MrB
Life President
I've never been that lucky with holidays:
- Away for Grimsby game two seasons ago (ok, not so bad in the end, I scheduled that to make sure I was there for the play offs)
- Away for Bristol City game last season (bad, though at least I was at Swansea)
- Away when SZFC played at Roots Hall (no upside to that one!)
- Lost passport prior to holiday with Barry Harris so couldn't go (some may say I got away with it).
- Got stuck in Orlando in Hurricane Jeanne
- Missed flight to Nice and had to shell out £300 to get an alternative flight.
all in the last 3 years. Mrs B and I decided to have a break in Egypt in November, despite her non-footballing tendencies she's very considerate about bearing in mind the fixture list when booking (the above were booked by me for boys holidays!). Having checked the list and knowing that we could fly on Sunday the first full week looked good as I didn't want to miss the Wolves game (my dad is a Wolves fan so I was brought up on them as well). So we went ahead and booked for a week from the 6th, I'd miss the Preston game but I could live with that. Carling Cup 4th round as well I noted - 'as if that would be a problem anyway hahahahaha' I foolishly thought to myself.
Then we reach this week. onday night it had occurred to me that I wouldn't be here for the next round were we to beat Leeds. Was I worried? Not really, given:
- our away form
- our injuries/suspensions/man flu
- Leeds appointing new manager
- our record in the competition
Hey, even if we were to get through we'd only get a really crappy draw like we always do.
Tuesday night comes and I settled down with the radio, thoughts of potentially missed games had safely left my mind and I like every other Shrimper celebrated madly when (MrB sponsored) Stevie Hammell slotted home the penalty. I don't need to spell out the rest of the game here, we all know what happened.
Wednesday comes, I've sat reading the speculation on SZ about who we might get in the next round. By this stage the the fact I wouldn't be here seemed to have vacated my mind completely. I had a night in with Mrs B Wednesday evening, no footy at all, it gets to 22:?? and my phone vibrates. I'm greeted by a text saying 'Get in' from my mate Nick. It takes a few moments for the meaning of the message to sink in, then I realise what he means, I scramble for the remote to get to SSN (interrupting the Sky+ed Biggest Loser - sorry Andy!) but before I even get there the phone has gone again and I experienced one of those moments of elation/deflation that don't come along very often:
- OH MY GOD, WE'VE GOT MAN UTD IN THE CUP!
shortly followed by
- OH MY GOD I CAN'T GO!
I quickly dived onto the PC just to check I hadn't got the dates wrong. Alas the news I already knew was confirmed – matches w/c 6/11.
I returned to the lounge to report the bad news, after 5 minutes of huffing and puffing the ever inventive and gorgeous Mrs B piped up: ‘you could always see if you could get a flight home for the day?’. Legend! Back to the PC I went, a bit of frantic searching showed that the only company flying from Sharm to London was BA and their flight arrives in the UK at 21:20 (enough time to maybe catch extra time in the lounge!). Deflated feeling returned once again. This morning was spent moaning to my colleagues about the situation, responses were wide ranging:
- Get someone to set a bomb off in Sharm the day before you fly
- Break your own leg on the Saturday and claim on the travel insurance
- It’s only a football match.
Clearly I took the first two responses more seriously than the third (clearly some men haven’t been as lucky in love as I have!!).
At this point Mrs B came up with her next masterstroke. ‘What about if I found someone else to go on holiday with? I know how much this match would mean to you and would hate for you to miss it’. Jaw drops to the ground, she’d do this for me? Not to look a gift horse in the mouth I agreed that this could be a way round it. Unfortunately this avenue was not the one. Transfer flight date and holiday? Not going to happen. Things are looking bleak (well not that bleak, I still get a holiday to Egypt!).
Then a thought occurs, you may not be able to get back from Sharm but I bet you can get back from Cairo! Following a pleasant time at the Sponsors Evening we set about checking out the options. Again not looking good but at least there are flights this time. Mrs B is far better at internet searching than I am and managed to assemble an itinerary. Times worked well, cost was another issue. I made a final check with Mrs B that it was indeed ok to do this on our only holiday of the year together. The nod was received and with that I made up my mind.
I will now be making the following journey to watch the game:
Sharm 00:05 to Cairo 01:05
Cairo 04:10 to Heathrow 11:25 (via Milan with 3 hour stopover)
Train across London back to the Spread
I’ll then be on the 9:15am flight back to Sharm on Wednesday to complete my holiday.
My sanity was questioned at work for even considering it but they simply don’t realise just how important a game this is to a devoted Shrimper. I’m so very lucky to have a wife to be who understands that and I’ll now be able to have my holiday and also not miss out on what could be one of those ‘I was there’ moments akin to Liverpool all those years ago.
Sorry for rambling on but I just had to put my experience of the last 24 hours in writing and I’m now counting the minutes…..
