Early 80s away games – Vienna 1982.

After the euphoria of Spain ’82 the next qualifying was soon upon us however with a group of Austria, West Germany (the wall was still intact), Albania and Turkey we were faced with a few ropey away trips never mind the small matter of inflicting the Fatherlands’ first defeat at home in a generation. The prospect of heading to the European Championships for the first ever time didn’t look too rosy especially as it was only one to qualify however after our exploits in Spain we thought we were ready to take on the world.

As it happened qualification was within our grasp only for a nightmare draw in Tirana and a suicidal attempt to win in Ankara when a draw was all we needed – however more of that later.

When the draw was made a quick scan of the fixtures, definitely ruled out Albania (I think Norman Wisdom for some God knows what reason was the only Westerner invited in – answers on a postcard), Turkey away didn’t appeal too much so it looked like the first (Austria) and last (West Germany) would be the spots to visit in that campaign.

Nowadays it’s a small case of contacting Stelios, booking your cheap, direct flights, getting onto the ‘net to book a hotel/hostel of some description and letting Jim Rainey (or Hammy!) do the rest – Bob’s your uncle. Not wanting to sound like someone who took part in the Jarrow March but by Christ it was a lot different in those days – hard to believe just how difficult/expensive it was to get to Europe in those days unless you were off to Majorca or Benidorm on a two week drinking marathon. All the major carriers, BA, Alitalia, Lufthansa etc had it in the bag and if you wanted to travel by God they were going to make you pay for the comfort and privilege.

Cannot help but throw in one of my favourite stories of all time here when I mention Lufthansa. The story goes of a BA pilot having trouble docking the plane in Frankfurt and the German air traffic control chappie rather condescendingly enquiring if the pilot had never been in Frankfurt before. In one of the greatest replies of all time he replied very off the cuff yes actually he had, twice in 1944, it was dark at the time and he hadn’t landed!! – Inspired.

It was with this small obstacle in the way that my favourite particular mode of transport (trains) came into it’s own – get yourself an inter-rail ticket (yes I was young enough in those days to qualify for one), get a Judas for the expected duration, study the rail timetable book in Easons, try to remember your basic geography from school and away you go.

The first game in the group was away to Austria – no big deal there as they were still hiding their collective heads in shame after the biggest stitch up of all time in Spain that sent poor Algeria home as they played (and I use that word very lightly) out a 0-0 with their previous occupiers, sorry West Germany. We had been one bad offside decision away from reaching the semi final in Spain so this bunch of cheating buggers held no fear as we now thought we could beat anyone.

The game was to be played in Vienna on 13^th October ’82 which was only three days away from my birthday so it was a must. Not sure if everyone was either still skint or still blocked from Spain but the travelling support was lamentable – hard to put a figure on it but if there were fifty there then I’m a Chinaman. Still it didn’t deter the three stooges, Davy Wasson, Andy Kelly and my good self from deciding to make a go of it.

As stated earlier the flights weren’t really an option so the choo-choo it was. After a quick scan of Europe we decided to cross over to Holland, travel through Germany then go over the mountains to Vienna – sounds like an absolute gift now but we had booked the 17.30 train out of York Street on the Friday and expected to be in Vienna some time on the Tuesday!! That was going to call for some Judas!!

As always there were other things on our mind – Andy being a big Liverpool fan was made up as they played at Upton Park (or the Boleyn Ground to give it the proper name before Drew pulls me up on that little point of order) on the Saturday which we could make on the way out ( we were booked on the overnight Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry) and played United at Anfield on the following Saturday which we could reach if we caught all our train connections!! Being a United supporter myself that sounded like the answer to me as I always like to savour two wins when away for the week.

The trip nearly never started for me as I had to work on the Friday and then catch a train from Bangor to Belfast to meet up with the troops, armed with our inter-rail tickets. I managed to get out early but after a bit of a panic I managed to make it to York Street with a few minutes to spare (no mobiles in those days to keep in touch).

A long, uneventful and wet journey brought us to the most God forsaken capital city in the world – London – where we sussed out our trains for that evening before setting off to East London to cheer on the Hammers (sorry Drew, the Irons), well I was anyway. No tickets were needed but we were shoe-horned into the West Ham end but it was so bunged I hardly saw a ball kicked – but as they always say ever cloud has got a silver lining, Liverpool got chinned!

