We checked in fine as did the other 30 or so England fans going the same route as us. They were on an organised trip staying in Halkidiki and getting a coach over to Skopje. Our flight going out was delayed by 2 hours and we eventually took off at about 8pm for our 3 ½ hour flight. With the time difference we landed at 1.30am, jumped in a taxi and were soon in our hotel in Parear just outside Thessaloniki and about 5 meters from the beach!

On the Friday we went in nice and early to Thessaloniki station to book our train tickets to Skopje. In front of us was a mate I hadn't seen since being in a curry house in Brussels in Euro2000. We booked up together and for 24 Euros had the trains booked. We headed back into Thessaloniki and went sight seeing. As with many parts of Greece it is full of history and we visited places such as the White tower, many old ruins and of course a couple of bars for some refreshments as it was about 30C.

Saturday and it was up early as the train to Skopje left at 8.04am. We met up with Gary and there were about another dozen or so England fans on the train. We shared our carriage with a Germany and an Israeli student on the way back to Germany, it was going to take then about 40 hours! The train was slow as once outside Thessaloniki it had to change engines twice as it need to change direction! We then had to pass through the Greek passport control and then on to Macedonian passport control and yet another engine change. We had no hassle whatsoever and they even said are you going to football, and just stamped our passport and gave them back.

The journey was just over 4 ½ hours but with the 1 hour time difference arrived just after 11.30am. The train was met by a hoarding mob, not of trouble makers but friendly Macedonians trying to sell us tickets by the hand full and taxi rides. We had arranged to meet our contact to get our tickets (Cheers xxxxxxx as he wishes to remain anonymous, but he was a star and sorted the 3 of us out!). We got a taxi to one of the local hotels and met up with some other mates already out there, Bexhill Steve and his misses plus a few more familiar faces. We changed up some money to the local currency of Denars and settled down for some food and drink.

There was a distinct lack of people about but our bar had a good mixture of England fans and friendly Macedonians. We moved on to have a look round and walked up the river, past the big square where they were putting up a big screen for the match. We were offered so many tickets it made us laugh, so much for no tickets being available! We walked up to the ground to suss it out, then headed back into another quite bar.
About 4.30 we decided to head to the ground and joined the long queue to get into the South stand. We asked the Police which

entrance and they told us we were in the right line, and waved us through after checking tickets. In the bar alongside the queue was Everton Tim and some of our West Ham/Chelsea mates. We were soon in the nearly full large South stand. There was a small group at the back of the stand with a Grimsby Town flag and just before kick off some Bolton fans turned up in a group of about 15. Other than that it was a few small groups mixed in with the locals. The Macedonians behind us showed us to our seats and sorted out some confusion over others trying to sit in our seats.

We took some pictures of us in the ground and then one Macedonian gave us his flag for Liz and I to hold and he took our picture, it's a cracking photo with the big main stand of fans all hold red and yellow flags as the back drop. Just before kick off about 200 England fans we let in to a segregated section behind the West goal. Another group of about 50 lads arrived in the East terrace and stood at the back with no hassle.

The only incident we saw was when a Macedonian put up an Irish flag with Brits out of Ireland on it. One English lad was upset about this and remonstrated with the locals and before it turned nasty the Police ripped down the flag and disposed of it! The pre-match entertainment was 2 local singers and then we had the sight of the national anthem being started on a grand piano! We have the photos of it being wheeled away at kick off. The Macedonians sang their anthem with pride but a lot around us booed our Anthem. The lady behind us shouted to some booing it to stop and looked at us obviously worried that we might become the centre of attention but we just stood around smiling and laughing and had no hassle at all.

I wont go into the game as it was a while ago now, but my only sad and bitter memory of the trip was the disgraceful racial abuse handed out to Sol Campbell and Emile Heskey. We thought we heard the odd Monkey chant when they warmed up, but when Campbell put in a hard challenge the Monkey chants started again. The w***er next to us was bouncing up and down getting his kids to join in. What a sad ignorant man. We had to bite our tongues, we tried to get some on video as have a digital camera but its not very clear.

Soon after about the 3rd or 4th lot of bad abuse (last lot aimed at Heskey warming up) they made and announcement and we guess it was to ask them to stop monkey chanting as some people around us applauded it. Now what will FIFA/UEFA do about this totally unacceptable behaviour? Nothing of course, but hey lets see if we can throw England out the tournament, and racial abuse, what racial abuse, didn't hear it! The atmosphere was fairly intimidating and as England took over the game second half they mainly sand "F**k you England" or "F**k you Beckham", but he of course had the last laugh netting the winner. The players celebrated each goal and the final whistle with the group behind the west goal. We left at the final whistle with no problems.

