Monkey goes to Perpignan, the true story.
By Monkey1
February 8 2005
The Monkey, Peter, Bubble & Squeak are famed for their heroic effort to get to the Perpignan game despite the storms that crippled the entire country. Here for the first time is the full story of their pathetic failure and total incompetence. Only the facts have been changed to protect the guilty.
Rumours have abounded, Lies have been told, and legends created. At long last, here is the true story.
You will not be too pleased to hear that my partner in crime was Peter Taylor, travel co-ordinator for the supporters’ club. The two girls now known as bubble & Squeak on away trips completed the expeditionary force.
It was not possible to travel on the Friday like normal people, that would have resulted in the presentation of a P45, known as “le sac” by we hardened globetrotters. Peter’s employers had made enough comments about how unfortunate it would be if he were ill on the same weekend as the Perpignan game.
Never mind, there was a way to do the trip by leaving on the morning of the game. There was very little margin for error, a mere 2 hours for delays, but at least it was possible. The itinerary, fly from Leeds Bradford to Nice, hire a car & blast along the Mediterranean coast to Perpignan. Pop along to watch the Falcons win their way through to the quarter finals, evening of celebration, fairly early to bed in the Hotel de France ready to drive back to Nice early next morning & fly to Newcastle.
There was an added responsibility. I had En France’s tickets for the game and his signed copy of Blackie’s book. Not a problem, we were staying in the same hotel, easy enough to meet there during the afternoon.
Saturday January 8th 2005 arrived at 3.30 am in the Monkey & Taylor households. The noise of the wind outside was a warning that all may not go well. By 4.00 Mrs Monkey was driving us out of Morpeth to collect the Taylor contingent at Washington. The A1 being shut at Team valley didn’t help, presumably the first blown over lorry.
Having collected the rest of the party, I took over the driving. The wind was getting worse and the driving unpleasant.
We actually saw our first blown over truck near Scotch Corner, it was the first of many. Acting on the assumption that aeroplanes are designed to travel fast through the air and that lorries are not, we still had some hope of the flight leaving on time. We carried on.
We arrived at Leeds Bradford Airport & Mrs Monkey set off back home. The airport is similar to other airports but without any room for people to queue to check in. We negotiated the complicated maze that had been designed to worsen the problem and eventually checked in. Good news, no delays expected.
We settled ourselves down for a hearty breakfast and coffee.
The first sign of trouble was when the first flight out, the 6.00 to Geneva was announced as delayed.
Indefinitely delayed.
Never mind, our flight was a full hour and a half later, a lot can change in that time. I phoned Mrs Monkey to warn her that we may have a problem. She had just made it past Scotch Corner before the road was closed, several lorries now littered the road. Just to add to her fun, she needed petrol and all the petrol stations were shut as their canopies were following the example being set by the roof at Kingston Park.
Time for another coffee.
The departure screens now added the Heathrow & Amsterdam flights to their list of casualties. Within half an hour, all outgoing flights were declared to be indefinitely delayed. An announcement promised more news at 7.00.
Never mind, as long as we could leave by 9.30 we would still make the game, a lot can change in a couple of hours.
Time for another coffee.
The announcements came and nothing changed. By 9.30 it was obvious that we were not going to make it. The girls were a bit upset at the prospect of missing their first game this season. Mrs Monkey had made it home safely & she phoned the hotel to pass a message to En France that his tickets were not en France.
Around 10.00 there was some news for us. It was possible to fly from Manchester and if we still wished to travel a coach would take us there.
Decision time. No hope of seeing the game and no hope of getting back home. Why not go to Nice then? The girls declared more than that, we would still go to Perpignan, that way they would still have travelled to every game. The decision was made, nothing would stop these Falcons supporters from getting to Perpignan, it had become a point of honour, and we still had to deliver En France’s book.
The chaos involved in that transfer is worthy of a story of its own. We were sent to a part of the airport where nobody knew what to do with us, the coach eventually arrived but we couldn’t get on, on arrival at Manchester nobody knew we were arriving, it was some time after 2.00 when we eventually took off and headed for Nice.
By around 6.30 we were in the car & driving out of Nice. It was dark and in some places foggy. We made leisurely progress, enjoyed a decent stop at one of the excellent aires (motorway stops) and with only one minor navigational error we arrived in Perpignan before midnight. Peter displayed his driving skills around the old town as we searched for a parking space, squeezing our £500 damage fee hire car through ridiculously narrow streets without need for a respray.