We managed to catch our train from Liverpool Street station and enjoyed a pleasant journey over to the Hook of Holland – little did we know then that we would be making the same journey a year later on the way to Hamburg (via the tulip fields of Amsterdam) for the German game, only our numbers would be greatly increased. I think the suggestion that we were going via the ‘Dam may have swung it for most of them.

For those who haven’t enjoyed the pleasures of long distance train journeys then you don’t know what you are missing. A couple of years ago I took a train from Darwin to Adelaide via Alice Springs which took the best part of two days and I loved it – could have flown it in about three hours and cheaper but where’s the fun in that? You can do just about whatever you like to pass the time as the trains in just about everywhere else in the world (bar India off course where Norris McWhirter is invited onto each one to adjudicate on the ‘Most people humanly possible to be fitted on the roof of one train’ world record attempt) are so much better than the cattle wagons we have to put up with in this country. You can sit and gargle to your heart’s content, watching the world go by and not worry about turbulence and the fastening of your seat belt just as you are pissing yourself. You can bring your own grub and not have to put up with that cack they give you on a flight which has been rejected by ‘War On Want’ in Mogadishu. The world is your oyster and the only thing to remember is to keep one of you sober enough to remember to get off at the designated stop!

Our plan was to spend our first day and night in Cologne – take a cruise down the Rhine, marvel in wonderment at the Church beside the main station, try to think how the hell the RAF managed to miss it and retire to a local hostelry that evening to enjoy few of those famous German beers.

As non-tourists (previous foreign ventures were mainly to the Costas which don’t really count as going abroad) we must have stuck out like sore thumbs as we boarded the ‘Maid of the Rhine’ or whatever they called it. Now twenty five years later I have turned into your real touristy person and would probably enjoy the cruise but I must admit it just didn’t do it for me then (nor Davy or Andy for that matter). Had I been Johnny Weissmuller I would have been over the side but as the might of the combined forces of America, Britain and Canada (needless to say no mention of the French in that gathering) found it nearly impossible to ford the river I certainly wasn’t going to risk it. Two hours or so of purgatory followed when all we could think of were the beer halls we’d been promised lined ever street in Germany.

Finally back on terra-firma we set off in search of a good watering hole to spend the evening. You’ll probably have noticed that no mention has yet been made of a hotel – we would think about that at a later stage. Little did we know then that in the nine days we would be away we would get to enjoy the luxury of a bed on FOUR occasions!!

Still the hunt for a decent watering hole proved fruitless and I must admit here and now that it was in Cologne that I/we stumbled upon our first ever Bobby Moore house. Being a tad naïve we wondered why the bloody drink was so expensive ( the big blonde frauleins dandering about half naked should have been a bit of a clue) – we thought everywhere was going to be the same and decided to catch the first stagecoach out of town and proceed on our merry way. This must have left an indelible mark on me as Cologne (with Dortmund running it a close second) is my least favourite city in Germany – I would have to suffer it again on a couple of occasions when United played in nearby Leverkusen (come to think of it there’s another dump – their claim to fame apart from that manager Toppmoller with the dodgy barnet is they make headache tablets by the million!!).

So it was onwards and once again the old train has its advantage – with your inter-rail ticket you can just jump on and off where you want (or so we thought). We looked at the places we would soon be passing through and decided upon Linz in Austria – we could even book into a hotel (it was now Sunday evening) as I hadn’t seen a bed since Thursday when I left my comfy abode in Ards.

Linz nearly has an infamous claim to fame – Mein Fuhrer himself spent quite a bit of his upbringing here but contrary to what a lot of people believe he was actually in Braunau am Inn in Austria and not Linz.

Linz it was then and a hotel (of sorts) was acquired. We aren’t 100% sure but the building had the look of an old asylum – there were double doors on each room and I spent the night on egg shells waiting for the boys with the white coats arriving in the middle of the night and taking me away in a strait jacket never to be heard of again. Davy and Andy played it safe by sharing a room and leaving me shitting it in a room on my own. A few beers were had then it the next thing we knew it was morning and time to scrap three days grime off us as we hadn’t seen a shower/bath for three days.

I think it was at this stage that we noticed for the first time that the shekels were starting to run a wee bit low – this was in the days before you carried a fistful of credit cards and your Maestro card allowed you access to ATMs the world over. Everything was paid in cash and ours was dwindling fast therefore we knew we would have to tighten the belts or come home like Gandhi.

