(Ground
number 288)
Date of
First Visit: 27th July 2012
Estadio
Algarve, Faro, Portugal
Olympiakos 1
Newcastle
United 1 (Steven Taylor)
Drew 4-4
on penalties!?
Algarve
Cup
Attendance:
500 to 4,000 (take your pick!) (400 Toon fans) (7 Olympiakos fans!)
“FAR(O)!
FAR(O)! AWAY!”
 |
| "FOR HE'S A 'BROLLY' GOOD FELLOW!" |
A non
descript match against the ‘appropriately’ named Olymiakos <(az this waz the
same neet az the openin’ ceremony of the Olympic Games in London!)<(thank god
we missed that!) ended aall square afta a penalty shoot out in front of barely
1,000 spectators in this 30,000 capacity stadium which waz in the middle of ne
where and EIGHT miles from Faro where we were stayin’ and where the ground waz
'supposed' to be! (It waz aalso used for European championships)
 |
| 15 MINUTES BEFORE KICK OFF! "IZ THERE ANYBODY THERE!?" |
Before
the match at the tornstiles, aall bags were searched and the security gadgie on
the gate tried to confiscate ‘Sarnie Steve’s Morrisons carrier bag full of sarnies
and he waz forced to eat them ootside the ground before they would let him in!
It waz a
sun drenched day and The Toon had a followin’ of aroond aboot 400, many of whom
were holidaymakers who just happened to be in The Algarve for their summer
break!
In
complete contrast aa counted a total of SEVEN Olympiakos fans just alang from
us!
Like aa
say, the game waz non descript with Steven Taylor scorin’ wor anly goal in open
play when hiz deflected shot from the edge of the box beat Roy Carrol in the
Greeks goal
The anly
otha ‘highlight’? of the game came when Modesto waz ‘red carded’ in the 73rd
minute for a bad tackle on Amalfitano and they were reduced to ten men!
This
seemed to fire them up however and (inevitably!) just five minutes later
Olympiakos equalised through Mitroglu who wellied home from 20 yards oot!
A
penalty shoot out waz then the order of the day (just when we wanted to gan for
a ‘gargel’!) and when Cisse stepped up to take wor forst one, he inexplicably
blasted hiz shot ower the bar into the 5,000 empty seats behind that goal!
However!
That waz wor anly miss oot of five and with Olympiakos aalso missin’ one, it
ended ‘fowers each’ and a stalemate! (the forst time a’v ever seen a draw in a
penalty shoot out!?)
My original
guess of a crowd of aroond 4,000 waz wildly ridiculed by the rest of the ‘mad-saddos’,
who accused me of havin’ too much to drink! (Whey!---we had been drinkin’ aall
day!---like!) and their estimate waz under a thoosand!
It waz
then a hectic drive back to Faro in a taxi driven by a woman who thought she
waz Lewis Hamilton az she took the hairpin bends at 90mph! (The ‘Caped Crusader’
reckons it waz 92.5!) and she went through at least fower traffic lights ‘on
red’!---but we did get back to Faro for ‘midneet bells’ in ‘one piece’ for a
few ‘liquids’, before heedin’ back to the Hotel Santa Maria for some much
needed ‘kip’! “ZZZZZzzzzz!!!!!”
DAY TWO***Estadio
Algarve!---again!
Dateline: 28th July 2012
Sporting
Braga 1
Newcastle
United 2 (Ba, Ryan Taylor)
Attendance: 500 (400 Toon fans) (40 or so Braga fans) (2 Blackborn fans?) (plus a few locals!)
“RYAN
TAYLOR OWER THE WAALL!”
 |
| "RYAN TAYLOR GOAL!" |
Again it
waz back to The Algarve ‘in the middle of newhere stadium’ for the last game of
the tournament, where ‘Sarnie Steve’ had made contingency plans and had hiz
doorstep sarnie clutched firmly in hiz teeth az we got searched once again az
we entered the stadium!< (“gottle of gear” style!)
The
security gadgie just looked at him dumbfounded az Steve waalked past, (‘sarnie
in gob style’!)
(On the
mornin’ of the game aa suggested that he hid hiz sarnies under hiz beanie hat
to get in, but! the carrier bag waz too big and he had to abandon this method
of smugglin’ hiz scran in!)
Anyway!---Enough
of that!---There were aboot the same number of spectators in the stands az the
day before and included at least two from Blackborn Rovers!?
AND!---just
like the forst game the previous day!) the openin’ 45 minutes waz ‘one to
forget’ az well, az the half petered oot in front of the 29,000 empty seats!
It
livened up in the 2nd half, however! When ‘Marveaux the Magician’
waz upended in the box, resultin’ in a spot kick in the 63rd minute,
which Demba ba took. But he put hiz shot to the right of the keeper who parried
the baall oot back to Ba’s feet and he sidefooted it into the back of the Braga
net to put us in front!
The ‘inevitable’
equaliser came just 3 minutes later when a shot from Amorim caught Coloccini’s leg
and the baall went past the stranded Steve Harper in The Toon goal!
Then! Just
az though we were lookin’ likely to endure a penalty shoot out for the 2nd
game and day in a row, up stepped wor ‘ower the waall’ specialist Ryan Taylor,
to send hiz free kick from 25 yards oot (“er!”) ‘ower the waall’ into the back
of the net in the 73rd minute to send the 400 ‘sun kissed saddos’
wild with delight!
Anothaa ‘cup’
waz in the cabinet? (to add to the one we won in Deportivo a while back!) and ‘Captain
Coloccini’ held the glitterin’ trophy aloft for aall to see!
It
actually looked like a very smaall umbrella, but waz in fact supposed to be ‘modelled’
on a local bridge! and so it waz ‘indeed’ a ‘brolly good’ show<(sic!) from
the ‘black n whites’ az we heeded back to Faro centre to celebrate wor famous? victory!
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