Just a small note by means of an apology for posting this update late.
The hotel that we are staying at, does have a wi-fi connection, but it is temperamental.
The site was loading up earlier on today (Thursday 8th), but by the time I had finished the draft of this post, I could either get no signal, or if I could, the pages were not loading up.
Once again, Liverpool fans have been invited to take part in this year’s Eurofans Tournament, in Lviv, Ukraine.
This year's tournament will take place from 9-11 July.
This event is in its fourth year, and is held to bring together fans of teams from across Europe, to play football and make new friends.
The social side is just as important, as the sport.
In fact, the organisers have made efforts, to put all the teams from each particular group, in the same hotel.
Before we travelled out to last year’s tournament, LFC TV did a feature on us.
Here's the You Tube link to the piece, which was posted on the This is Anfield and RAWK fansites :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsUB-EW7-R4 This year, LFC TV will not be doing a feature on us, as they are moving.
The Echo was not interested, so they’ve missed out.
Last year, and after spending twelve hours trying to cross the Poland-Ukraine border (courtesy of a long road diversion), we eventually arrived tired and hungry in Lviv.
We were meant to play the opening game, but as we were delayed, our first match was postponed.
Our team in this year’s tournament will comprise of fans who regularly contribute to mainly two Liverpool fansites - This is Anfield and Red and White Kop (RAWK).
The players come from diverse places such as Republic of Ireland, Scotland, London, and of course, Liverpool.
One is a Malaysian national, so it really goes to emphasise the world-wide appeal of Liverpool.
His name is Mohamed Hafeez Bin Mehrajudeen – Apiz for short.
Apiz is visiting his friend in Glasgow for a few months, and took the opportunity to do something insane during his lifetime – this trip fits the bill.
He requested to join the fun, just as another of our party had to drop out – which is why Apiz has to wear a shirt with “62 GERRY ATRICK” on the back.
The extra number could prove critical, as we may sustain injuries or suspensions.
However, as Apiz is a Malaysian national, it meant trying to sort out a visa, so that he could enter Ukraine.
For this, Apiz had to travel from Glasgow to London, and complete the necessary paperwork at the Ukrainian Embassy.
Now, you’d think that he could pay his fee at the same office as where he handed his form in.
That would make far too much sense.
Apiz had to deposit the money in the Embassy’s account, and come back with the receipt.
The visa was granted, and Apiz will now have a unique tale to tell and the evidence on this site to prove that it was all real.
This year, the tournament organisers have decided to tie in with two charitable initiatives.
The first is “From European Fans to Lviv Children”, where each team will donate sports equipment, toys, money, etc.
The second is NGO “Karpaty” (the host team) together with “Maltese Aid Service”, will organize fundraising.
The money raised will be spent to buy football kits, balls for children’s football teams of boarding schools / hospitals of Lviv and Lviv region.
We have however, taken the opportunity to make a donation to another charity, which is close to our heart, as Liverpool supporters – the Hillsborough Justice Campaign.
Gerry from the HJC Shop, has kindly allowed us to borrow a banner, for which we made a modest donation.
We will place the banner before us when we line up and sing You’ll Never Walk Alone.
As happened last year, we will have English-speaking guides, who will make sure that we don’t wander into an dodgy area :
Eugene (sorry mate – it had to be done. This ‘photo was taken at last year’s after-Tournament party)
(From left to right) Nazar Banakh and Andy Markovets
(From left to right) Oksana Kit and Olja Kik
They will make sure that we don’t stray into any dodgy areas, and generally put up with us for a few days.
Planning this year’s trip has been a bit of a trial - from trying to get a squad together, to trying to get quotes for coach companies to take us from Krakow to Lviv.
This is how we have planned it:
Tuesday 6th July – Meet up in Liverpool
Wednesday 7th July – Fly from Liverpool to Krakow, Poland.
Watch the Spain v Germany semi-final, and waste a few hours in the bars
Wed 7th July - Thursday 8th July – Meet the Bohemians (Czech Republic team), and travel with them
to Lviv
Friday 9th – Sunday 11th July – Play in tournament
Sunday 11th - Monday 12th July – Travel back to Krakow with Bohemians Team
Monday 12th July – Tuesday 13th July – Have fun in Krakow
Wednesday 14th July – Fly back to Liverpool
After many messages and posts on TIA and RAWK, we have finally got a team:
1. Bhupendra Solanki
2. Adam Hart
3. Ronnie Moffatt
4. Neil Maher
5. Jamie Richards
6. Declan Tanner
7. Ian Pankhurst
8. Stuart Jones
9. Ste Richards
10. Calen Stead
11. Phil Mullaney
12. Simon Ashley
15. Jack Maher
62. Apiz Merjudin
We are in Group B, and have been drawn with Finland Supporters, Wisla Krakow and Bohemians (Czech Republic).
Our fixture list is like this:
Friday July 9th :
Venue : Stadium FC, Pustomyty (just outside Lviv)
10:30
Finland Supporters v Wisla Krakow
11:40 Liverpool v Bohemians
13:00 Bohemians v Finland Supporters
14:10 Wisla Krakow v Liverpool
Saturday July 10th:
10:30 Finland Supporters v Liverpool
12:00 Wisla Krakow v Bohemians
The other teams taking part are supporters are:
Hamburg SV (Germany), Paris Saint-Germain (France), Zenit (Russia), Heerenveen (Holland), Internazionale (Italy), Karpaty (Ukraine), Wales Supporters Team, Ukraine Supporters Team, Sweden Supporters Team, Slovenia Supporters Team, Belgium Supporters Team.
