Flip Flops & Ankle Socks – (Un) Official Austria Diary Day 7

Free Beers from Chelsea

Thursday 29th July

After another early rise we headed to our secret location to update the diary but unfortunately it was closed hence me doing 6 and 7 today!!

After finding out that the game against Genclerbirligi Ankara had been put back to a 12.45pm kich off (not for Sky we didnt think!) we headed back into Klagenfurt and found the ground of Klagenfurt KAC. The game had been moved from Bad Kleinkerheim as it was too far to travel for the Turks? (Allegedly) Tarts!!!! There were probably no kebabs there as it is a rural Spa Town!!!

Once inside the ground we decided to take it easy and ordered a beer. This would be the last thing we paid for till 7 that evening! The ground filled up with local characters and we mingled with staff and players of both teams. A Latics pennant was presented to the KAC Club and in return we received 4 red baseball caps which will be on ebay soon! Another pennant was presented to a reprensentative of the Ankara Team who we later found out was the manager Thomas Doll the former West German International footballer who represented them at at least one World Cup.

The game started and as usual the defence was solid but few scoring chances were created. out of nothing Ben Watson had a chance in the first half when he linked up well with Hugo but unfortunately fired over the bar. The Turks came more into the game with passing and movement at the start of the 2nd half, before another chance came to Jordi Gomez when his free kick took a defection off the wall and somehow went for a goal kick. Otherwise it was just a keep ball scenario for both sides and a 0-0 stalemate was the final result. (ALRIGHT GRIFF WE ARE GETTING THERE AS WE HAVE BEEN OUT ON THE PISS FOR A WEEK! 10.35CET 9.35BST!)

During the game things went somewhat downhill when we bumped into local Chelsea fan Gary who plied us with “Free” beers for the duration (and it took some moving). It seemed that every few minutes another bottle was appearing and at one point 3 beers per person were lined up in front of us! We did our best to polish them off (and we did evenutually) and Gary would not accept payment for any of them!! Doesnt free beer taste great??? By the end of the game (2.30) we were quite plastered but the beers kept coming!!

We had plenty of photos taken with local fans of KAC, players of Ankara and players of Latics including Jason Scotland (lets hope he hasnt read day 4 of the diary!!) What thay all thought of us reeking of beer is anyones guess!!

After another of hour of trying to get through our free beers Gary decided to order us all a takeaway meal from a local restaurant of Vina Schitzel and chips which again he would accept no money for!! The drinking and eating continued, Gary disappeared and before long it was 5pm when we left the ground well leathered and crawled gingerly into Wolfgangs car who we had arranged to meet previously. At this point let me say that we had no seen no Turks at all and the attendance had just been one of locals and Latics Fans (4).

We drove to a place we had played before, St Veit an de Glan, in the driving rain but were there quite quickly as Wolfgang knew a short short cut. We headed into the ground for the game between US Palermo and SAC Klagenfurt and made for the bar. However, the drinks did not quite go down so quicky due to earlier indulgencies and it was ony Wolfgang who was supping. We actually saw some goals at this game as US Plaermo ran out 2-1 winners in dreadful conditions.

We were then driven back to Klagenfurt sdtatiomn in even more torrential rain and made our way back to Villach where ony 1 more beer was managed!! We now have 2 days to recover!!

Ripley Latic