The only direct abuse we got was at half time when we went to the toilet. The women’s was full of blokes weeing against the wall and it was pitch black so I went in with Liz. As we came out a little group saw us and shouted out quite originally "F**k you English". We just walked away. After the game we headed back along the river and ran into hundreds returning from the big screen. There was no hint of trouble and we passed a bar with several big screens so settled down to watch Italy v Wales. We met up with Steve again and went for a meal. Gary, Liz and I (along with about 6 other England fans) settled down in the bar for the evening. The local beer was very nice and at about 80p a pint what more could you ask.

Our train was at 3.25am and we managed to last until 1.30am in the bar before jumping in a cab back to the station. The station buffet was still open so we each had a drink of what they called coffee. It was truly awful and about half way down was a thick black sludge! We left that and gave up
watching bay watch on the TV and settled down in the waiting room for the train. It finally turned up at 4.30am and we joined the local fishermen, a few other England fans and some local youngsters who had been out for the night on the slow trek back to Thessaloniki. We arrived around midday, said our goodbyes to Gary, caught a bus to the airport, flew to Athens and then on to Kos and returned home yesterday in time to see Brighton beat Chesterfield 1-0 last night.

I will not be going to Turkey, but good luck to those that do. Mark "been to every away qualifier but still only got 1 cap" R
 

First of all a plan had to be hatched and so it was and a boat was hired with a member of the local underground hired to skipper this boat on a dangerous mission. Luckily photos were taken.

When the boat got close enough to land all did swim and then on entering the land decided they were hungry and sneaked into a lakeside café for a snack. Refreshed the group who would later be immortalised as part of the Makadohnia 500 set off to conquer a Fort and Church. This accomplished with ease they decided to find accommodation. The group had been warned and briefed about how difficult this would be and so after much searching did accept a secluded Hotel.

Now unbeknown to these intrepid invaders a soccer match had been organised to take place in this mystical land and it came to pass that they all went to it!! (Against the advice of everyone who knows bugger all about the world situation and decent law abiding invaders of mystical foreign lands).

Surprisingly all who did attend had a great time and then returned home via decent flights cluttered up with other people who can travel anywhere as they have a camera and pen and carry fake ID which says Journalist or Photographer. These people had also travelled to this troubled land and yet returned home safely except for King John of Motsonia who it would appear got captured and relieved of his wallet!!!

Al Lee, 4England

Thursday 4th September An early flight on Friday morning meant an Airport stopover on the Thursday night for the 7 Northern contingent in the 16 strong party, despite a heavy drinking session in Windsor and one of the lads being found by hotel security sleepwalking at 3am in only his undercrackers we all managed to make it to Terminal 2 for our flights to Sofia....

Friday 5th September It was a foggy morning at Heathrow and several flights were delayed, this was not a problem for 2 of the party that were on a direct flight but for the 10 flying via Prague and the others via Vienna it meant that it could be a tight connection en route.

After an hours stopover in Prague (the connection was also delayed), we flew on and arrived in Sofia at around 16.15 local time. The Czech airways flight that we were on pulled up at the terminal right behind the BA flight from London which had landed a couple of minutes before.

After making it through passport control by answering the question "Why are you here", with "Vacation" we were on our way through to arrivals with no questions asked. Our minibus company wanted payment upfront for the trip to Skopje so we paid there and then. At arrivals we were greeted by several Bulgarians dressed in England clobber trying to sell us match tickets for £40, they looked genuine, but most of us preferred to wait and see. We checked into the hotel, then after a quick shower we were out on the town in Sofia

Saturday 6th September We had two minibuses each seating 8 passengers booked and the first one duly turned up at the hotel at 10am, the first driver could not speak a word of English and looked about 13, but after translating via the hotel receptionist he told us that his friend was on his way and he spoke better English. His friend (who looked about 15) turned up ten minutes later and his English was a little better but limited to the the phrase "Hello, I don't understand English". The hotel receptionist translated for us and told them where we were going "Holiday Inn in Skopje" and that they should drop us off there and pick us up after the game at 11pm.
Quarter past ten and we were on the road in our ford transit vans (which were a good ten years old and had seen better days!)....