As everyone who knows me will vouch for I have a loathing for fast food outlets that knows no bounds. I have just returned from three weeks travelling in South East Asia where I enjoyed some of the most beautiful food imaginable (sea food and Thai food are top of the pops as far as I’m concerned) however those bloody monstrosities have even reached there and when you walk past them there are bunged – WHY?. McDonalds, KFC and Dunkin bloody Donuts to name but a few. I think I can trace my initial hatred back to this trip as the funds were so low we even were standing outside Maccy Ds waiting for them to open – Christ I must have been hungry.

I vividly remember our breakfast that first morning in Linz – we went down to a supermarket, bought a loaf, a few bits of ham, a few wadges of cheese and a couple of cartons of goats’ milk. We headed down to a local park and tucked in – we must have looked like three right winos. Jesus I nearly threw up even putting that in writing.

‘Filled’ we set of to see what Linz had in store for us and I must admit I have nothing but good memories of it – it also unfortunately brought us into contact with Carlsberg Elephant Beer for the first time (this is off course long before they became sponsors of you know who). We had a nosey around town then headed to another supermarket to get a Judas for the day – it wasn’t the warmest but we thought we could spread the word of Rigger to the good people of Linz for a couple of hours while watching the world go by. A relaxing time was had and as the Elephant (absolute rocket fuel) ran out we set off in search of an alehouse.

Time for an admission here – I’ve always thought the folk in Europe were much too trustworthy. I’m still convinced they lay on those trams, buses etc free of charge for us tourists as I don’t pay for them very often but the kind Austrians went one further in the pubs. Back home you obviously pay for a round of drink as you get it in but in Austria (certainly in 1982 and certainly n Linz) when you bought a round they marked on a beer mat how many you had then you squared them up as you were leaving – now it wouldn’t take the devious mind of a James Bond villain to see this was open to abuse, even from normally honest citizens like ourselves. As mentioned the funds were running a bit low so after necking quite a few excellent beers each we waited for the bar staff to change, threw our ‘old’, much used beer mat in the bin and started a fresh one – OK I know it’s not cricket but some times needs must. So we eventually rolled out of the place having paid for a fraction of the beers we had consumed – the barman probably had a great chuckle that weekend telling all and sundry of three headers from N Ireland who had bounced out of the place having had about nine drinks between us. Little did he know!!

Another nights’ kip in Linz (which would prove to be our last bed until Friday!) and then off we set for Vienna itself. A fairly straightforward train journey, for once, across the Alps lay in front of us.

As mentioned earlier the NI support at the game was dreadful for a team that had performed so well in Spain a few short months before but small as it was we still managed to run into one of them on this leg of the journey. Simon Wallace was travelling on his jack to the game also by train but he hadn’t taken the same route as us – not sure exactly what his adventures entailed but here he was and our growing band was now four!

I haven’t seen nor heard from Simon in long many a day – the last time I spoke to him was in Maysfield Leisure Centre the day of the Belfast City Marathon in 1984. I managed to crawl home in shortly over four hours but to the best of my knowledge Simon could still be making his way up the small incline at Grand Parade that nearly killed me. I had been training extremely hard for it and was confident of a decent time. Taking advice from a few folk who had previously completed it I did a long one, about 18 -19 miles about 10 days before it then started to wind down as the big day approached. Unfortunately I took that advice too literally and instead of having a quiet weekend at home I went to Goodison to watch United play out a 1-1 draw, suffered the Liverpool boat both ways, had about half a dozen pints of the black stuff on the way home and topped it off by heading down to the Ards Rangers Club until closing time before crawling into my pit. Needless to say it wasn’t the ideal preparation but at least I still managed to complete the bugger and raise a few hundred quid for the Cancer charity I was running for – had it not been for that I think I would have jacked it in long, long before Grand Parade arrived around the nineteen mile mark.

Back on the train to Vienna and we made our acquaintances with Simon who it turned out was employed by the same folk as myself however you had to do a six month probation period and if my memory serves me right he didn’t make it. I suppose it didn’t help that one Friday he didn’t make it in and the Bank rang his house to see why he hadn’t rang in sick - his mother answered and told them he wasn’t at home as he had gone to Glasgow with his mates for the Rangers game that weekend!! That just may have been the final straw.

