A review of Bangor's trip to Sartid
Bangor in Europe
By Webmaster/Rheolwr y Wefan
October 23 2002
Bangor City fan 'Livzy' describes his trip to Sartid last month, in the 'Citizen's quest for European glory.
City
Go Yugo!
I
guess most people would think that a trip to Belgrade should really use the
airport in Belgrade rather than one 827 km’s away but I’m not most people
(and neither were the other nine who did the same trip!) besides which, the
birds in Budapest are the fittest I’ve ever seen!
How
high our expectations were after Robbo’s magical finish and Elvis’ heroic
‘keeping. Spirit of ’62 – no way, bud! Bring on the Spirit of ’02 !! 90
minutes away from writing a new chapter in Bangor’s history. 90 minutes away
from a “never been done before” event. 90 minutes away from 14 lads in Blue
shirts (or red as it turned out) becoming new City legends.
Our
week away started off brightly enough on the 07.00 flight from Manchester to
Munich. We were joined by Sir Dr David “Gwubbling awound in the undergwowff”
Bellamy.
A fantastic photo opportunity was collectively bottled – imagine it now –
Sir Dave holding aloft a City shirt with the caption “Fuck Newcastle –
Bellamy signs for Bangor” Would’ve been class!
A
few days spent drinking in Budapest and ogling fit birds had two more
“highlights” – firstly Pruney bumping into Alan Fflaps of Cob Records and
secondly thinking about letting the tyres down on a Caelloi coach full of Old
Cofis (probably – well perhaps not, but worth taking the chance anyway)
culminating in an eight hour, 827 km train journey over two international
borders to Belgrade.
At the border blokes with guns asked us to get off the train and go to the
police station to obtain overpriced tourist visas. They had guns. We got off. We paid! (Dyl twice as he also got
done for a €10 fine after getting
busted with his feet up on the seats!)
On
to Smederevo in a cab old enough to Gwyn Pierce Owen’s dad’s first car
driven by Ralf Schumacher on speed. Now I know why the Pope kisses the ground
every time he arrives in a new place!
We arrived at the Banes Bar and basically took over. By now we were 23 strong
and soon were 30. Not a bad effort for a part-time club from North Wales.
Certainly when you consider Dundee Utd only managed 8! (And most LoW clubs
don’t even manage 20 to an away game within the same country!)
Enter Dugan a Sartid fan who, along with a couple of the other hardy souls who
had made it to Wrexham, whisked us away to god knows where, where we proceeded
to swap shirts drink, sing, drink, smoke, drink and drink before being escorted
to FC Sartid’s ground accompanied by full Gypsy band!
The
match itself was a fairly tight affair and had it not been for a couple of soft
goals we would’ve been in the UEFA Cup First round playing against Ipswich.
To be fair, we battered them in the last 15 minutes or so but just couldn’t
get the ball in the net.
Gutted we were, gutted. But not as gutted as big Huw Griffiths who, when he got
to the Sports Bar, looked pretty close to tears.
I tell you what, there’s no one gonna beat us this season with the strength of
character, passion and skill that this current Bangor City team has.
Davs is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best manager I’ve ever seen at
Ffordd Farrar – in fact, make that the whole League of Wales.
Do me a favour, lads, get me to Europe again next season and we’ll bloody win!
C’monnnnnnnnn !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Livzy
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