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At 10.30am on Saturday morning, we boarded a Thalys bound for Cologne. It was different than other weeks, for this train was taking Ian away from Brussels forever. His tour finished on Friday and after a week of parties and goodbyes, it was time to leave. |
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We arrived, weighed down by baggage, and found everyone sitting outside the Knoten in the sunshine. Isa very kindly let us store the baggage upstairs, and after a couple of beers and a ‘pig in a roll’, it was time to catch the fan bus to Schalke. Ian and Roy realised that the first time all season, they were agreeing about who to shout for – the Dragons. |
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Isn't Roy a sweetie? His Week 10 hat - all the way from Sitges. It certainly made him a popular guy. |
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Lou had spent the season eyeing up the huge inflatable ketchup bottles that were tied to lampposts at the power party. Being the last game of the season, many of them seemed to be disappearing. Encouraged by Roy, Lou decided it was high time that one of these bottles was added to the Beerleaders’ store of NFLE acquired treasures. She stood next to one, pulling on the tabs to release it and casually marched it back to where the others were standing. After pulling the valve open, we attempted to remove the air. This was met with various shouts along the lines of “Lou is having sex with a ketchup bottle”. We believe there is photographic evidence, but Lou would like to point out that, in the immortal words of Shaggy, “It wasn’t me!”. Although to be fair, that song doesn’t contain the line “Picture this, we were both caught humping a giant ketchup bottle at the power party”. |
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Lou makes up some new Ketchup Song moves!
Photo by Eiko Pate. |
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After all the effort of getting the air out of the ketchup bottle, Ian and Lou enjoy a well-deserved Long Island Iced Tea. Photo by Sandra Kuttig. |
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Anette & Karin enjoy the sunshine. Photo by Sandra Kuttig. |
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Rhein ran away with the game, and with Frankfurt losing at Berlin, the season was all stitched up. Find out what happened on the field here. |
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After the game, it was back to the Knoten as usual. The night was very warm and balmy (or should that be barmy?), and the tables were still out outside the bar so we sat and pondered what the results meant. John suggested that Sunday’s game would be for the Rubbish Cup, which sounded good as it would give the game some meaning! |
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The night seemed quite long. Could it be that we had spent just one night too many in the Knoten this season? |
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At 5am, it was time to retrieve the bags (sorry for the disturbance, Isa!) and catch a taxi to the airport for round two!
FINAL SCORE: Barcelona Dragons 7 – 33 Rhein Fire |
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Ever had an amazing dream, only to wake up and be disappointed that it was only a dream? Ian went through the opposite experience on Sunday morning. We were booked on different flights. Lou headed off for the BA check-in, to find various officials also on their way to Glasgow for Sunday’s game. Ian was flying Lufthansa/bmi. As this was the flight to take him back to the UK after leaving Brussels, he was in business class. The flight to London was on a small plane. Most of the seats were filled with Jacksonville cheeries, who had performed at halftime in Schalke. So what did Ian do? He slept on the flight. Business class on a plane full of cheeries and he slept. Feel free to hurl abuse when next you see him! |
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Ian managed to get a photo of one of the Jags cheeries at the gate...just before he fell asleep! |
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By the time we checked into the hotel and got showered and changed it was time to catch the train to Mount Florida. On the train we bumped into Andy from Frankfurt. He had been at the Frankfurt game on Saturday and had not been impressed by what he saw. As a Frankfurt and Claymores fan, he would like to have seen both teams in the final. |
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The weather was miserable, completely different to Germany the day before. So we headed for the Clockwork and stayed there until it was time to go to the stadium. We did have a wander to the backfield (well, backmudbath), but it was pretty much over, so we went inside. The crowd looked a little on the small side, although the official paid attendance was 10,497. With the Claymores out of the WB, the game live on Sky and the miserable weather, the attendance was as could be expected. |
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The game was pretty dull, but Rowelle Blenman was honoured, as it was his last game before retirement. We still have great fondness for all our former guys and Rowelle is no exception. He did the Monarchs and the Claymores proud, and is the longest serving national player in League history. The game report is here, and here is an article about Rowelle. We’re not sure who won the Rubbish Cup. The Claymores won the game, so do they win the Rubbish Cup? They’re not as rubbish as Amsterdam who lost, so do Amsterdam win instead? Hmm… too complicated for us! |
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We had no lounge passes this week, so it was back to the Clockwork with the Admirals for us. The Claymores arrived after they were thrown out of Hampden and Lou finally received her ‘ftp believe’ T-shirt and a copy of Preston’s WBX movie masterpiece. |
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The night ended in O’Neil’s in Sauchiehall Street. Karl Byrne was playing live. He is the man behind the excellent WBXI song (which can be purchased from the TDC Store), and he changed the lyrics to many of the songs to suit the night. It was a great party and a fantastic way to start Dom’s birthday on Monday. Ian caught up with Rob Hart, another Claymore we hold dear. Ian got him to re-sign to the Monarchs (well, kind of… Rob signed Ian’s Monarchs shirt), and they reminisced about how bad the Monarchs organisation was. |
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We called it a night at midnight. It had been a long day with no sleep. And we want to be on top form for World Bowl week!! |
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FINAL SCORE: Amsterdam Admirals 14 – 31 Scottish Claymores
Next week…WBXI – Rhein Fire vs. Frankfurt Galaxy @ Hampden Park, Glasgow. |
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This week we're raising a beer to Isa, for letting us leave our luggage at the Knoten, to Roy for giving us a bag big enough to fit our ketchup bottle in, and to Dom - Happy birthday!
The Knoten site
Roy's site
The FTP site |
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