Karpaty are the host team.
During the qualification period, the matches will consist of 2 x 25 minute halves.
In the knock out stages, the matches will be of 2 x 30 minute halves.
This is the tournament format:
16 (sixteen) teams participating in the tournament are divided into four qualifying groups. According to results of group competition, the quarterfinals, semi-finals and a final match will be played to define the winner of the tournament.
The schedule is as follows:
Quarter Final A1-D2 (Q1)
Quarter Final D1-A2 (Q2)
Quarter Final B1-C2 (Q3)
Quarter Final C1-B2 (Q4)
Semi Final Q1 – Q3
Semi Final Q2 – Q4
Final
The majority of us are flying from Liverpool to Krakow, Poland.
3 others are making their own way to Kiev first, then onto Lviv.
We did think about getting the train onto Lviv, but soon settled on the idea of hiring a coach.
Last year we hired cars, but when we got to the Poland / Ukraine border we found that they were not insured for driving in Ukraine.
This year, we will be sharing a coach with the Bohemians.
They will be travelling from Prague, meeting us in Krakow in the early hours tomorrow morning (around midnight), then we will travel together to our hotel in Lviv.
This is because they will not be leaving Prague until around 6pm tomorrow evening, and it’s a 6 hour journey to Krakow.
Krakow to Lviv is then another 5-6 hours.
I’m hoping – well, we all are – that this year’s trip won’t be as surreal as last year’s magical mystery tour.
The main road from Krakow to Lviv was blocked, and we had to go on a massive detour.
We passed this car which had broken down, our sat nav went a bit doolally, and once it had recalculated the route, we actually passed the same broken down car a bit further on.
To top it all, the radio announced that Bubbles had murdered Michael Jackson.
WEDNESDAY 6th JULY
Everyone finally sorted out their currency, online check ins, and packed as much as is physically possible into a space barely big enough to hold a small cat, if you so wished to do such a thing.
Up to this point, the trip had not taken on any surreal or otherwise strange turns.
The weirdness that did ensue, involved Apiz.
As a Malaysian national, the customs and passport control officials deemed it necessary to look into the reasons for Apiz travelling, in more detail.
Our joke was that it was taking so long, because he was having a full body search.
In fact, he liked the experience so much, he has decided to come make the effort to come to next year’s tournament.
THURSDAY 8th JULY
We had eventually determined to travel with the Bohemians on their coach.
They started off in Prague at around 6pm, and met us at our pick up point to the south east of Krakow, at around just after 1am local time.
Our meeting point was a McDonald’s, as it was the only landmark on Google Maps that we both recognised.
We had some music playing, and David greeted us, by wearing an Everton shirt.
Well – someone’s got to wear them, haven’t they?
After an age, waiting for something for other (I don’t know what, which is why I’m being vague about this), we were off to conquer Lviv.
I thought that the bunch that I had come over with could drink.
The Czech team had been on the pop since leaving Prague, and they were all now sober as judges.
If we could have, both teams would have sung songs together for the whole 5-6 hour journey.
I say could, because they seemed to the 2 most miserable drivers on the books of the coach hire company.
Because of the length of the journey, two drivers had been assigned to the job.
But every time that we tried to start a round of songs, the second driver gave us a disapproving stare, followed by a rebuke.
We did manage to sing some songs, though (albeit badly out-of-tune; however, we’d do better than most of the contestants on “Britain’s Got no Talent”):
This did work to our advantage, as we were all then able to use the imposed silence, as an opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
We now just have to negotiate the happy-clappy border guards (for Poland, then Ukraine), and we can start to think about the tournament.
After some more sleep though.
Border controls at the Poland – Ukraine border, promises to always be an unforgettable experience.
Partly because it takes so long, the memory will be etched and will refuse to go away.
Having negotiated the Poland border, we then moved onto the Ukrainian border guards.
This lot make listening to a Leonard Cohen record a joyous thing.
They checked our passports.
This is where the invites we had printed out in Ukrainian came into their own – they saved a lot of explanation.
The guards’ English was non-existent, as was that of our drivers.
Then we moved onto a second checkpoint.
Once we get to Lviv, we will share the same hotel as the Bohemians team.
In fact, teams in a particular group will stay in the same hotel.
We will stay in the Ozerny Kray Hotel :
http://o-k.in.ua/?page=sport&deep=beach&lang=eng As they did last year, the organisers are going to pay for the first two nights.
The hotel itself is about 10km away from Lviv, on the outskirts.
It’s clean and the members of staff are friendly.
We will only pay for the last night, as I’ve mentioned, which is a bargain price of about £9 each (plus breakfast).
A few of the lads took on a team of local lads today, and drew 3-3.
We won on penalties by 3-2.
Ok, it’s not Istanbul, but we are in a far foreign land….
Tonight, we met most of our guides again, apart from Eugene.
And during our evening meal, Apiz acquired a nickname – Momo.
When they played footie earlier, Stu asked Apiz whether he preferred to be called Mohamed or Apiz.
Apiz replied that “Mo” would be fine.
As luck would have it, we once had a defensive midfielder called Mohammed Sissoko – aka Momo.
Tomorrow, we play our first two matches, and we hope to post full videos of our efforts, for your enjoyment (or amusement).
But tonight, we are on the town……
