We've all had them, one of those days when not everything goes wrong but pretty close to it. Major things occur during the day that seem like the end of the world, things that could cause your blood pressure to rise and your chest pump with rage, unless like me you can learn to cope with these unexpected occurances that are out of your control.
Okay so that last bit isn't quite true, I am probably the least tolerant and most unable person to cope with the unexpected. If a plane, train or bus is scheduled to leave at a certain time then to my mind there is no reason for it not to do so. How can it be so difficult?
Having had a fantastic week on the island of Madeira we had breakfast in the hotel and checked out after refusing to pay €14.60 for phone calls we hadn't made and found our taxi driver was waiting to take us on the twenty-five minute ride to Funchal airport. His yellow Mercedes was draped in Benfica flags and a minor shrine to the Blessed Virgin on the dashboard. This portly moustache wielding latter day highwayman then set off into the Madeiran rush hour only using his brakes as a last resort. The speed we hit on the busy expressway was now getting serious, the needle hit 150kmh (an unhealthy 95mph) and exiting a tunnel onto a high level viaduct the car suddenly started weaving and snaking at high speed, "senor...SENOR, por favor SLOW DOWN", he did but only for a couple of kilometres, and my next utterance (after much swearing) was "he's got no chance of a tip".
Thankfully the Virgin Mary was looking after us and we got to the airport alive, SuperMario went off to get us a trolley which we didn't need "he's still not getting a tip" and then asked for €32.30. Now then, I'd booked it and the agreed price was €30, I know it's only €2.30 difference but stay with me here, it's the principle of the thing. I did a deal for thirty bucks which is more than enough for what proved to be a ten minute ride, you can hire a cab for half a day for forty euros! So me and this big moustache argued over who was right and when I called a policeman to my assistance he quickly weighed it up, on one hand a taxi driver sporting a giant rug on his top lip and an extremely irate soon to be departing tourist. His response was to ignore the whole incident and walk away, cheers mate thanks a bunch, so in my worst Portuguese I told the driver my thoughts of him and waited for my seventy cents change.
I was in a fit of rage, my girlfriend all the time telling me to forget it and calm down, wise words but I wasn't listening I was so incensed I forgot that he'd nearly killed us. Moving into the airport the next thing I see is our flight is no longer 1115 but 1225, "oh well, lets check in anyway" but oh no, easyjet have other ideas, so an hour later we get checked in and find that the flight is now set to leave at 1300. At last we're going to board the plane but at quarter past two we're on but being told to get off and wait in the lounge in the terminal while a gang of moustachios sort out a technical problem. Oh well, I didn't want to see the Turkey v Germany game anyway.
Needless to say I took this in my stride and calmly left the aircraft for the terminal, I had a great seat too, would I get the legroom I craved when we reboard? if we reboard. Being held in a limbo world between duty free and the aircraft my frayed nerves had to contend with screaming children and those who hold "speedy boarding" tickets. If you want a better class of travel you don't fly easyjet, if you want to get somewhere sunny for £80 return you do fly easyjet and take all the scrummaging that goes with it Those mugs who pay the extra just to get on first so that they can read their Daily Mails by the window, remember this, I always get on pretty early, get the most legroom and don't pay a penny more than when I bought the ticket.
So after cruising up and down Funchals runway to see if the new landing gear circuit board from the local Tandy shop is working the plane finally got away and back to Gatwick, a train journey back to Fratton and rushing over the footbridge to Smiffys Sports Bar on Goldsmith Avenue we ordered beer but they only had Fosters and settled in to watch the rest of Turkey v Germany.
All was not well, no picture which thankfully meant no Motson but the radio was on which meant Alan Green, just how bad could this day get? Soon answered, Germany go 2-1 ahead, pictures return and we see Turkey come back to two each but even as I was cheering the Turks and looking forward to extra time the Germans joined in the conspiracy and scored a third to book their place in the final of 2008s European Championship.
Never mind, I've learnt from the experiences of that day and whatever happens to you in "one of those days", you'll look back and think it wasn't that bad after all, nobody died and remember, there's always someone worse off than yourself, the awful scenes on the news from Zimbabwe reminded me of that.
