Bulgaria, the latest away trip

Sometimes England trips don't always fill you with a great sense of anticipation, or even a sense of excitement. Sometimes it's all too familiar, or maybe it's that feeling of a non-event that dulls any great desire to be actually travelling yet again. Bulgaria, and certainly Sofia, felt just like that. The last time we were there was a disappointment for all kinds of reasons that wasn't particularly the fault of Bulgaria or the host city.

We had to face Macedonia in a Euro qualifier in 2006, but no direct flights or decent travel arrangements seemed to be available to Skopje in those days, hence the need to visit Sofia, a very close neighbour, on the way. Hundreds, if not thousands of England fans had done the same, all hiring coaches and cars to make the 4 hour journey from Sofia to Skopje via the mountains. The magical 4 hour trip to Skopje  turned into a nightmarish 7 hours as we were held, in very hot and humid weather, at the border crossing high in the Bulgarian Alps.We booked into what we thought was a half-decent hotel, but the 4 star rating in Bulgaria is different to the 4 star rating in  the UK. A miserable 1-0 win in Macedonia compounded the trips desperate shortcomings.

The border crossing in the mountains

And so on to Sofia for the 2012 Euro qualifying game. We've never lost to Bulgaria so we weren't expecting anything different. We've seen the city before so nothing special there either, but we wanted to get the hotel right this time so elected for the Hilton Hotel, within walking distance of the stadium. Again our Bulgarian gremlins kicked in, despite doing a wonderful side step to avoid the rip off taxi drivers, we arrived at our hotel to find our rooms unavailable. Apparently the hotel had a delegation who had taken 85 rooms and several floors for their use. The delegation turned out to be the England team and their many hordes of followers and hangers on. Our rooms would only be available after the game had kicked off, many thanks Hilton!

The Hilton

Roped off - keep out!

Arguing with reception

The England team bus

The England team eventually made their way to the ground, not a smile or a cheery wave from any of them, although David Bernstein, the FA head, took time out to have a warm chat, what a nice bloke he appears to be. Also had a catch up with Ray Whitworth the head of security who has attended the odd forum here and there too.

And so onto the game and negotiating our way through the massed throngs of Bulgarian supporters, or at least that's how it felt, but surprisingly it doesn't take too may people to fill that stadium either. It's a poor stadium by UK standards, no facilities, no concourse areas, no roof, and seats just bolted onto the concrete terraces. The game was over by half time, 3-0 up and cruising, and not a lot to get excited about.

The traditional delay in emptying the stadium, keeping the England fans back and then making them walk a tortuous route around the various blockades meant we were only free to enjoy the sights after midnight. The hotel in fairness had a great outside drinking area, a nearby McDonald's and pleasant company gave us the opportunity to while away the night drinking the local beer. For company that evening we had the Bulgarian team, complete with Lothar Matheus their manager, plus the Petrov brothers and Emile Heskey to make us feel like we were rubbing shoulders with the footballing literati. Matheus was giving his version of that nights proceedings in English so we could all understand, including the wonderful line 'anybody who thinks we should have beaten England tonight should be in a hospital'. Nice one! Anyway we collared him after breakfast the next morning;

The rest of the trip passed without incident, shopping and sightseeing, accompanied by a few beers was the order of the day. Bumped into quite a few old friends as always, exchanged pleasant chit chat and promised to meet up in a few weeks time in glorious Montenegro, ahh the pleasures of being a travelling England football fan!