Made a point of waking the house up when I arose at 4 a.m.. I felt really guilty leaving the 'mad red' eldest son in bed, he should have been with me, he should have come, but I gave in to the wife's concerns and the prospect of having the 'wagman' around whilst he bunked off school AGAIN to watch football AGAIN.

At 5 a.m. my brother turned up. He drives a London cab, he had Gravy in the back who was in an amazingly bright and cheerful frame of mind, by his standards ;-).

Off we went, my youngest brother failing to see the irony of an Evertonian taking two reds to the airport to jet off to yet another European Cup Final!!'

Good luck' says bruv, 'you're going to feckin' need it!!

'Perhaps we will', I said, 'but we've got a better chance than your lot yer feckin' bluenose'. Such is sibling rivalry, and not a smile exchanged. It has always been thus with me and the bluenose bruv, fair play to him he really loves that pile of shyte, I think he was dropped on his head when he was a baby.

Kiwi Paul turned up at the queue, he's Gravy's cousin and we immediately hit it off. Within minutes we were ganging up on Gravy, it's great when you find a mutual interest, kinda breaks the ice. We were flying on a jumbo, without doubt the oldest jumbo in the world, but a jumbo nonetheless. All was well with the world, then Sutty gets on, closely followed by the lovely Claire Sutty and then Molby pitches up too with his girlfriend (how do these guys end up with normal 'nice' women ;-)), and off we go on our adventure.

We arrive in Istanbul and walk through the arrivals lounge to 'You'll Never Walk Alone', a nice touch, and we're through customs in a flash and amazingly I have not yet been threatened or insulted as an English pig, in fact the Turks are very close to being welcoming and friendly! Perhaps the Chelsea fans did something to upset them, but they seem alright to me.

We are about to board our coach and there's a delay. Feckin' hell Gravy is giving an interview to Turkish TV. We're the first to arrive apparently, and I can only assume they have Gravy mixed up with Gary Mac or David Speedie, anyway off we go on our journey. Driving through what appears to be just another Mediterranean/holiday type landscape (yes I know it's not the Med, just saying like) we go round the corner there it is, Istanbul, the Bosphorus, the suspension bridges, the mosques - the whole place is amazing, I can't wait!!

Check into The Kalyon where we are greeted warmly and the sign says 9.95 Lira can have a 'Chelsea Knockout Cocktail', the sign is just by the other sign 'Istanpool welcomes Liverbul', the hotel are trying and guess what, no sign of being called Infidel pigs and the Turks are REALLY quite nice people so far.

Checked in, what to do? Whatever but let's not go on the piss on our first day eh?. Approximately 10 minutes later we're later in the pub with the Sutty's and Guilio (Molby) and his 'bitch' (His words not mine) on the piss. The Sutty's and Molby's eventually go sightseeing so we decide to make gesture and go too, off to The Blue Mosque which is simply amazing, and I am not easily amazed, especially when I have to wear a skirt over my shorts as my stumpy little legs could offend the faithful unless covered.

What is also amazing is how I've been conned into buying a book on Istanbul, 7 million postcards and ended up in a Turkish carpet shop and then paying 20 lira to escape!! Fecking hell those Turks can't half give you the old sales pitch but I must say they seem really friendly and welcoming, surely it's a cunning plan to win our trust before they kill us and cut our hearts out?

The next day is shopping in the Bazaar or Bizarre would be more appropriate, we soon find out the only way to avoid the heavy sales pitch is wait for them to clear off for one of their calls to prayer. Gravy and me buy Turkey Football tracksuits, red as you like of course, for the final, when in Rome and all that (Let's hope we have the same result as Rome ehh).

That night it's a 'biggy'. Gravy has arranged to meet up with Gérard Houllier who is here on UEFA business. He invites us to The Conrad which is most definitely in UPTOWN Istanbul.

So off we go trying not to look startstruck. Ged is having dinner can we wait in the bar for a bit? Oh alright then, so we sip our Efes and watch the gravy train that is UEFA in all its glory. Luminaries like Van Basten and Beckenbauer are there surrounded by sycophants in grey suits with Gravy running down their fronts, it was appalling to watch, these tossers run our game, I was waiting for Mandelson to walk in!!

Anyway Gerard arrives. Charming, charming man, as I've said before I took great pleasure in thanking him for Dortmund and proposing a toast on behalf of all Liverpool fans. He bought us a drink and put it on his room number, unfortunately the waiter put all of our drinks consumed whilst waiting an hour for Gerard on the bill as well. Oops. you gotta love those Turks!!

We went into Taksim and despite our best efforts couldn't find the bar in which Will, Wayne, Jonesy, Senrab etc were trying to break Turkish drinking records so we went to bed on the eve of the biggest bestest day for two decades. And BTW the Turks were really starting to impress me now!!

Day of the game, in the square and I've decided already the gameplan is get bollixed and then stop as soon as we leave so as to remember the match. Eventually we end up in the sea of red, it was truly incredible, I caught up with Jonesy, Vlad Junior, Cobs, Will, Big Wayne, Senrab, Matty, Slapnuts, Spike, Stevieboy and few more and then that Geordie tw'@t Slapnuts starts a rendition of 'we all dream of a team of gingerknobs' and I'm suddenly the object of a load of drunken c*nts singing at me with a few more joining in the fun. It was mildly amusing but very childish (barstewards!) and they should show more respect to us elder statesmen;-)

Eventually we run the gauntlet of the taxi race to the Ataturk. If the Turks have been alright so far the cabbie was different gear again, what a star turn this lad was, he rabbited non stop for an hour in Turkish never pausing for breath apart from the occasional burst of f*ck Man Yoo and ring of fire.

Everybody else has described the match, the emotion, the band and the stadium so I won't repeat any of it other than, the sheer added joy of sitting with Alan Kennedy (He was in the seat behind me) capped the perfect day, Barney Rubble is a feckin diamond, I can vouch for him, he is a Liverpool fan now just like us.

We got back to the Kalyon where we were greeted by waiters clapping us in and offering 'Milan Knockout cocktails', I gotta tell you all I REALLY do like the Turks by this point, feckin top punters all of 'em, bibbing their horns and shouting 'Liveerrppoooll!' everywhere we went, I'm going to Marmaris for my next holiday, defo! Bed at 6 a.m I stay awake just long enough to listen to Gravy spewing his heart up, tee hee, before I doze off thinking I'll wake up dreaming Liverpool werte champions of Europe.

We get up and end up back in the bar wondering how to kill the time as the hotel have posted a 3 hour delay. So we went down to our local bar restaurant with the Sutty's, Andy Mac had turned up as have Vic and Matty. Guilio pitches up so we errr, have a drink, be rude not to really.

We were held up at the chaos at the airport but we escaped the really really bad delays and didn't suffer anything like some of the lads flying back to Liverpool so perhaps I'm a bit prejudiced when I say it was the best trip of my life, but it was undoubtedly. I'd like to thank Gravy and Kiwi Paul, The Sutty's, The Molby's , the crew in Taksim, the gang in the pub on the day we flew home, Liverpool FC, all the lads in Taksim and the Turkish people for making it so.