Part 1: Travel Sickness, Part One or "when everything that can go wrong on a connecting flight does go wrong"
Part 2: Travel Sickness, Part Two or "when one train vanishes, another one turns into a bus"
After a day or two in La Rochelle, I knew that something was different to the last tournament in Poland, and I couldn't put my finger on it. I knew before I arrived there would be less Irish than in Poznan, and more people from other countries, so that wasn't it. I knew the town was a small seaside town, and you could walk anywhere you needed to go, so the minimal number of taxis, indeed vehicles of any kind, on the road was likewise expected, and to be honest I welcomed the absence of perpetual drone of engines on the main streets.
Watching the England - Wales game with two friends in a restaurant it finally dawned on me, the French hadn't embraced the tournament in the same way the Polish had. The restaurant we were watching the game in had the game on a big screen. Which was muted. There was only one waiter in the restaurant taking orders and delivering food to tables, which I imagined was the norm for the place. I thought it strange that no extra staff were on duty to handle the extra visitors the tournament had brought to the town. Walking around the town and I saw the same scene repeated throughout - normal service continuing. Only 50% of the bars and restaurants were showing games, and about 50% of them were showing the game with the commentary muted! None of the establishments had seemed to have taken on extra staff, an the staff that were working were taking orders one at a time, filling the orders and returning for payment. To make matters worse, some of them were closing at 2pm for the afternoon! I wondered what the same situation would be like at home if we were granted an major international tournament. All bars and restaurants would have big screens, and would go to pains to advertise the live games shown within. Extra staff would be taken on to handle the increase in trade, and they would be experienced (or at the very least trained) to handle the same increase.
And so to play Belgium in Bordeaux on Saturday. Flying out from Ireland, I had no ticket, but a friend had a line on one and texted me the day before the game to confirm that the ticket was secured, but I would have to collect it in Bordeaux city centre on the day of the game with two others he'd managed to source tickets for. The Ireland fans group You Boys In Green (YBIG) had organised a fleet of coaches from La Rochelle on the day of the game to take the Irish population staying in the town to Bordeaux and back. Which meant more travelling. But nothing could go wrong this time, right? Right?
The coaches were scheduled to leave La Rochelle at 8:30, so I arrived at the car park near the town's aquarium at 8:15 with some other fans already there and no coaches. They did soon arrive, but the organiser wasn't happy. They should have been there at least a half hour earlier, and they were misnumbered. I don't know why this was a problem, but they needed to be renumbered which took longer than expected and we left at nine. I was on coach 10, or coach two if you like. The journey to Bordeaux was uneventful, and we arrived at the stadium shortly before midday. The stadium itself was new and reminded me of the office toy of a board with pins in it, so if you push something through on one side, the imprint of it is on the other side. The stadium is like someone had pushed a cone through that toy, and let some pins fall through.
The first problem of the day hit - the tickets were in the city centre, and I was at the stadium. The other two that were also collecting tickets were also at the stadium, and needed me because I had the address on my phone, whereas the phone they had stored the address on had died overnight, and when I asked why they didn't store it on the other phone, I was told "that's just thinking ahead". Whatever. There's a tram stop at the stadium that takes you into Bordeaux city centre in about twenty minutes. We had been told that the tickets were only available until 1pm and this was midday. At 12:20 we were outside the fanzone and started asking volunteers where the address was. However, none of them knew it. I had resolved not to use my data connection while roaming unless it was an emergency. And this was one. So, data enabled, google maps engaged and the address is about 20 minutes away. And it's 12:40. The clock is ticking. We collected their car that they had left near the fanzone and, guided by Google Maps, we embarked on one manic Italian Job-esque drive through Bordeaux's back streets that included several double backs and missed turn offs, as well as some choice four letter words on my part. We arrived at the collection point at 1:05. Fortunately the lady holding the tickets had sympathy for us and was happy to supply the tickets, despite being late.
With the tickets secured, we headed back to the stadium. At the stadium, we found something strange waiting for us. The coach that brought me to Bordeaux had parked in the coach parking area on the far side of a large car park, which unbeknownst to us was being kept empty. To estimate the size of the car park, it took me a little under 15 minutes to walk from the coach to the stadium. The traffic police directed us into the industrial estate around the stadium, and we parked on a grass verge, along with everyone else. Why was the car park being kept empty?
With tickets at a premium, there were several fans outside the stadium with "need a ticket, please help" signs. Were it not for my friend, and his friend, I would have been among their number.
Before the tournament, I had ordered a custom flag from Flagman Ireland of a tricolour bearing an image of Shane Long with the commentary of his goal against Germany from Marco Hagemann - "Shane Long...BAH!". The flag conformed to UEFA's standards - size, fireproof, etc. Unfortunately this was not acceptable to the security volunteer at the stadium. Despite my protests, the protests of the other fans in the queue, and the fact that I had the same flag in the Stade de France I wasn't permitted to bring it in. So I had to dump my flag in a bin. Another strike against France, and EURO 2016. The tickets were good, great in fact, and I was sitting next to Damien Duff! But I still missed my flag. It was mine, and it was taken from me. I've never liked losing anything, and having this taken from me, without my control was gnawing at him.
You know what happened in the game. Let's skip to after that. I knew it was hopeless, but I started opening some random bins around the stadium in case I might come across my flag again, but found only had bottles and cans. I came across some other Irish fans who had the same problem, and some Belgium fans who were in the same situation as us and were happy to translate with the volunteers, who couldn't help us anyway.
During the next 15 minutes I spent crossing the empty car park again, my thoughts turned to the group games in Poland. Three games, three losses. In France, two games, one draw, one loss. Was I doomed to never experience an Irish tournament win? I was in Bordeaux, which has an airport with flights to Ireland. Should I look for flights back and save myself the pain of the final game against Italy?
Arriving back to the coach, the next travel disaster was waiting for me. The driver's union had mandated that the drivers have nine hours rest between journeys. We had arrived at midday, and the game had ended at 5:50. By the time I'd gotten back to the coach, it was about 6:30. I was looking at more than two hours in an empty car park, along with the other Ireland fans who had filled the ten coaches. Only one was permitted to leave early, so we agreed to let the women and children head back first. With nothing else to do, and two hours to kill, I walked back across the car park to a McDonald's to get something bad for me to eat.
When the coach finally left, a fan from Derry was sitting beside me, and his friends behind us. While that in itself was no problem, the lad sitting behind me was leaning over the seat to talk to his friend, and kept hitting my head with his elbow. I told him to watch his elbows at least twice, before I finally lost my cool, and grabbed his arm and told him in no uncertain terms what would happen the next time he clipped the back of my head. That was an overreaction, and I apologised.
I crossed that car park four times that day. I spent approximately an hour walking across a car park. No wonder I was thinking about leaving.
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