it was a bit tricky as we had to throw ours scarves over a big gap. We
got round this by tying them in knots then throwing them (well, I got
a huge guy to throw mine over), the guy who caught mine then threw a scarf
back and pointed at me, so when it landed quite far away from me, all the
Hearts fans passed it over saying 'That's the lassies scarf', very
organised.
So the game, Hearts played badly
and I was very disappointed when we got beat and therefore
knocked out. At the end it was the usual 'We'll support you ever more'
stuff, and although I sung along as well, and meant it, I was thinking that
I was really sick of being a good loser.
We got the bus back
to Brussels and then went out once we were there but I went home fairly
early as I was pissed off, everyone else came in much later, pissed out
of their heads and I wished I'd stayed out, but never mind.......
The next day we went
to Heysel and done lots of tourist things, quite a sensible day. We'd all
shrugged of Hearts defeat. We played pool at a round pool table and went
into some extremely dodgy pubs, all the fun of a Hearts trip abroad. To
end the trip, I had my purse stolen on the underground, so everyone had
to chip for my meals and drinks for the rest of the day. I was quite glad
to be going home, but I'd really enjoyed the trip and have great memories
of it.
