OK where to start!
Well I was sent an e-mail by Sutty saying he had a spare ticket the Thursday before the final. Now I had turned down the opportunity of a ticket the week before that as I just didn't feel I could afford to go. I instantly regretted turning it down so now that I had been given a second chance I took it. Now to try to find a flight.... I had remembered reading about a flight in a post by Tanman so I looked into that. I managed to get hold of Andy Thurogood's e-mail address and contacted him. He was superb, got back to me right away and gave me all the info I needed. The trip was being operated by a company called BAC Sports. With a flight departing from Luton at 10am the morning of the game, landing in Istanbul at 3:45pm local time. The return flight was departing Istanbul at 4am and landing back in Luton at 6am. Cost £640! Now that was alot of money but compared to the other flights I looked into that day it was at least £200 cheaper.
I booked it and later that evening drove down and met Sutty to collect the ticket from him. I couldn't let it out of my sight! On the way home I kept checking my pocket just to make sure it was still there! The five days that followed I was on cloud nine. People couldn't believe I was going. Got the usual "why'd you spend all that money to go and watch your team lose" from Mancs and the like but I couldn't care less, I was going to watch my team in the European Cup final! Tuesday night rolled round and I just couldn't sleep despite knowing that I had to get up at 5:30am to make sure I got to Luton in time for my flight! Having got up I then had to decide what shirt to wear. I went with our current home kit as I'd worn the seventies retro one to Cardiff earlier this season and we'd lost. We all have our superstitions and one of mine is having my daughter kiss the badge on my shirt before I head off to a game. Before I left I had to go in and wake her up. She wasn't pleased but she gave me a big hug and kiss and I was on my way.
Got the Thameslink up to Luton and met Tanman (Dave) and his mate (John) at the station. We were in the airport for 7:45am. We all checked in and were in the pub in the departure lounge having our first pint by 8am. The pub was packed with Liverpool fans and it wasn't long before a few songs had rung out. After three or four pints off we go to board our plane only to be told we weren't expected to leave now until 11:30am. On the way back to the pub we decided to splash out and pay to go in the "executive lounge". What a rip-off! £11.50 to get into the lounge and it was sh*te. The only good thing was that you didn't have to queue up for your beer!
Finally got on the plane half-cut and we were in the air. As they ran out of beer on the plane by the time they got to my aisle I had a couple of brandy and cokes only to fall asleep for about 10 mins with one on the tray and wake up having tipped it all over myself! Landed in Istanbul at 5:30pm local time. Got into passport control only to be confronted by huge queues of red. There must have been at least a thousand reds all queuing and singing. Got through and then straight onto a coach at about 6pm for the one and a half hour drive to the Stadium.
A couple of beers each on the coach before we got stuck in a huge traffic jam on the way. The stadium is in the middle of nowhere, with only two roads leading to it, one for the Milan fans and one for us. It was a shambles. In the queues of coaches and buses there were mental boy racer taxis weaving in and out between them with reds hanging out of the windows. There were also hundreds of Turks lining the roads cheering and waving as we drove past. A few of them were out to make a few bob and were selling beers (well over priced but we still bought a load!) to all the thirsty reds on the coaches, Tanman was the main entertainment on our coach though. All his phone calls ending in "Love You" which everyone then took the pi*s out of. He also went up to the front of the bus and sang YNWA over the tannoy! People kept getting off to have a slash as there was no toilet. One or two lads even got left behind only for them to then catch us up further up the road.
Finally we turned this corner and could see the stadium a few miles ahead across what seemed like wasteland. Thousands of Reds had abandoned their taxis and coaches and were striding off down the wasteland to the stadium. Although we felt like joining them we couldn't as we needed to make sure we knew where our coach was parked for after the game. Finally at 8pm we pulled into the car park. There were about 100 other coaches in there. We were then told by the reps that 30 mins after Stevie G lifts the cup to make sure we are back at the coach. As the carpark had no sections we were told to look for a landmark near our coach. A landmark in a huge carpark? Well there was a lamp post near it so that'll have to do. Next thing I'm off on my own walking down this hill towards the stadium. All you could see was a sea of red shirts. Tens of thousands of Liverpool fans in the so called 'fan zone'. That was pure sh*te, completely alcohol free and nothing to do although I was given a couple of cans of Efes by some friendly reds. I then went to try to find a programme only to be told that they were on sale in the stadium.
After finally getting through the turnstiles I got into the stadium and proceeded to try to find a programme seller. In the end I gave up and walked up to the executive boxes where I managed to blag a programme from a security guard! Top bloke! Got into my seat which was 27 rows back just to the left of half way in the West stand. AntM was stood next to me and we were soon joined by Matty, Vic (Swan Red) and the Sutty's.
Anyway lots of singing ensued and we all know what happened during the first 45 mins. I was in a daze. Couldn't believe we had been torn apart like that. I called the officials bent after they ignored Nesta's blatant handball and I found myself repeating it at half-time. I was talking to Matty and AntM and we all pretty much agreed that was it, none of us could see us coming back from 3-0 down against Milan. All the talk was about winning the second half by one or two, regaining some pride etc.... Suddenly we heard 'You'll Never Walk Alone' emanating from the North Stand and it shook all the reds in the Stadium out of our self pity. We all rose and added to the other thousands of voices. It was a great moment.
