Class Pre-Season memories

I was in Breda (and Arnhem) and we were in some bar, no idea if it was Irish or not, met a few Breda lads in there and they wanted a photo of themselves with my flag. Cracking few days basing ourselves in Amsterdam. Seem to recall about 10,000 Celtic fans there as they were playing Ajax in Champs League qualifier (1 got shot outside of Hooters).
I was there too.
On Friday afternoon we were sitting outside, sunning ourselves and slurping a few beers at a cafe/bar right next to the church at Breda, when the sky suddenly turned black and the loudest crack of thunder I've ever heard, nearly made me jump out of my boots.
The thunder was followed by a streak of forked lightning, which hit the church steeple, and ran all the way down the front of the church, and onto and along the pavement below.
A monsoon of biblical proportions then followed the thunder & lightning, as everybody scattered and ran for cover.
Like I say my memory is sketchy. I just remember Hawley and big Sam scoring though. Diving header one of them I think at the roker end.
Was absolutely mental before the game.
A massive brawl took place between both sets of fans, just across the road from the Fort pub.
For some reason, many of the visiting Mags doing battle, were wearing kilts.

Inside the ground, a lad stood just along from me in the Roker, lost an eye, when he was hit by a flying big seat, hoyed from the Mags section.
 
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I was there too.
On Friday afternoon we were sitting outside, sunning ourselves and slurping a few beers at a cafe/bar right next to the church at Breda, when the sky suddenly turned black and the loudest crack of thunder I've ever heard, nearly made me jump out of my boots.
The thunder was followed by a streak of forked lightning, which hit the church steeple, and ran all the way down the front of the church, and onto and along the pavement below.
A monsoon of biblical proportions then followed the thunder & lightning, as everybody scattered and ran for cover.
I don't remember the thunder, still pissed from drinking till 4 am with two Celtic lads who had made a fortune in hauling dead cows in the mad cow outbreak.
 
Denmark pre-season 1999, several car loads staying at a great holiday camp. Games against Odense and Vejle BoldKlub, we'd just signed Fireguard and the warning signs with attitude were there at his old club. One of the Danish national papers picked up that there were 'fanatics' about and did a double page spread with a big pic of us with our red and white striped viking helmets on. Gary SAFC Lamb was one of the organisers along with folk from Shields. We took the ferry over with three cars IIRC and drove up to Denmark. Was a fantastic holiday and a lot of interaction with key players in the club house of both games, including Super Kev, Quinny, Kevin ball, and Alex Rae. Given the season that followed, its a long long way from where we are now.
 
Celtic. 2012. Mate (Celtic season ticket holder) sorted us out with a brilliant corporate do. Won 2-0 and convinced me that we were heading for European domination :lol:

A fantastic day - the match was followed by a Glasgow pub crawl and a curry. All a bit of an upgrade from my previous Scotland pre-season jaunt - ie Falkirk in 1992.

Atmosphere at Celtic was great, I remember being surprised it was such a big crowd and yeah, the The Hummel Cup was a bit of a non-event and IIRC it was shared!! Travelled from Aberdeen to Kilmarnock for one early 90's I think , it was poor. Once in Edinburgh I remember the Hearts game in the torrential rain years later, Bovril overflowing faster than I could drink it. Unless I'm mixing years, he rain must have stopped, hundreds hit Rose Street afterwards in sunshine, but the bars would only let us in if we reversed our tops - bizarre wearing pink and white tops, but we were too busy partying!!
 
Denmark pre-season 1999, several car loads staying at a great holiday camp. Games against Odense and Vejle BoldKlub, we'd just signed Fireguard and the warning signs with attitude were there at his old club. One of the Danish national papers picked up that there were 'fanatics' about and did a double page spread with a big pic of us with our red and white striped viking helmets on. Gary SAFC Lamb was one of the organisers along with folk from Shields. We took the ferry over with three cars IIRC and drove up to Denmark. Was a fantastic holiday and a lot of interaction with key players in the club house of both games, including Super Kev, Quinny, Kevin ball, and Alex Rae. Given the season that followed, its a long long way from where we are now.

I was at two of the three pre-season matches that year, the two you mentioned. I have very fond memories of waiting outside the small club house at the match played at Nyborg with my camera to take pictures of them all. Quinny was the first player to come out swiftly followed by Peter Reid and the rest of the lads. I politely asked if I could take a picture of him but to my shame I called him 'Nigel' and Reidy laughed his head off. I didn't notice my mistake till after I had taken lots of snaps of them all and Reidy, still laughing, said something along the lines of 'Come on, Nigel, time to go'. They all took it in great spirit, which made my embarrassment a little less. We lost the match two-nil if my memory doesn't fail me and it was the day before my dreaded birthday. But sadly and most annoying, in the car driving back home to Varde I noticed I had made a total mess with the camera and had ended up successfully taking zero pictures in the end. 😭
@alexander I’m sure that you travelled to watch a pre-season match in Denmark.

Even though you’re Dutch, etc.

The second time they came over for pre-season and played FC Midtjylland I met up with a bunch of lads from the board at the airport. I knew they had been drinking since they left the airport in Scotland but figured they fancied a few more cans on their arrival at Billund. So I packed some cans and some sweeties and waited for them at Arrival. With a piece of paper with 'PISSHEADS' written on it. It was good to see them come over and to meet them as well. I then got them on the right bus to Vejle where they were staying and later met up with them at the match in Herning, too. If am not mistaken something happened at Vejle and one of the lads from here had a brief visit to the local hospital. Might have been alcohol involved. 😄 I was not well at the time and the journey both to the airport here and to Herning the next day took a lot out of me. But it was a fine couple of days.

