Just down loaded me train ticket for Friday " Meal served at your table''' # EuropeanFootballRoyalty...and time to recall our last visit to Gay Paree in '81.
I was Twenty years old on a years training working in Bold Street for a firm of surveyors.....been to all games but didn't have a season ticket...been on list for years...done me head in as mates did have them... had put feelers out for EC Final tickets but with two weeks to go ..nothing...then phone rings and its me mate Dave saying he had got me a ticket....was buzzing dancing around office, so about hour later phone rings and its me Dad and he says a letters come and I've got my ticket...I said I know Dave phoned me ..oh me Dad says but how did he know, confused conversation ensues so I say hold on letter?...what does it say so he reads out.... "Liverpool Football club are pleased to advise your application for a season ticket has been approved please find enclosed an invoice"..
Fucking ecstatic ST and EC final ticket within the hour.
Travelled with work mate via Train and boat long arduous journey over night...these are the days before mass Tourism so still a bit of uncertainty of what to do or where to go....
On train down to Paris some pissed knob head read kicked off on old women...so me and mate grabbed him pinned him down, few smacks and dragged him away...next thing train stops loads of Gendarmes jump on ( been trouble elsewhere on train) Bizzies go to grab me and the mate but these two girls jump up and explain were the good guys...loads of Reds dragged off but we stayed on ...got talking to the two girls..English...and they where fit...Thought were in here,...as we got off I helped carry ones heavy suitcase....next thing she runs down platform and jumps into arms of boyfriend. I walk..drop case by them and carry on walking
We teamed up with two lads looking for hotel and we had a name ..on Boulevard louis Pasteur a dump a room , two doubles. One pound fifty a night...but fuck it it done us..
We explored Paris and was in awe....beautiful city...one night we found this Bistro by our Hotel...like something out a film...wine, great cheap food, people discussing Jena Paul Sartre and existentialism...we discussed footy.
All the mates arrived. Then on day of game, the first beer at 10am..and we carried on...Pigalle for more beer then to Parc d'Prince....me and mate necked a bottle of wine each,...Christ! the folly of youth.....so into ground... the game...cant recall much except we had three quarters of ground....at half time me and mate fell asleep , bloke behind us had to wake us up "European Cup final on here lads'"....then Barney and we win....joy!
On way out I recall saying, this is it, I cannot expect anything more from Liverpool
Three European Cups..the stuff of dreams...
We headed back to Pigalle and carried on drinking till metros back on at 8am ....some weird blurry memories.....at one point we lost me mate...when I got back to hotel there he was undoing his shoe...fast asleep...he had got lost and bascially walked across Paris...and had been asleep like that for hours.
We had another night in Paris...had me first ever Mc Donalds on the Champs-Élysées ...think at the time there was a couple in London not elsewhere in Uk...it was so fuckign cool to be eating one,....crikey how times change..
There's more anecdotes but bored typing now....we headed back to Liverpool a long tiring trip...but with another Euroepan Cup....I hope history repeats itself..but this time Im travelling in a bit of class.
Hope some of the older lads ( Edit: and Lasses
) here can add their memories and tales...