Second half got underway and when Dudek made the save from Shevchenko's free kick it spurred us on some more. Suddenly Riise had the ball on the left and swung it in for Stevie G to nod a goal back. We celebrated but none of us really thought we were witnessing the start of a miraculous comeback. However when Vladi drove the ball home from the edge of the box 2 minutes later we went mental! Suddenly everyone was roaring. My throat was killing me. We were all bouncing around with a real belief that we were going to find an equaliser. When Stevie G burst into the box everything seemed to slow down.... Suddenly he was on his knees and everyone looked at the ref who pointed to the spot! I had a feeling Alonso was going to miss, not sure why? Maybe it's because I remember how good Dida is/was at saving penalties.... Anyway Alonso turned in the rebound so quickly after the save that I didn't have a chance to feel disappointment. We were flying, bouncing up and down on the plastic seats, people hurling themselves around, it was crazy. I remember just turning and looking at Vic and we both shook our heads, we couldn't believe what we were seeing.
Extra time was all but over with our players completely drained. Milan were all over us and there were a few voices concerned that we had sat back. A chant of "Attack, Attack" went up only for Vic to respond with "Defend, Defend!" The players were too knackered to do anything else though. Then though the moment I was sure we were going to win. If you gave Shevchenko that chance another 100 times he'd probably score it every single time. It was as close to a miracle as I've ever seen. Serginho whipped the ball in and play seemed to go even slower than when Gerrard was brought down.... I saw Shevchenko rise and head the ball down, Dudek flung himself to his right and palmed the ball down. Then I noticed it was falling at the feet of Shevchenko and Tomasson. At the time I wasn't even sure who missed it, all I knew was that it was a certain goal that somehow found it's way onto Dudek's hand and up and over the bar. Me and Matty turned to each other and just hugged. (Not in a Macca type way!) Just out of sheer relief. That was far too close. I thought right then that we'd win although I didn't dare say it for fear of putting the 'mockers' on us.
So then we were faced with the lottery of penalties. The feeling that this was to be our night was reinforced further by Serginho's miss. Suddenly I saw Didi striding forward to take one! To say I wasn't confident is an understatement but Didi proved me wrong. As Pirlo missed me and Matty started jumping around like mad men only for AntM, to turn and say "it's not over yet!" Cissé and Tomasson both scored and when Riise missed (a good penalty and a great feckin save) doubt began to creep back into my mind. Kaka levelled things although we still had our 4th pen to come. I wasn't confident in Vladi either but he did us all proud in what was his final game for us, slotting home to Dida's left. Shevchenko stepped up next and I did not expect him to miss. He had been excellent that night but hit possibly the worst pen I've ever seen live. Dudek palmed it away and the whole stadium went crazy.
We were jumping up and down, everyone was hugging each other and falling about, grown men were in tears everywhere. I've got severe bruises on the back of both of my legs from hitting them off seats as we were jumping about. It was amazing. My voice was gone. I could barely speak. I watched the presentation and I really didn't want to leave. AntM had to get back to the car park as well though so we said our goodbyes and then walked back to try to find our coaches.
Could I find mine? Could I f*ck. The car park now had about 300 coaches in it and about 20,000 Liverpool fans swarming around trying to find their own coaches. I searched for over an hour before giving up and trying to call one of the BAC Sports reps. Not much was going right for me at this stage though. After using my phone to take pics of the presentation I'd only gone and completely run down the battery. I ended up giving a lad £10 to use his mobile. I then legged it up the road to a roundabout and tried to get a taxi. It was now 2am (the game had finished at about 1am local time and I'd searched for my coach for an hour) and my flight was due to leave at 4am. I was beginning to think that I'd be stuck in Istanbul for a few days.
I got into a taxi and asked him to take me to the airport, he wrote down 750 million Turkish lira! I told him to feck off and got out. Suddenly I saw this old yellow Skoda reversing down the road so I ran up to him and managed to persuade this old cabbie to take me. He couldn't speak a word of English so I had to show him my boarding card for him to work out where I wanted to get to. We got stuck in another huge traffic jam but to be fair to him he took me down this dust track and managed to avoid half of it. I got to the airport at 3:45am. It had cost me 120 million Turkish lira (about £55-£60) but I was there. I legged it into departures only to see that our flight was going to be delayed for 3 hours! I could have got a free shuttle bus from the stadium had I known that!
I managed to locate Tanman and Cobs just outside the tent and had another few beers while we waited. The airport was a shambles with Reds kipping all over the floor in the terminal. We weren't even given boarding cards for our return journey. You could have got onto any plane you wanted. Anyway we landed at Luton at 9:30am Thursday morning and after buying pretty much every newspaper I could I was back in the office by 1pm. I was completely knackered as I only managed to get 20 minutes kip in over 42 hours. But feck me it was worth it.
It was magic. Easily the 2nd greatest night of my life (after my daughter being born of course!) Hopefully we'll have many more.
YNWA
Michael - LondonLiverpoolFan
