So the final England away trip of 2015. A friendly v Spain but unexpectedly played in Alicante! We flew Easyjet from Gatwick to Murcia, picked up a hire car and an hours drive we were in Alicante. The flight was 6.40am from Gatwick so it was a very early start as I was picked up from home at 4.50am!
It was nice and warm, 21C so it was time to get some cold beers (and food). So once we had checked in, we met up with Sara, had a cold beer by the hotel pool and then headed to the Hotel to collect our match tickets. It was then time to find a bar.
Alicant was OK, the seafront and the old town were nice with plenty of bars and restaurants, so we settled down for some well needed refreshments. As the game was a 20.45 KO we had lots of drinking time. We sat soaking up the rays, some ate Paella (yuk), some didn't, but we were soon downing a few beers!
We soon met up with the Rugeley massive, well Dean and Ritchie! They soon insisted on cocktails (well that may be a bit of a lie actually :-) ). We bumped into plenty of Albion lads during the day, I think England had sold 2,400 tickets but there were a lot more in town!
and the drinking goes on (and on, oh ok time for one more, if we get a taxi we could get another?)
As it was now 8pm and it was an 8.45 KO time to head to the ground! It looked miles on the map so we jumped into a couple of taxis and were soon dropped a short walk from the ground!
I have to say the view was good, but outside was Chaos, finding the entrace was chaos, and the facilities ermm no very good. Alicante are in the Spanish 3rd Division and I would say the ground was about the level in terms of organisation and facilities! Just how we had 2 rows of Spanish fans next to us in the away section left me slightly bemused!
As the game meandered to an inevitable win for Spain (the first goal was something special - shame the assist was from Sterling who had a very poor match) news started to filter through of incidents in Paris, we would find out a lot more as we headed out into Alicante post game. We had a few more beers, ended up with a Kebab and then it was a taxi back to the hotel. I did briefly watch the news on TV but I went to bed extremely angry and upset! People slaughtered for doing the things I love doing with my life, out socialising with friends, going to gigs and going to watch football. ISIS are scum.
Saturday 14th November
After a long day yesterday it was a late wake up, well 10am (ish)! We had planned breakfast but all I could manage was a couple of rather strong coffees! Sara headed back to the airport about midday so Kev, Fi and I decided to head to the seafront and find somewhere for lunch
We had a very pleasant walk along the beach, loved the seagulls play area, and had a rather tasty pizza for lunch.
We started to hear of problems at Gatwick airport, so headed back to the hotel. Apparently some nutter had dumped a gun in a bin! Grrrrrrrr. Time for another beer (well an ice cold coke actually!). Our flight was now showing as 2 hours late but the car needed to back at Murcia airport for 5pm so we left at just after 4pm as planned
The weather was a bit mixed on the drive back to the airport. We soon found a petrol station, filled up and dropped the car back not long after 5pm. The flight ended up being about an hour late and the North Terminal was like a ghost town, guess we were one of the first flights allowed back in! The bonus was no queue at passport control.
So that is it for 2015. A nice long rest until Berlin in March 2016.