Arriving in Vienna, ticketless, hotel-less and very quickly heading to the situation where we would soon be potless a big decision needed to be made – as hotels seemed to cost an arm and a leg to our meagre funds we had to make up our minds whether to book a hotel and leave our beer kitty just about busted (we couldn’t take the chance that all the pubs in Vienna would be just as accommodating as our friends in Linz) or forego the hotel and hang onto enough to enjoy a few beers over the next few days. I suppose at the end of the day it wasn’t really a choice – we left our gear in left luggage at the main railway station and headed off on one of those ‘free’ trams they keep laying on for us and searched out the stadium to enquire about tickets.

We were there on Tuesday afternoon and the place was open to the world so we slipped in. It just happened that the NI players were on the pitch so we dandered on to have a word with them – Billy Bingham was being his usual methodical self at this stage by striding across the pitch to measure it out. Unfortunately in the light of what was to follow the next night he should have asked the ground staff to move our posts a bit closer together and not worry about the length and breadth of the pitch!! Jim Platt was in nets and the eleven players who were to start had a grand total of twenty seven international goals between them so we should have known what was coming.

The players were very approachable and talkative and it was during the conversation we mentioned that to date we hadn’t any tickets – not sure what they would have cost anyway but Jimmy Nicholl to his eternal gratitude told us not to worry as he would sort them out for us and we could pick them up the next day. That was one little expense we didn’t need to worry about but it still didn’t leave enough for the hotel option so we thanked Jimmy and headed of to do a wee bit of sight-seeing. As mentioned earlier tourists we weren’t and it wasn’t long before we trooped of to spend a proportion of our dwindling cash on a few welcome beers in the knowledge that we faced the first of two nights kipping in the railway station – with hindsight we should have mentioned that to Jimmy Nick as well and he may have got us a room somewhere!!

Don’t remember an awful lot of the evening/night except spending a freezing few hours trying to sleep in the station and some bloody jobsworth wakening us about 06.30 and throwing us out. It was time for the morning wait outside McDonalds for both what passes for food in that world famous establishment and the chance to thaw out.

Once again the day passed fairly quietly as we waited for both the kick-off and our second invitation to Hotel Hauptbanhof (sorry the railway station) that night for another night under the stars in the vain hope that our jobsworth friend had been sacked for bad customer relations!. We would be leaving early in the morning and at least we would get a few uninterrupted hours kip as we wizzed over the Alps on the beginning of our journey home in Davys case and Liverpool in mine and Andys – well so we thought anyway.

For those unfortunate enough to have been at the game I hope they have about as much recollection of it as I have. The only things I can remember are the pitiful attendance ( a grand total of 9,885 were there but I don’t know if this included us four who hadn’t paid a wing having earlier picked up Jimmy Nicks free ones?) and a dreadful performance where we never looked like scoring. We lost 2-0 and the old adage of being lucky to get nil springs to mind. Still you got to take the rough with the smooth – the three of us had been in Valencia together and little did we know what lay ahead in both Hamburg and Bucharest.

So it was off to the pub to drown our sorrows before heading back to our luxury ‘hotel’ for the night. I was in Canada the last time we played in Vienna and have never had the privilege of re-visiting the place just for old times sake to see where we had spent the two nights – as far as I know the jobsworth could still be working there as needless to say he had arrived right on cue again to waken us again.

Thankfully this time we had a train to catch so there was to be no return to McDonalds – thank God for small mercies. This was to be a breeze – one connection at my beloved Cologne and we would sleep our way the whole way to the Hook of Holland. Wrong again.

A couple of hours out of Vienna we were woken by some hector who on examining our tickets decided our inter-rail tickets were not valid for this train and that we would be getting dumped of at the next station. After a heavy ‘debate’ the train stopped at the designated station and dumped off we were – to this day I don’t know why but I have an inkling the other passengers were probably complaining about the hum emanating from us seeing it was nearly three days since we had seen a shower or bath!

So there we were standing in a picture postcard scene in the middle of the Alps expecting Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp family to appear at any moment but wondering what the hell to do next. It was now that Davy’s diplomatic skills came into play –he strode into the inspectors office at the station, explained in his best Anglo-Saxon the predicament we were in and having taken him by the throat told him that he needed to be home for the weekend and that he was getting on the next train come hell or high water. Now a lot of you won’t know Davy but he’s a big lump and added to the fact that he had hardly washed nor shaved in the best part of a week he must have been a sight to behold. He came out of the office and very calmly told us that he had ‘sorted’ it out with the inspector and we would soon be on our way. Half expecting the local polezei to arrive before the next train we braced ourselves but in the absence of both them and Julie Andrews we somehow boarded the next train, bade farewell to all and sundry and continued our odyssey.