I captured some of the match and of the lads off here singing their hearts out. I still have the clip somewhere. Might upload it to Youtube at some point if I can figure out how to do so from my Google account.
There. Sorry for the dodgy quality.

 
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I was at two of the three pre-season matches that year, the two you mentioned. I have very fond memories of waiting outside the small club house at the match played at Nyborg with my camera to take pictures of them all. Quinny was the first player to come out swiftly followed by Peter Reid and the rest of the lads. I politely asked if I could take a picture of him but to my shame I called him 'Nigel' and Reidy laughed his head off. I didn't notice my mistake till after I had taken lots of snaps of them all and Reidy, still laughing, said something along the lines of 'Come on, Nigel, time to go'. They all took it in great spirit, which made my embarrassment a little less. We lost the match two-nil if my memory doesn't fail me and it was the day before my dreaded birthday. But sadly and most annoying, in the car driving back home to Varde I noticed I had made a total mess with the camera and had ended up successfully taking zero pictures in the end. 😭


The second time they came over for pre-season and played FC Midtjylland I met up with a bunch of lads from the board at the airport. I knew they had been drinking since they left the airport in Scotland but figured they fancied a few more cans on their arrival at Billund. So I packed some cans and some sweeties and waited for them at Arrival. With a piece of paper with 'PISSHEADS' written on it. It was good to see them come over and to meet them as well. I then got them on the right bus to Vejle where they were staying and later met up with them at the match in Herning, too. If am not mistaken something happened at Vejle and one of the lads from here had a brief visit to the local hospital. Might have been alcohol involved. 😄 I was not well at the time and the journey both to the airport here and to Herning the next day took a lot out of me. But it was a fine couple of days.

I captured some of the match and of the lads off here singing their hearts out. I still have the clip somewhere. Might upload it to Youtube at some point if I can figure out how to do so from my Google account.
There. Sorry for the dodgy quality.

Can you remember any of the posters from here?
 
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You’re a star ⭐

:lol: Hardly. The upload turned out to be easy enough. I should probably have put in a lil' warning, too for the sometimes bad language in the songs the lads sing.

They also sang a song to a local lass they met before kick-off. She was sitting with a friend near us. In the clip she seems to do the heart hand sign thingie so she must have liked their song. :lol:
Can you remember any of the posters from here?

Yes, Lauder was one of them. The others were his good mates. All good folk.
 
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:lol: Hardly. The upload turned out to be easy enough. I should probably have put in a lil' warning, too for the sometimes bad language in the songs the lads sing.

They also sang a song to a local lass they met before kick-off. She was sitting with a friend near us. In the clip she seems to do the heart hand sign thingie so she must have liked their song. :lol:


Yes, Lauder was one of them. The others were his good mates. All good folk.
I’m going to watch the video when everyone’s in bed!
 
Any of the friendlies at Shielfield, Berwick Rangers. Quick journey up on the train with a day in Berwick on the booze pre-match. Hanover friendly for me was 4-day trip to Dusseldorf in cracking weather, beer festival next door to Hanover's ground pre-match. Halifax Town away when George Mulhall was their gaffer was a nice trip. Lovely evening, picturesque ground, canny boozer and Huddersfield Town fans looking for bovver 😂.
 
When we were Premier League and would go off around Europe and Asia on pre-season tours, I always had the itch to get watching football and specifically, the lads again over the summer months so I watched a few friendlies involving the reserves/youth side.

Went to Histon midweek when MON had us, he was there and Bally took the team for the night. Think we won 3-1. Dragged a mate along with me, left work at like 2 and made our way. Some nice little pubs in Histon actually. We got the train back into Cambridge after the match and it descended into carnage and I woke up on the sofa of some random woman that my mate sort of knew, who we’d bumped into. Had to get back from Cambridge to London for work the following day in the t-shirt and shorts I had on, wait for the shops to open on Oxford Street to buy clothes fit for an office and then go to work still drunk and on a couple of hours sleep. Went to the toilet in the basement of the office where the files were kept in the morning and woke up five hours later, nobody had realised I wasn’t at my desk or working.

Went to Boston to watch the youngsters around that period. It was absolutely baking that day, Danny Graham played and I had a good day out.

Also went to Partick Thistle in 2014. Flew up to Glasgow for £20 return and managed to get a Premier Inn for peanuts and watched Rangers v Hibs in a cup competition on the Tuesday night then our youngsters losing to Thistle on the Wednesday.
 
I remember we played Newcastle in the 1980s and if I recall we came from a goal down to win 2-1. John Hawley and big Sam the goal scorers.
No, they equalised.
Absolute bedlam that day esp considering crowd 11000 and 1000 mags
berwick 1981 on the train , getting firebombed on way back for extra kudos.
We did the Hearts/Hibs but cudnt do Dundee and Berwick as had wisdom teeth op.
Crackin sunny weekend. Four of us inc JB, camped at Dalkeith.
berwick 1981 on the train , getting firebombed on way back for extra kudos.
We did the Hearts/Hibs but cudnt do Dundee and Berwick as had wisdom teeth op.
Crackin sunny weekend. Four of us inc JB, camped at Dalkeith.
The Quo, my band, must have seen them 60 times ffs
First band ever saw live - 1976 City Hall, Blue for you tour👍
 
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