Chronicles of USAP - 1 - Kev's Story

By Kev Boyle
February 8 2005

In the first of an occasional series, Falcons supporters take us through their recollections of Perpignan. Here, Kev Boyle takes us through his memories.

The weekend had been conceived when the Heineken fixtures came out. There were still leaves on the trees back then, and the new stand had a complete roof. John and Ian, as per usual, had little difficulty in convincing Alan and me that a few beers in the sunny South of France in the first week in January might not be a bad idea. So with a bit of trepidation about whether the game might be a Friday night KO or Sat or even Sunday, we adopted the usual Toon Platoon attitude and opted for “Lashing with Lincoln” as oppose to “Living with the Lions”. We reasoned that for the £72 or so for the flights we could hedge our bets, and be reasonably assured of seeing the game, at whatever time Sky-driven ERC decided to make the KO. So Friday to Sunday it was.

Now John has a very busy job and a young family but he is a whiz on the Internet and suddenly we were booked and, including 2 nights in the excellent IBIS hotel, it all came to less than the cost of a night out in Newcastle! Throw in a few Euros for food and a perhaps a couple of beers and we were laughing.

Speaking of throwing in Euros, the fine system we operated for crimes such as “telling bad jokes”, “wearing inappropriate things”, “excessive bodily excretions”, the heinous sin of “spilling drinks”, and “hiding Euros in the yellow silk hankie” raised £150 for the Tsunami appeal – Thanks to all those who contributed voluntarily and for those who didn’t the twisted arms should get better quicker than Jonny’s knee.

For future trips I can also recommend getting hold of one of the rare “Toon Platoon on Tour Official Press Passes”. When dangled around your neck you get staff-discount in the Pret a Manger in Stansted Airport, which got the Tsunami Appeal off to a good start.

We got taxis from the sleepy Perpignan airport and after barely having four wheels on the ground in the entire journey we were at the Hotel, to be greeted with a “Falcons, Falcons” echoing across the lobby from the advanced party of the Falcons Supporters Club, who had travelled out on Thursday to ensure that all was well for the rest of us. What they were doing late afternoon in the Hotel bar eludes me. Jill said it was only afternoon tea that had gone cold, but I’ve never seen tea served in Pint Glasses before!

After abandoning the bags we were “off oot on the toon”. The first port of call being the Bar owned by Jean Francois Imbernon, the former French 2nd row, who could actually remember playing against Duncan Madson last century (and presumably “Broon fra Troon” as well). When they stood side by side it wasn’t hard to spot the one who had had the biggest paper round, though it must have been through a very rough neighbourhood.

The bar Imbernon was adopted as the meeting point for most of the weekend, and after eating out at a superb bistro nearby (Casa Sansa) we returned there for the first nightcap. It was very friendly in the bar, and the news must have got round because it was full of those gallant guys whose job it is to report on the endeavours of our heroes in various local and national newspapers (It’s a rough job but some one has to do it). Everyone helped at some stage or other to prevent the bar from falling over by propping it up, despite Martin and Lee doing a pretty good job by themselves. As the bar closed at around midnight, and after John had been roundly arm-wrestled by Dave Thompson into loaning his Zebra Skin Stetson, Jean Francois’s staff kindly pointed us towards the Tio Pepe bar.

Now you’ll have to excuse me if it starts getting a bit hazy here, but Jill and Lynne both tell me that the Tio Pepe was very good, and apparently both Mick Hogan and John Parkinson were seen buying a round….. Dear reader, I’ll leave you to make your own mind up about that one!

On the earlier sound advice from Andrew, the team Doc, and Elliot the team Snapper we had an early night and got back to the Ibis at about 3.

After an early morning jog and breakfast we strolled around the town in glorious sunshine. Perpignan really is a delightful little town and the Catalonian people are extremely friendly. It must be the Spanish influence, which also exhibited itself in the architecture. None of us knew that there had ever been a King of Majorca, let alone that he had built a palace, but this further demonstrates how cultural LWL can be. What we did know from experience in Grenoble and Montferrand was that the French dog-owners always seem to forget their Pooper-Scoopers. Alas Perpignan was no different and Jill repeated her Montferrand role by warning us all as we strolled. We had various chats with lots of USAP (Perpignan’s local name) fans that we met. After a great lunch in the palm tree-lined main square we started wandering to the ground., led very ably by Gemma and Kate, with Ian keeping a close eye on where they were leading us

Since we already had tickets (thanks to Jack Sharp) we had time for a couple of beers behind the main stand and had our photo taken, complete with face paint and Charvis wigs, which appeared with the report in the following day’s “Perpignan Independent” paper. Fame at last! Getting Lynne through the gates so she could sit with us was achieved with ease. I planned it, Alan distracted the ticket snatcher with one of his special a “Falcons” shouts (you really had to be there to see the effect) and we were through.

I knew I was taking a risk at half-time in suggesting to Dave Cullin “You know at 9 – 9 we might just nick this”, but we had been OK up till then, ….and we might have, ….but we didn’t. C’est la vie, and the best that can be said about the second half is that the weather was nice.

After the game we resorted to Plan C (Plan A being “Win and get bladdered”, Plan B being “Draw and get bladdered). We had a good few laughs with the Kent Division of the FSC in the second bar we passed as we walked back to town. (Not even John wanted to risk going in the first one). The Kent guys’ link with the NE being that they were from the mining community in the Kent Coalfield, and had a lot of Geordie ancestry. One of the guys was extremely generous in swapping his brand new Bettshanger Colliery RFC shirt for a piece of USAP tat, and immediately we fell about laughing at the look on his brother’s face, as the swapped shirt was actually his.

Saturday night’s events pretty much followed Friday’s, with the exception that we ate in a great fish restaurant, and Ian, recent convert to mussels that he was, couldn’t quite get the point about oysters. Thanks to Paula and her bloke for the fines!

Most of us, flew back on Sunday and the airport was buzzing with jokes and stories and the occasional “Blaydon Race”, but soon we were seeing the snow-capped Pyrenees receding in the distance. Stansted was in its usual Sunday evening mess but after a quick game of touch and pass in the Wetherspoons we were heading North into a gale. Almost the biggest cheer of the weekend went up as we semi-crash landed at Newcastle in a Force 10 on the KP scale. (There are ordinary winds, ….. and there are Kingston Park winds!).

Along with the regular European Trippers from the FSC there were lots of new faces, many with spouses, an aall wi’ smiling faces and absolutely all of them said that they’d had a great time and long time soccer supporter Keith and Di said “much better than away football matches, we’ll definitely come again”. Hope you’ve recovered now Di! It must have been something you ate.

Let’s hope we get another trip from the Quarter Finals!