A camel ride and a few hours kip later and we were back in Cologne where we struggled to stay awake in the early hours of the morning to catch our connection to the Hook of Holland. We arrived to catch the sailing which we needed that would enable us to catch the Euston train to Stranraer – Davy would be going the whole way home while Andy and myself got off somewhere in the North West of England where we would hope to find a hotel to catch up on a weeks sleep before heading of to Liverpool to take in the United game.

On arrival on the boat we retired to the boats bogs where we all took a ‘Ballybeen Shower’ and at least managed to scrap some of the dirt of us. It was only when we got talking to a few English girls on the boat that we realised how boggen we must have been – they had stood beside us in the queue for the ferry and they remarked on the horrible stench there had been!! We never did let on.

The next problem was paying for a ticket on the train from Euston station – we had time for a quick couple of beers in a pub beside Euston and probably for the first and only time in my life I was grateful to a bunch of scousers. They were waiting for the same train and being scousers obviously had no intention of paying for any tickets. We drained our pints and followed them onto the waiting train via the ‘tradesman entrance’ hence avoiding having to pay for a ticket – all we had to do now was blag our way as far as Wigan (where we had decided to jump ship so to speak). On the first sight of a hector (ticket inspector to the uninitiated) the scousers disappeared en masse to pre-determined hiding places to avoid the inconvenience of having to buy a ticket! The three of us sat tight and showed him our Stranraer-Larne boat tickets – don’t tell me why unless he took pity on us but he just said dead on and away he went (obviously without locating any of the scousers taking part in the 19.30 Euston-Stranraer hide and seek championships!)

On arrival in Wigan Andy and I said our goodbyes to Davy and headed off into the night to seek somewhere to kip for the night. Now had this been twenty five years later it would have been a breeze as I have a couple of very good friends from Wigan who sit beside me at Old Trafford but unfortunately I knew neither Scotty nor Paul in 1982. I have spent a couple of belting weekends in Wigan and would recommend it to anyone for a weekend on the lash but that night it seemed like another world. It wasn’t really teeming with hotels but we eventually found a wee number which was just about within our budget – we knew we could tap Sammy Moore for a few quid the next day in Liverpool.

As seems to the way with me on my travels something as mundane as getting a nights’ kip in a bed in Wigan away from the trials and tribulations of our previous week didn’t go as straightforward as we imagined.

We ran into this Welsh long-distance lorry driver who was also staying in the ‘Wigan Hilton’ who in that stupid bloody accent they have asked us over a beer if we were both ‘broad-minded’ – I swear I can still hear him repeating it to this day. Not wanting to annoy this modern day Owen Glendower we told him we were both knackered and were going to our pit – the first we had been in since Linz on the Tuesday night. He kept repeating that statement and my own conclusion is he wanted to shaft the both of us – Wigan must be short of good looking sheep at that time of year. To avoid being brought up at Wigan Assizes the next morning for First Degree murder we retired to our beds and slept the sleep of a king, wary all the time off course of Taffy breaking our door down a la Jack Nicholson in The Shining and coming in and rooting the two of us to death.

Morning arrived with both our back passages intact and after a much-need and deserved shower and we made our way to Self Pity City (sorry Liverpool) to meet with the rest of the troops who were going to Anfield. Sammy had sorted us out with tickets (I would have to sit with the buggers in the Anfield Road end) and try to keep my trap shut or end up with a Stanley knife down my face from those lovable rogues, probably the same ones who had hidden on the train). As it turned out it was one of the worst of about forty odd United – Liverpool games I’ve witnessed and it finished 0-0 and I got out with my life.

Cannot even remember where in Liverpool we stayed that night but the Liverpool – Belfast boat got us safely home the next day and and I arrived home late on the Sunday evening (most probably via the Ards Rangers Club for one last hurrah).

So our first train journey across Europe was at an end and despite the result, two nights kipping in a railway station, being skint, made to eat McDonalds, being bucked off the train in Austria and nearly being rid to death by a homosexual Welsh bastard I couldn’t wait for the next one.

Hamburg ’83 was a mere twelve months away and the crowd who were threatening to travel to that one would guarantee that Vienna ‘82 would be like a tea-party in comparison.

Cheers for now.

Stephen.