We checked into the hotel, helped by Luc and his complete lack of a single word of English, dumped the bags and headed out to Imbernon’s. The bar by then was a mixture of Falcons supporters but not from Newcastle, and some locals. We managed a couple of pints and with a mixture of poor French and poor English we got into conversation with some of the locals who sported the full beret treatment.
Except they were not locals, they were p1ssed English pretending to be locals.
But it was very funny.
We stayed until the bar shut & wandered out into the street with a mixture of locals & English. The locals were singing some appalling Abba and Queen songs very badly as they had been in the bar. We did the only decent thing & taught them the Micky Ward song.
“Micky Worde? Nous connaissons Micky Worde.”
The chances of them remembering it in the morning were very slim, or remembering anything, they were well sizzled.
The girls were done in and we headed back over the canal to the hotel to the distant sounds “hees fet, hees ghound, hees worse a millions pound he’s Mickey Worde…”
Alarms were set for a 6.00 off from the hotel, time for bed after a long day.
My alarm bleeped me into the new day, I eventually woke the little Monkey (Bubble) and within 15 minutes we were ready for the off. I went round to Peter & Squeak’s room & knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked louder & louder but still nothing.
Back to the room & I phoned Squeak’s mobile. It was eventually sort of answered with a grunting noise and went dead. Five minutes later my phone rang “Why did you ring me?” asked Squeak. “Because we should have left here five minutes ago” I replied.
Knowing that Luc would still be on duty when we checked out I wrote a note in French explaining that the book was to be given to 2 guests at the hotel called Andy & Wendy, 2 English people who live in France.
Eventually Peter & Squeak appeared and we prepared to commence the battle of checking out without the use of English.
I handed the book and the note to Luc, he smiled & nodded, one hurdle passed anyway. Checking out took an age and we eventually left the hotel 45 minutes late. Luc chased after us “Vous avez oublié votre livre.” “Le livre est pour Andy et Wendy.” I replied. Luc beamed & headed back inside, we went off to find the car which we had abandoned somewhere in the old town, not sure where though.
A couple of wrong turns and today was beginning to feel like yesterday, we were over an hour behind schedule as we headed out of Perpignan.
We made good time along the deserted roads and managed to get some speed up except for some fog as we passed the Camargue. With an eye on the clock we were gaining and it was looking a little tight for check in at the airport but not too worrying.
Then we joined the queue at the toll.
There was no obvious reason for much delay but the traffic was going nowhere, only 2 booths open, each letting a car through every now & then.
The clock ticked on. Eventually we made it through and saw that some nice gendarmes were having a little chat with most of the drivers.
Thankfully they left us alone. I was driving now, I looked at the clock, we were buggered for sure.
The signs indicated that it was literally Monte Carlo or bust, time to prove that the fastest thing on earth is a hired car. I have driven many a fast vehicle, even including a formula one racing car, but nothing would have made better progress than that Citroen Picasso.
We dumped the car at the airport & raced across to the check in desk.
Too late by 8 minutes.
Bugger.
The lady on the EasyJet help desk should be used in all of their adverts. She did everything possible to get us on that flight but the passenger lists had all been printed off & the forms completed, it was not to be. She broke all the rules and managed to get us transferred free of charge to the Liverpool flight. Bless her little cotton ones.
We now had a few hours to spare so we headed out for some sunshine. We decided to get a few photographs of the girls in France & found a little garden area by one of the airport entrances which suited our purpose.
The girls were doing all sorts of silly 8 & 9 year old girl type things, enjoying the sunshine. They got their white banner which was intended for use at the game & we took some photographs.
Now there are three types of policeman in France, and the ones who patrol the airports are not the nice gentle gendarmes, they are the riot police. The sight of a large white banner being paraded at one of the airport entrances with people taking photographs was obviously not on their list of desired activities that Sunday.
Once the big fella with the armoury saw that the ‘protesters’ with the banner were two young girls, and he saw the Newcastle Falcons logos on the banner and their shirts, he smiled and left the crazy English to carry on with whatever nonsense they were up to. One of them later took a photograph for us.
We had an excellent lunch and boarded our plane for the journey to Liverpool. We left the tranquil sunshine of the South of France and a couple of hours later we sort of crash landed at Liverpool in a howling gale and cold rain. I have never travelled down a runway sideways before.
We hired a car at the first desk we came to and headed home. We dropped Peter & Squeak off at Washington, the girls had had a great time & refused to get out of the car until the dvd of Grease was finished. Eventually I made it home to find my guttering neatly stacked in the hallway. Little Monkey was too excited & lively to go to bed, I went to the pub for a couple of pints to finish off the day.
If the only way to get to an away game in future is as risky as this trip would we do it again?
Of course we would.