By the time we had landed, got our bags, bought train tickets, lost Andy at a ticket machine, found him, lost Phil looking for food, caught a train from Schipol to Amsterdam Central, checked in to our hotel, its was nearly midnight!!
We headed into the red light dist.......ermmm towards the local bars and settled down for the first of many large Heineken beers. There were loads of large groups of lads about (a mob of about 60 Tottenham kept wandering around) and the Police closed all bars at 1am. Nightmare! Even our Hotel bar was shut.
We wandered away from Dam square but even the bars in quiet side streets were closed. We bumped into Melv and 3 other Brighton lads, one of whom ended up in Hospital after smoking something dodgy, he was released a few hours later once his heart rate had slowed to normal!
Wednesday, match day. Early morning we met Haywards Heath Snips at Central Station and bumped into Ben and his old man (Ben was wearing an Albion shirt with an orange T-shirt underneath!!). We met up with Gypo and Posty Darren and their families, then Stuart Adams, his son Alistair and a couple of other A21 rabble.
We ended up near Dam square again and soon settled in a cracking bar. We met up with Bernie also from Brighton so by now there were about 15 Brighton fans in the bar. Top stuff! We headed to the ground about 7pm and were soon in the Amsterdam Arena and its rather steep seating in the upper tier.
The crowd looked about 30,000 to me (capacity 54,000) and that included about 10,000 England supporters. I won't comment on the match as I guess most people saw it. It was a cracking goal by Vassel, has he done enough to get a World Cup place? Kevin Phillips looks unlikely to go IMHO.
We left the ground and eventually caught a train back to Central Amsterdam. This time the hotel bar was open until the last person left. What time was that Fatty Taxman?
Thursday was a struggle, but by 3pm everyone had surfaced. Some headed home but a few of us remained and sampled the delights of the Amsterdam views and bars.
The old bloke we saw disappear into one establishment still hadn't left when we moved on from our bar about 30 minutes later. He must have been rich!!! We were all struggling late on but Phil remained the person who lasted the longest, even, no I will leave it there!!!!!
Friday we went on the Heineken brewery tour which at 5 Euro's was good value, as it includes 3 beers and a glass at the end. The rest of the day involved relaxing again, good food and another late night despite our early flight the next day.
Saturday and a 7.45 flight from Schipol to make sure we could get back to Brighton nice and early for our game against Huddersfield. I fell asleep once we took off and as I woke up we where just about to land at Luton on time.
Suddenly the plane powered up, we sped up and went from a nice slow decent to a steep climb. Apparently the fog had reduced visibility below the legal minimum. We were diverted to Stansted, but had to sit in the plane and about an hour later the fog cleared at Luton so we returned to Luton and landed about 2 hours late.
We arrived in the Duke of Wellington about 12.30 and were all feeling slightly tired by now. As for the Albion match I thought that we deserved the win against a good physical Huddersfield team. Lewis looked good again, and always makes time for himself.
Brooker had an excellent match, passing, tackling and causing them loads of problems. The goal was created by Brooker who crossed in and Lewis nodded it over the advancing keeper with a great header.
So 2 points behind leaders Reading with a game in hand and 6 above Bristol City in 3rd spot.
Mark R