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Monday, 2 June 2008
The Greatest Day of My Life..........So Far
It's been a couple of weeks since the FA Cup final and I've been enjoying, no, wallowing in the glory. I never thought I'd see Pompey win the cup, especially when the sixth round draw was announced, I was on Beachy Head, not the best place to be when you hear the draw is Manchester United away.
I did say at the time "well thats it then, of all the teams to get drawn against, why not Barnsley or Middlesbrough? **** it".
In fact I said "**** it" a lot that afternoon, I thought about that moment while I was driving up the M3 for the cup final, a smile on my face as I passed the stretch limos and coaches covered in Blue and white flags and scarves, how on earth did Pompey win at Old Trafford? Surely the name on the cup would be Portsmouth, all the luck was with us, last gasp own goal versus Preston, a penalty not given against Ipswich, and just how did Distin stop Carrick from getting the ball over the line? Pompey rode their luck like a surfer on the crest of a wave.
The moment I really felt confident of victory was on the train at Richmond, group of Cardiff fans joined us in the carriage, a lady started chatting to us and in a gorgeous Welsh accent said "how old is that Karnooo? he says he's thirty-two, is that right?". Laughter filled the train then she added "we know we're going to get beat but we'll have a lovely day and it's so nice to see you boys all looking so worried".
That relaxed me and at Willesden Junction meeting my brother and his son who is in the joyous situation of being a Pompey fan for a few years now and at thirteen years old he's yet to see Pompey lose. I became more confident, my first Pompey match I was eleven years of age and got a dismal 2-0 defeat at home to Orient, my nephew has seen wins and draws in the premier league and wins in the semi and the final at Wembley, a lucky mascot indeed. I have grown up watching cup finals and becoming part of it, the night before on ITV we'd watch "Who'll Win The Cup?" chaired by Brian Moore with a few hand picked guests. Then Saturday morning, watching the build-up and jealously seeing fans walking up Wembley Way, that's always something I wanted to do. I refrained at the semi-final, it wouldn't have been right to walk that route unless it was the FA Cup Final. So on the 17th May 2008 I realised an ambition, not much of an ambition you may say, but to me it was something special, a missing piece of a jigsaw. The fans were in awesome voice, the Pompey Chimes rang out loud along that walkway and then the sight I'll never forget, Bobby Moores' statue draped in St George and Pompey flags, his bronze image fervently guarded by Portsmouth fans.
The game went by in a flash, ninety minutes never ticked by so quickly until the final three minutes when the clock seemed to stop, the most vivid memory of the game I have is David James rushing out and clearing the danger in about the third minute of the match. I remember the celebrations and seeing the cup carried aloft by so many Pompey heroes and then Barry Harris found himself alone with the FA Cup, he looked around him for a Pompey player to hand the cup to but he saw no-one near him and to his great credit he milked the moment, in front of the fans, his face was a picture of pure joy. I have to admit and I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear or two when the FA Cup was collected by Sol Campbell, I looked around and many blokes of my age were doing the same. I doubt if winning the FA Cup has meant so much to a group of fans in recent times, it really meant something special.
I met up with an old friend at Wembley station, when we got on the train he looked stunned, stunned but happy but there was something else there too, a lifting of the suffering, we reminisced of journeys to far flung fourth and third division grounds, years of second division campaigns which became like trench warfare, losing the semi final to Liverpool, failing in the play-off semi final against Leicester. An ironic smile at this as we pondered Milan Mandaric and how Pompey prospered and slumped under him, we chatted away while we changed platforms at Willesden, then talked of the evening celebrations, he was heading straight back to Pompey but I was heading to Richmond and a quick sprint down the M3 to Bournemouth, at that point my friend realised he was on the wrong train. His comment "we were making good time too".
Which brings me back to the greatest day of my life, I saw Pompey lift the FA Cup in the afternoon and in the evening saw Paul Weller at his best in the Opera House in Boscombe, I met up with my girlfriend who'd got the train to Bournemouth and having my first cup winning celebration beer in the Opera House bar a couple walked past and I overheard him say to his girl "lets just get champagne eh?" I stopped him and said "are you Pompey?" He was indeed and he was so excited, I thought he was going to burst when I showed him my camera phone pictures of the day. Weller was awesome and really sealed the day for me, a fantastic day and a truly memorable Sunday to follow.
