It was the opening weekend of the Six Nations championships and Colin, Ken B and I had managed to secure three tickets, allowing us to tick off another of our Sports Wish List items for 2009/10.
Ken had made a late change to his travel plans and cancelled his train ticket and drove down on Saturday to visit family. Colin and I used our Seniors status to buy 2 Club 55+ tickets and we drove in to Aberdeen on Sunday morning, parked the car and made our way to the train.
The first scrum of the day was getting on to the train - there was only one unreserved coach and everyone was desperate to grab a seat as soon as the doors were opened. Thankfully, we managed OK and settled down with the Sunday Times for what we hoped would be a nice relaxing journey down. Thankfully we had aborted our original plan to board at Stonehaven - had we stuck with that, we would have been standing all the way down.
As we travelled south, each station platform was getting more and more full with fans - eventually about 4 deep - and nobody could get on our train - it was jam-packed. This also meant we were over half an hour late in arriving, but we'd kept in touch with Ken by text and he had sussed out a decent pub (The Haymarket) with ale, food and footy.
Mind you, getting in to the pub proved a little tricky - it was pretty full, with bouncers on the door operating a one-out, one-in policy. We did manage, however, and it was a great atmosphere, full of rugby fans dressed up for the occasion - many of the French as cockerels.
It was an easy stroll to Murrayfield - we had had an earlier viewing of the stadium from the train:
Famous Grouse, as stadium sponsors, highlighted the obvious differences between the teams:
There were also regular updates along the route as to how far it was still to go. Ken picked up one of the fliers, hoping for a free dram, I think:
The basic burger lunch we had had in the pub left us longing for the dessert course, and, once we were inside the ground, we found the ideal stall and had our fill:
Inside the ground, we had superb seats, virtually on the half-way line and we enjoyed the pre-match entertainment, surrounded by hordes of invading Froggies lustily belting out La Marseillaise - surely the best National Anthem in the world - and punctuated by regular cries of "Allez Les Bleus":
Scotland gave a decent account of themselves in the first half, but there was no doubt after the interval who were the better team, and France eventually ran out 18-9 winners. There was one amusing moment as the teams lined up just before kick-off - all three of us commented on Scotland's new strip - then we noticed that it was being worn by a few heavy set black players. Whoops, eyes left - Scotland are playing in white:
After the match, Ken made his way back to pick up his car at his parents' home in Corstorphine and Colin and I headed off to the famous Diggers where we saw the 2nd half of the Chelsea - Arsenal match over a pint or two. Ken's last words to us proved to be prophetic - "if the train is too crowded and you want a lift, give me a call - preferably before you get past Inverkeithing".
We boarded the return train at Haymarket - it was already standing room only and they had to prise us both in, leaving hundreds of passengers on the platform. It was inhuman - CK likened it to both the Japanese bullet trains and Auschwitz! We took the advice of the guard and got off at Inverkeithing to get on the longer train behind, which we were promised also had a buffet car. No sooner had we got off the train then they announced that the next train was delayed - grrrr! Fortunately, the cavalry arrived unannounced - Ken had pulled in to the car park to see how we were getting on, so we took him up on his offer to drive us north, with a pit stop at Kinross and slight diversion for him to take us in to Aberdeen to pick up my car.
Despite the travel frustrations, it was a great day out - it had been years since I'd been to one of the Five/Six Nations matches and I'd forgotten how good the atmosphere is - both in and out of the ground.
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