It’s three weeks since our trip to Istanbul to watch Liverpool play Galatasary in the Champions League. And now it’s time for our second away match, this time against Eintracht Frankfurt who are (obviously) based in Frankfurt.

The last three weeks have not been kind to us from a football perspective with last minute losses against Chelsea and Manchester United. Everyone is keen to get back to winning ways although I’m not sure this will be the match that does it for us.

Following with tradition I booked a cheap flight to Berlin when I discovered how expensive the direct flights to Frankfurt were. In retrospect it would have been a good idea to check how far Frankfurt actually is from Berlin before doing that. Turns out it’s nearly 340 miles : a 4 hour train journey costing the best part of 60€.

It would have probably been cheaper taking the direct flight but it’s done now. I’ve got plenty of time so I’m just going to relax and enjoy the journey across Germany.

This is the first trip where there has just been me and Jamie from our family, although we will also be joined by James and Henry. We met James at PSV Eindhoven last season and Henry is his brother who has only recently turned 18; this is his first away trip. In fact the combined ages of Jamie, James and Henry don’t quite add up to my age! 😂

We will also be meeting Avtar and Neil (Whose combined ages are more than my age thank goodness)

And of course there’s me and there’s Vince who will also be there.

So, as before, Denis is kindly running me to the airport early in the morning and the adventure will begin. I’m hoping we have as much fun as we did in Istanbul but with an improvement on the football front.

Next update from Frankfurt….

This won’t be short!

I’ll start at the very beginning with the one thing that’s absolutely essential for any football match – a ticket. For most of the top teams in England (and probably elsewhere) demand for tickets outstrips supply. As an example, Liverpool have a 20 year waiting list for season tickets and it is now closed to new applicants.

So each team has its own process for selling tickets. But whatever they come up with it is inevitable that some fans are going to be disappointed. For LFC, for European away games, a “credit” system is in operation. For every match you buy a ticket for and attend you get a credit. Tickets for every game are sold first of all to those with the right number of credits from certain previous games. This is determined by the allocation of tickets the club receive. This rewards those who have supported the club in the earlier rounds but makes life difficult for those trying to get on the ladder starting from scratch.

This was the criteria for this galatasary game

Buying a ticket isn’t enough for the match credit. You have to actually go to the match. For European matches Liverpool, like other teams, often ask that you collect the ticket in the location where the game is being played. If you can’t attend you can nominate someone else to go in your place and as long as they collect the ticket and go to the game then you retain the credit. For this game the ticket was being sent electronically but you could still nominate someone else in your place if you couldn’t go.

Anna has full credits but she couldn’t make the game. So we needed to find someone who wanted to go and needed a ticket – otherwise Anna would lose the credit and slip a little bit down the pecking order. I put the word out and we eventually found someone. This was Tahir who lives in Bodrum and is a member of the Turkish OLSC (overseas Liverpool supporters club).

I completed all the relevant paperwork and we were good to go – Tahir had the ticket he wanted and Anna had the credit she needed.

Or so we thought until the day before ticket sales closed when we were informed that the ticket had been returned to Anna because Tahir has a Turkish address! Well this is particularly perverse. All members of the Turkish OLSC, which is officially registered with and recognised by LFC, are likely to have Turkish addresses. And to deny them the opportunity to watch Liverpool when they play in Istanbul because of it is quite an unbelievable stance to take.

So began a flurry of activity from the OLSC, friends, supporters groups and LFC ticket office staff and by the end of the next day, just as ticket sales were closing, the edict was rescinded and, once again, we were good to go and luckily it stayed that way

So eventually we’ve got our tickets and the next step is to get to the ground. The official advice was to meet in Sultanahmet Square at 17.30 to be taken to the ground by bus, in convoy. There was a warning that unless we used these buses we would not be allowed into the ground. Which actually would have been a good thing but we didn’t know that at the time.

The buses got us (about 2500 of us) to the ground for about 19.15. Which sounds ok for a 20.00 KO but we are in Istanbul with a two hour time difference which means KO was actually 22.00. We wondered what we were going to do with ourselves for nearly three hours. But in the event we needn’t have worried.

The turnstiles didn’t open until 20.00 so we were just herded in into a penned area and left to fester for 45 minutes. Once the turnstiles were open it took us nearly an hour to get through and then we were searched THREE times before allowed to our seats. By then it was nearly kick off.

The less said about the game itself the better. But I’ll have a quick whinge anyway.

Liverpool conceded a soft penalty for this after about 10 minutes

Interestingly while that is considered a penalty, this isn’t

And then we played really quite poorly and couldn’t recover.

The home crowd is very passionate and intimidating and an incredibly loud whistling noise is piped through the PA system when the away team have the ball.

After the match we were held back for 60 minutes which wasn’t too bad as we had originally been threatened with 90 minutes. Of course it was 1.00 in the morning by then when we were bussed back from whence we came.

In total of nearly nine hours of queuing and standing about with a short 90 minute break in the middle to watch our team play badly and get beat.