- Away for Grimsby game two seasons ago (ok, not so bad in the end, I scheduled that to make sure I was there for the play offs)
- Away for Bristol City game last season (bad, though at least I was at Swansea)
- Away when SZFC played at Roots Hall (no upside to that one!)
- Lost passport prior to holiday with Barry Harris so couldn't go (some may say I got away with it).
- Got stuck in Orlando in Hurricane Jeanne
- Missed flight to Nice and had to shell out £300 to get an alternative flight.
all in the last 3 years. Mrs B and I decided to have a break in Egypt in November, despite her non-footballing tendencies she's very considerate about bearing in mind the fixture list when booking (the above were booked by me for boys holidays!). Having checked the list and knowing that we could fly on Sunday the first full week looked good as I didn't want to miss the Wolves game (my dad is a Wolves fan so I was brought up on them as well). So we went ahead and booked for a week from the 6th, I'd miss the Preston game but I could live with that. Carling Cup 4th round as well I noted - 'as if that would be a problem anyway hahahahaha' I foolishly thought to myself.
Then we reach this week. onday night it had occurred to me that I wouldn't be here for the next round were we to beat Leeds. Was I worried? Not really, given:
- our away form
- our injuries/suspensions/man flu
- Leeds appointing new manager
- our record in the competition
Hey, even if we were to get through we'd only get a really crappy draw like we always do.
Tuesday night comes and I settled down with the radio, thoughts of potentially missed games had safely left my mind and I like every other Shrimper celebrated madly when (MrB sponsored) Stevie Hammell slotted home the penalty. I don't need to spell out the rest of the game here, we all know what happened.
Wednesday comes, I've sat reading the speculation on SZ about who we might get in the next round. By this stage the the fact I wouldn't be here seemed to have vacated my mind completely. I had a night in with Mrs B Wednesday evening, no footy at all, it gets to 22:?? and my phone vibrates. I'm greeted by a text saying 'Get in' from my mate Nick. It takes a few moments for the meaning of the message to sink in, then I realise what he means, I scramble for the remote to get to SSN (interrupting the Sky+ed Biggest Loser - sorry Andy!) but before I even get there the phone has gone again and I experienced one of those moments of elation/deflation that don't come along very often:
- OH MY GOD, WE'VE GOT MAN UTD IN THE CUP!
shortly followed by
- OH MY GOD I CAN'T GO!
I quickly dived onto the PC just to check I hadn't got the dates wrong. Alas the news I already knew was confirmed – matches w/c 6/11.
I returned to the lounge to report the bad news, after 5 minutes of huffing and puffing the ever inventive and gorgeous Mrs B piped up: ‘you could always see if you could get a flight home for the day?’. Legend! Back to the PC I went, a bit of frantic searching showed that the only company flying from Sharm to London was BA and their flight arrives in the UK at 21:20 (enough time to maybe catch extra time in the lounge!). Deflated feeling returned once again. This morning was spent moaning to my colleagues about the situation, responses were wide ranging:
- Get someone to set a bomb off in Sharm the day before you fly
- Break your own leg on the Saturday and claim on the travel insurance
- It’s only a football match.
Clearly I took the first two responses more seriously than the third (clearly some men haven’t been as lucky in love as I have!!).
At this point Mrs B came up with her next masterstroke. ‘What about if I found someone else to go on holiday with? I know how much this match would mean to you and would hate for you to miss it’. Jaw drops to the ground, she’d do this for me? Not to look a gift horse in the mouth I agreed that this could be a way round it. Unfortunately this avenue was not the one. Transfer flight date and holiday? Not going to happen. Things are looking bleak (well not that bleak, I still get a holiday to Egypt!).
Then a thought occurs, you may not be able to get back from Sharm but I bet you can get back from Cairo! Following a pleasant time at the Sponsors Evening we set about checking out the options. Again not looking good but at least there are flights this time. Mrs B is far better at internet searching than I am and managed to assemble an itinerary. Times worked well, cost was another issue. I made a final check with Mrs B that it was indeed ok to do this on our only holiday of the year together. The nod was received and with that I made up my mind.
I will now be making the following journey to watch the game:
Sharm 00:05 to Cairo 01:05
Cairo 04:10 to Heathrow 11:25 (via Milan with 3 hour stopover)
Train across London back to the Spread
I’ll then be on the 9:15am flight back to Sharm on Wednesday to complete my holiday.
My sanity was questioned at work for even considering it but they simply don’t realise just how important a game this is to a devoted Shrimper. I’m so very lucky to have a wife to be who understands that and I’ll now be able to have my holiday and also not miss out on what could be one of those ‘I was there’ moments akin to Liverpool all those years ago.
Sorry for rambling on but I just had to put my experience of the last 24 hours in writing and I’m now counting the minutes…..