Some of the lads had spoken to a Bulgarian Chelsea fan the night before who was running two 52 seater coaches from his bar to the game, one of the lads on our bus had phoned his mate on that bus and told us that they were being held up at the border (they had left Sofia at 10am).

We arrived at the border around 12.15 and made it through the Bulgarian side into no mans land within half an hour or so.... As we drove into no mans land we saw the two 52 seater busses waiting at passport control on the Macedonian side.
We joined the back of the queue behind the busses while all the locals were waived through, after a couple of hours we made it to the front where it was our turn to be quizzed by the British police.

We were ushered one mini-bus (8 people) at a time into a building where 2 NCIS police officers identified themselves (but did not show any ID) and told us that both the Macedonian government and the British government had agreed to have every English person arriving filmed and their details taken. We were told that this tape would be destroyed should there be no trouble in Skopje and that our details would not be passed onto the FA (Didn't believe a word, but agreed to be filmed anyway!). One by one we were summoned into a room and told to hold our passport in front of us while we were filmed and then asked which team we supported.

The two Bulgarian drivers simply drove the buses through (no videoing for them) and we met them on the other side.... I took a look at the documents that our drivers had and they both had brand new passports dated about a week after we booked the minibus, this was obviously their first trip outside of the country and a new experience for them too! With this over with we were back on the minibuses and on the road to Skopje...

Once over the border we drove through some magnificent scenery, the country seemed a lot easier on the eye than Bulgaria where we had passed shanty towns en-route to the border. We had the two drivers mobile phone numbers (even though we couldn't speak their language), but shortly after crossing the border they lost service (obviously not set up for international roaming!) so we were relying on finding them after the game.

Two hours later and we were 10k from Skopje, the busses stopped at a toll road and we were offered tickets at £40 by a 13 year old in the toll-booth with his father, the lads on the bus that didn't have tickets all bought them for £20 after some bartering... While we were parked at the side of the toll-booth the two NCIS police and their Macedonian side kick drove past us and peeped their horn...

By this time we had made contact with people on the coaches from Bulgaria and Greece who told us that they had been sent straight to the ground, we wanted to get off the motorway and take a back road into town but due to translation difficulties there was no chance of this happening so we stuck to the main road. 5 minutes later we saw a sign for the Holiday Inn and took the turn off, pulling up outside the hotel within minutes. We told our drivers to pick us up there at 11pm (not that they understood), left them a 20 pounds spending money between them and headed to the bar in the Holiday Inn, crossing the road we had to dodge about 15 people offering us tickets at "very cheap prices"...

Not surprisingly for a city which was "too dangerous" for us mortal fans we found that it was hard work getting to the bar for all the journalists in there..... To name a few... Trevor Brooking, Graham Taylor, Terry Butcher, Garth Crookes and John Motson were all seen at the bar at some point. Generally the press were OK with us when the lads were talking to them except Garth Crookes, who obviously had a problem with us being there....

At 17.15 local time we got taxis down to the ground in good time for the kick-off. At the ground we had no problems getting in, the police were very friendly, laughing and joking with us, telling us they were going to win 2-1... No problems getting to our seats I was in the group that had bought tickets from the toll-road and we were sat on rows 1 and 2 behind the English dug outs in the South Stand..
The game went on without any problems, several people in the crowd booing when we sang the national anthem but noting malicious....

At the end of the game we were told by police to stay behind, we obliged then were walked over the pitch to the corner behind the net where all the other English fans were. After waiting here for an hour or so we were let out and managed to get a police minibus back to the Holiday-Inn with an escort from British soldiers in full Nato uniform and transport(Blue berets, big white trucks)....

Back to the Holiday Inn and we were relieved to find that our two drivers were still there waiting for us, time for a couple of quick beers (after squeezing past John Motson at the bar with his customary large Scotch in hand) then back on the minibuses for our trip back over the border.

The trip back was pretty uneventful, 15 minutes to get through the border, one of the drivers got caught for speeding and we made it back to our hotel at 3.15 am Bulgarian time (1.15am BST)

Sunday 7th September Flew back to London from Sofia via Prague... Arrived in London at 20.30.

After travelling via 4 countries (England, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Macedonia), spending 5 Currencies, (Pounds, Euros, Corona, Bulgarian, Macedonian) trying to work out the time in three time zones (British, Central European and Eastern European), and drinking god knows how many different brands of beer everybody was very tired but all agreed it was a fantastic trip...

Shame on the FA for denying many other England fans the opportunity of visiting such a beautiful country as Macedonia and denying them the chance to meet such wonderful people that we met along the way....