WERE YOU THERE PART 6.....Paris 2006?

[jaymitch81]

2 mates and I did not decide to go until the day before so with no ticket we booked a ferry from Dover to Calais then got the train from Calais to Paris. On the way over it was pure adrenalin and don't remember too much about the journey there. Apart from buying a couple of cases of beer on the ferry and drinking them on the train.
When we arrived at the Garde du nord (if thats what the station was called) we immediately made our way over to the stadium to soak up some atmosphere. Whilst there I bumped into Ryan Smith, who was at Arsenal at the time and tried tapping him up for some tickets. However, he told us that he did not have any, not that i expected him too and that Arsene had bought the youth players over to the game as a 'well done' I then saw Merse so run over to him and jumped on his back like a mad man. By this time i was obviously smashed and embarrasin myself, oh well. We then headed back towards the station trying to find some accommodation but to no joy so hit a pub opposite the station and decided to continue to drink and watch the game there with all the other gooners. I dont really want to talk about the game apart from I never felt more proud standing in the middle of Paris with thousands of gooners watching our boys in a champs lge final. After the game we continued to drink in the street in the piss down rain and eventually slept for a couple of hours on some concrete slabs outside the train station till the morning where we then started to make our journey home as proud gooners.

I must say through the whole time there i did not see many barca fans, Did anyone else notice this or was I just oblivious to them?

[USMartin]

2 mates and I did not decide to go until the day before so with no ticket we booked a ferry from Dover to Calais then got the train from Calais to Paris. On the way over it was pure adrenalin and don't remember too much about the journey there. Apart from buying a couple of cases of beer on the ferry and drinking them on the train.
When we arrived at the Garde du nord (if thats what the station was called) we immediately made our way over to the stadium to soak up some atmosphere. Whilst there I bumped into Ryan Smith, who was at Arsenal at the time and tried tapping him up for some tickets. However, he told us that he did not have any, not that i expected him too and that Arsene had bought the youth players over to the game as a 'well done' I then saw Merse so run over to him and jumped on his back like a mad man. By this time i was obviously smashed and embarrasin myself, oh well. We then headed back towards the station trying to find some accommodation but to no joy so hit a pub opposite the station and decided to continue to drink and watch the game there with all the other gooners. I dont really want to talk about the game apart from I never felt more proud standing in the middle of Paris with thousands of gooners watching our boys in a champs lge final. After the game we continued to drink in the street in the piss down rain and eventually slept for a couple of hours on some concrete slabs outside the train station till the morning where we then started to make our journey home as proud gooners.

I must say through the whole time there i did not see many barca fans, Did anyone else notice this or was I just oblivious to them?

You did the slabs too? I tried a bit but just couldn't get comfortable enough to actually sleep for any length of time. Ended up drinking coke after coke across from the station till it opened. Just as well it was just cokes. Drank an insane number of straight vodka shots into the night.

[QuartzGooner]

The trains out the stadium were magnificent that night. One of the great things about the whole experience.

I got into a carriage, just me and a mate Arsenal, and the rest of carriage was only Barcelona. No trouble though.

Oddest memory was seeing a fan stuck on the turnstile fence above us as we went in, police trying to remove him.

Strongest memory is upset when our best player Pires was subbed.

Humidity was crazy that night too.

[USMartin]

The trains out the stadium were magnificent that night. One of the great things about the whole experience.

I got into a carriage, just me and a mate Arsenal, and the rest of carriage was only Barcelona. No trouble though.

Oddest memory was seeing a fan stuck on the turnstile fence above us as we went in, police trying to remove him.

Strongest memory is upset when our best player Pires was subbed.

Humidity was crazy that night too.

Was quite humid really after the rains.

The Barca supporters were fine really. Only trouble I saw was one seriously upset and piss-drunk Gooner who was just in no mode to seem any sort of clebrations and while nothing kicked off a lot of us were watching very carefully to try and stop it and keep him away from their people. But they were fine really and our supporters were too by and large as well. The banetr pre-matched was very firnedly and post-mtahc they weren't in our faces really that I recall.

We saw that on telly briefly Heard he was pretty badly hurt

[tel]

8 of us went out to Paris with no tickets but trains and hotel rooms booked. We couldn't get Eurostars to Paris and a good job too as we got them to Brussels instead so we were able to neck the 1st stella at 5.30 a.m. We then got a train from Brussels to Paris and got to Paris around lunchtime. We found a bar called L'Arsenal or Cafe Arsenal and this where the bad news came across that touts were charging over a grand for tickets. I had around 450 quid on me and all of us realised it wouldn't happen. We drank plenty and set up camp in the walkabout ( aussie bar) a good 2-3 hrs before kick off.

It was around this time me and another mate decided that we simply had to go to the ground and try to get a ticket. We went down and walked through the throng coming towards us asking people to sell spare tickets before giving up with around 30 mins to go. The feeling coming away from the ground to get on the train was one of the worse I've ever experienced knowing I wouldn't be there.

By the time I got back to the walkabout I couldn't talk to anyone for ages as I was gutted especially when the teams came out. We all know what happened next but most in the pub were proud of the teams efforts despite the enormous handicap of playing with 10 men for so long.

We stayed out till the early hours but the strangest thing was the reaction of the barca fans who were very quiet. If we'd have won I'm sure the city would have been shaking that night as there were clearly 50,000 + gooners out there.