Luckily everyone got back safely – except most of us had a headache brought on by the whistling and dehydration. Lots of us had kebabs and beers and then crashed out…. It was nearly 4.00 and I had a relatively early start for my journey home. Paul and Jamie had a later start so they could have a lie in

One last comment- a big thank you to Tahir and the Turkish OLSC for looking after us and making us so welcome. We hope to see you at Anfield soon.

One of the great pleasures in my life is going abroad to Europe to watch LFC play. We’ve been to lots of major cities and towns and also some smaller more out of the way places. Sion springs to mind

And Maribor

When the draw for the league stage come out (usually about the end of August) we are in effect given locations for some city breaks, focused around a football match. Everyone waits with anticipation to see where we are going to go, and when. Once this is known preparations get underway, starting with travel arrangements. You have to move fast to get decent prices for convenient flights- but the airlines move even faster to put up the fares for the relevant days. Sometimes we even find that the price increases during the booking process! To avoid paying extortionate prices for flights which would normally be cheap as chips, many people take rather convoluted journeys. Once we’ve all arrived there is a little informal competition to see who got there cheapest and who got there via the most ridiculous route.

After travel, accommodation needs to be sorted. This is usually less of a problem and in recent years we have successfully used Airbnb which makes for a more relaxed and social experience than a hotel does.

And finally, tickets for the game need to be sorted. Years ago we were advised not to organise travel or accommodation until we had tickets but that’s not feasible anymore and indeed we have to say where our accommodation is as part of the ticket buying process. Which itself is getting more and more challenging with each passing season.

So, this season we have : Istanbul (Galatasary), Frankfurt, Milan and Marseille.

Istanbul is first, with the game this coming Tuesday evening. In terms of travel, I’ve gone for the convoluted route. Leeds Bradford to Bucharest and then to Istanbul main airport, on the European side. Coming home it’s a flight from the other airport (on the Asian side) to Bratislava and then from there to Leeds Bradford. Four different airlines, one of which is Ryanair, so plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong.

Galatasary have a poor reputation amongst English football fans of all persuasions and indeed the information and instructions we have been given so far don’t fill us with much optimism about the logistics for the match. On the other hand we have made contact with the Istanbul branch of the Overseas Supporters Club and they have what looks like a fun party arranged for us, on the Bosphorus

So, it’s up early for me – Denis gave me a lift to the airport and now the adventure begins. Watch this space ….

We got up to find the hot water working so for the first time we could all have a hot shower! We decided to go to the large market which opens twice a week “Mercator Bisettimanale”. It’s a huge outdoor market but really for the locals rather than tourists

After wandering around aimlessly for a while we remembered that the bus out to the market continued on its journey to San Cataldo which is on the Adriatic Coast. So the plan for the day underwent a brief review and we headed out to the coast, to San Cataldo

It’s a small seaside resort, reaching end of the. season so it was quite quiet. We had a drink overlooking the beach and then lunch at La Casa Blanca.

We all enjoyed the trip out and were back in Lecce city centre by early afternoon. The bus journey back passed by a stadium which I can only assume is where Lecce play.

Having seen the stall selling their souvenirs we had also walked past their club shop yesterday

So it seemed fitting to see the stadium too. I’ll keep a closer eye on their fortunes in Serie A from now on.

Once off the bus we had a short walk through a park (Giardini Piblici Giuseppe Garibaldi) to get back to our Airbnb. Nice water feature although I’m not sure I positioned this selfie well in relation to it

It was still early so we all had a nap, played a few hands of bridge and relaxed before heading off out for dinner.

We chose a traditional Italian restaurant (Er Polpetta) and would thoroughly recommend it

Tomorrow we return to Brindisi for the day before heading home

We had a bit of a slow start as the hot water system had failed again in the Airbnb. It had failed yesterday and they had worked hard to fix it but the same problem happened today.

As we were doing a food and drink walking tour later in the day we had brunch mid-morning. Angela and I then decided to go on the little tourist train around the city- closest thing to a hop-on hop-off open top bus tour we could find

We then relaxed at home for a while before heading out for the guided walking tour which included some food and drink. Our guide was Luciana who spoke fluent French and English. As the other two people on the tour were French and spoke little English Luciana’s language skills came in very handy

We met at one of the old gates to the city, which was being restored. Our guided walk took us back to the square of the Duomo where a wedding just happened to be taking place. What a magical place to get married and, I’m told, only €200!

We moved onto another church (there are A LOT OF churches in Lecce) where another wedding was in progress. I’ve no idea how much it costs to get married here

We ate a load of local pastries up near the Roman amphitheater and then wandered around to the southern gate of the city walls where we filled up on tapas style snacks and some lovely wine.

We then said farewell to Luciana and the two French women and returned to our Airbnb. With great joy we discovered that the hot water had been sorted so it was a hot shower and hair wash for me, just in case it broke again before morning

Although we hadn’t had a proper meal as such, none of us were hungry but we bought a bit of cheese and some nibbles to munch on when playing a few hands of bridge back at base.

Tomorrow is our last day in Lecce. We plan to explore the twice weekly food market and maybe do an underground tour. We shall see