I did say at the time "well thats it then, of all the teams to get drawn against, why not Barnsley or Middlesbrough? **** it".
In fact I said "**** it" a lot that afternoon, I thought about that moment while I was driving up the M3 for the cup final, a smile on my face as I passed the stretch limos and coaches covered in Blue and white flags and scarves, how on earth did Pompey win at Old Trafford? Surely the name on the cup would be Portsmouth, all the luck was with us, last gasp own goal versus Preston, a penalty not given against Ipswich, and just how did Distin stop Carrick from getting the ball over the line? Pompey rode their luck like a surfer on the crest of a wave.
The moment I really felt confident of victory was on the train at Richmond, group of Cardiff fans joined us in the carriage, a lady started chatting to us and in a gorgeous Welsh accent said "how old is that Karnooo? he says he's thirty-two, is that right?". Laughter filled the train then she added "we know we're going to get beat but we'll have a lovely day and it's so nice to see you boys all looking so worried".
That relaxed me and at Willesden Junction meeting my brother and his son who is in the joyous situation of being a Pompey fan for a few years now and at thirteen years old he's yet to see Pompey lose. I became more confident, my first Pompey match I was eleven years of age and got a dismal 2-0 defeat at home to Orient, my nephew has seen wins and draws in the premier league and wins in the semi and the final at Wembley, a lucky mascot indeed. I have grown up watching cup finals and becoming part of it, the night before on ITV we'd watch "Who'll Win The Cup?" chaired by Brian Moore with a few hand picked guests. Then Saturday morning, watching the build-up and jealously seeing fans walking up Wembley Way, that's always something I wanted to do. I refrained at the semi-final, it wouldn't have been right to walk that route unless it was the FA Cup Final. So on the 17th May 2008 I realised an ambition, not much of an ambition you may say, but to me it was something special, a missing piece of a jigsaw. The fans were in awesome voice, the Pompey Chimes rang out loud along that walkway and then the sight I'll never forget, Bobby Moores' statue draped in St George and Pompey flags, his bronze image fervently guarded by Portsmouth fans.
The game went by in a flash, ninety minutes never ticked by so quickly until the final three minutes when the clock seemed to stop, the most vivid memory of the game I have is David James rushing out and clearing the danger in about the third minute of the match. I remember the celebrations and seeing the cup carried aloft by so many Pompey heroes and then Barry Harris found himself alone with the FA Cup, he looked around him for a Pompey player to hand the cup to but he saw no-one near him and to his great credit he milked the moment, in front of the fans, his face was a picture of pure joy. I have to admit and I'm not ashamed to say I shed a tear or two when the FA Cup was collected by Sol Campbell, I looked around and many blokes of my age were doing the same. I doubt if winning the FA Cup has meant so much to a group of fans in recent times, it really meant something special.
I met up with an old friend at Wembley station, when we got on the train he looked stunned, stunned but happy but there was something else there too, a lifting of the suffering, we reminisced of journeys to far flung fourth and third division grounds, years of second division campaigns which became like trench warfare, losing the semi final to Liverpool, failing in the play-off semi final against Leicester. An ironic smile at this as we pondered Milan Mandaric and how Pompey prospered and slumped under him, we chatted away while we changed platforms at Willesden, then talked of the evening celebrations, he was heading straight back to Pompey but I was heading to Richmond and a quick sprint down the M3 to Bournemouth, at that point my friend realised he was on the wrong train. His comment "we were making good time too".
Which brings me back to the greatest day of my life, I saw Pompey lift the FA Cup in the afternoon and in the evening saw Paul Weller at his best in the Opera House in Boscombe, I met up with my girlfriend who'd got the train to Bournemouth and having my first cup winning celebration beer in the Opera House bar a couple walked past and I overheard him say to his girl "lets just get champagne eh?" I stopped him and said "are you Pompey?" He was indeed and he was so excited, I thought he was going to burst when I showed him my camera phone pictures of the day. Weller was awesome and really sealed the day for me, a fantastic day and a truly memorable Sunday to follow.
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