The trip to Metz
(August 24th 1999)

What a great day it proved to be - call it historic and you are not far from the truth...

We arrived in Metz at about 12.30 pm on August 24th. It was a beautiful warm and sultry day and it is always great to wear short sleeves when going to a football match. First of all we decided to make the hotel reservation for the night, parked the car and got ourselves the first drink of day (Amstel beer) sitting in front of our hotel (Le Grande Nationale has a Bistro/Bar therefore we didn't even have to move!). There were quite a few Hammers fans there already. Most of the guys I know arrived at 15.41 CEST from Paris Gare de l'Est. When they arrived the atmosphere certainly improved - meaning suddenly there were songs in the air (bubbles rather).

We walked towards the city centre and got us a few seats outside a corner bar where we had one or two beers and a couple of French girls were chatted up (or so it sounded). They didn't seem too comfortable in our presence but how were they supposed to know that we were in fact a bunch of charming lads with just a somewhat odd appearence. I am not sure if it helped that we were singing aloud as well...

Some of the guys decided it was time to get something to eat and we went further into Metz City-Centre -  to the Place St. Jacques where there were already about 2,000 fellow Hammers supporters gathered. We applauded every attractive woman walking by - and there were quite a few, believe me! ;-) 

My mate Colin Archer (who I sadly didn't meet) has a few pictures on his web-site: http://website.lineone.net/~ccarcher/metz.htm

Quite pissed we walked towards the ground at about 18.30 and arrived there a few minutes past seven. My friend Sylvia waited outside because she had another ticket for my German friend Juergen who had accompanied me... Sadly Juergen had his camera taken off him by the French police so we don't have any pics from inside the ground :-(

You will know everything about the match itself, of course. The aggrevation inside the ground was minor although one guy standing behind me lost two front-teeth (artificial ones at that) during the process of celebrating the first goal. You know what it's like if you ever stood on the old South Bank ;-)

Metz itself is a beautiful town and really clean and tidy. I must say I was quite impressed by what I've seen of France (state of the Motorway and the streets in general) ! It really was a perfect day, great town, pretty women, superb weather and I also did something to improve relationship as a French lady and her little three year-old grandson chatted us up and Juergen (who speaks French alright) and me took care of talking to them both (with me having the little boy's hand in my palm and posing for him to make some pics of me - really nice ... :-) 

Good job our "hooligan elemant" kept in the background and, whatever you make of the French, I guess they were impressed by our singing and humourous attitude towards things as well as our generally impeccable behaviour. What a shame you couldn't be there - or were you?

We didn't go back to Place St. Jacques because we weren't sure if the hotel reception would be open all night and I didn't want to sleep in the main-station ;-) Apart from that I hadn't eaten and had to get something in my stomach so we went back to our hotel (just opposite Metz station) and had a belated dinner and another beer which really gave me the rest ;-) and a big headache in the morning. I think we went to bed at about 12.30 am and I was still trying to come to terms with what had happened... it took some time to sink in!

As my mate Mark Wilson put it: "... we all went back (to the Place St. Jacques) and drank champagne and beer until 2.30am !, it was quite surreal really, nobody knew how to celebrate a quality victory, it was very quiet."

Perhaps we should try and learn how to celebrate because I don't think I am the only one who can see exciting times for this great club of ours just around the corner. Thank you very much, Harry, for a job well done - who would have thought that a few years ago when we were trying to reach the Premier League?

I don't think I'll be travelling to Croatia because it is a bit far to my liking and I am not a big friend of anything Yugoslav anyway. Let's hope we overcome Osijek and play somewhere closer by in the next round. Another French club or Kaiserslautern would do nicely for me...