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Gott­lieb-Daimler-Sta­dion, 27. Februar 2003, Zuschauer: 50348

Celtic FC and their band of merry funs­ters stride to Stutt­gart on the back of a decent 3 – 1 win in Glasgow. The city?s finest sons now look to do enough and gua­rantee a mouth-wate­ring quar­ter­final tie with Liver­pool. Our small band of vol­un­teers (Jason, Floyd, Danny, Davey and myself) make the flight into Frank­furt and onto a train sta­tion already rocking to the celes­tial chants Hail, Hail the Celts are here“. After mee­ting up with Chris ? an Ame­rican ? we head to Stutt­gart. Much is said of Ame­rica at this time in world poli­tics. I simply cannot trust Ame­rica, not because Bush and his Admi­nis­tra­tion are Chris­tian Fun­da­men­ta­list war­mon­gers who believe unre­ser­vedly in the Bible inclu­ding that whole wacky hell­fire and Brims­tone ending ? this guy has the ability and lack of under­stan­ding of other cul­tures to make that happen. No, I dis­trust Ame­rica because we have given them so many chances to embrace foot­ball and they still don?t get it. Never trust a man who doesn?t like foot­ball ? a rule I live my life by. On the other hand Chris is a Flo­rida Celt? ? so ever­y­thing is for­given.
After a totally sur­real train ride ? clean train, hel­pful staff, and on time ? we arrive slightly the worse for a few light ales in Stutt­gart, belt out a few tunes in the train sta­tion then it is off to our hotel which is so bloody big I keep get­ting lost. After a brief pit stop in our room we are on the highway to obli­vion. First stop at the hotel?s Irish Pub where BBC?s Scot­tish Mafia has com­man­de­ered the bar inclu­ding one Murdo McLeod once of Borussia Dort­mund. After a few beers ? God the beers are high qua­lity in Ger­many, strong but sub­lime ? it is off into the night­life of Stutt­gart, the Wed­nesday night­life that is. Traveller?s Bar we find to be exactly what we were after, a cool joint with good vibes, big beers and plenty lovely ladies. I make the move and ask a local stu­dent, whose name escapes me, if she would like to pop round to our luxury abode and exch­ange bodily fluids. She replies by pou­ring a glass of your golden amber nectar down the front of my Celtic top, not only does she have a lack of respect for the Hoops but she tends to waste good beer ? psycho is the only word for one of such beha­viour. Unde­terred by her lack of under­stan­ding I per­sisted, until I saw a bottle behind the bar ? tequila shots jumps to the front of my mind. Not long after that ever­y­thing is a large blank canvas with no recoll­ec­tion of much until scrambling for a bottle of pop from out mini-bar around 4 a.m. to quench the mother of all thirsts, soon to be fol­lowed by the father of all han­go­vers. Mor­ning had broken, and so I thought had my head, but up we jump loo­king like asylum see­kers. We soon find our feet, adorn our bel­oved Hoops and head for the city centre. After 20 minutes going the wrong way in a tram, we decide to turn round and head for the city centre, again. Our desti­na­tion is Palace Square, a place much touted in the Hoops fans weekly The Celtic View“ by the Stutt­gart Tou­rist Board. The sight is over­whel­ming as we turn into the square as the massed ranks of Hoops fans engulf every inch of grass, scale every statue, and drape flags from every pre­cipice; 8000 Tims bas­king in the after­noon heat and sin­ging the praises of those gla­dia­tors in green (past and pre­sent) and, natu­rally, making sug­ges­tive comm­ents to all female passers by. With so many fans and so much beer there is only one pro­blem ? plum­bing, or lack of it. Bri­tains finest mili­tary elite are the SAS, 7 out of 10 mem­bers whom are Scot­tish ? Fact , why because were hard bas­tards and can adapt cha­me­leon like to any ter­rain. Hence the band­stand in Palace Square is quickly con­verted into a tem­po­rary piss stop by dra­ping huge ban­ners round its peri­meter. We now had all we need, beer, foot­balls, suns­hine, a toilet and an audi­ence with the Famous Glasgow Celtic the same evening.
Only one lin­ge­ring doubt remains in my head ? tickets ? I have arranged to meet a good friend from Berlin who holds tickets for us and who will accom­pany us to the game with his good lady friend. Until we find that man I cannot relax and being a stranger in a stran­ge­land any number of things can go tits up. But we are also one ticket short and this is playing hea­vily on my mind. No matter, the rest of the after­noon was played out with fun and smiles from our mob much to the amu­se­ment of the good people of Stutt­gart. Even­tually we ren­dez­vous at the train sta­tion ? Rei­naldo is there and I show my app­re­ca­tai­tion by hug­ging him for a bit longer than is neces­sary or safe for two hete­ro­se­xual guys, relief abounds my body and my smile begins to get so big that it may be hard to remove. The nice­ties are all done as we are intro­duced to Karolin, a girl who unnerved Rei­naldo with her know­ledge of foot­ball but charmed me with warmth and enthu­siasm (to my sur­prise she seemed to like me ? well she didn?t pour a drink down my front, in my book that is pro­gress).
On to the game and after the hyperac­tive Danny tried a little car sur­fing and belted out a few verses of We hate Eng­land More than You“ which in foot­bal­ling sense is true, Scot­land pro­bably does hate Eng­land more than Ger­many, but Danny hap­pens to be Eng­lish!!! If you are con­fused, think what must be going on in his head! As we approach the Gott­lieb-Daimler-Sta­dion ano­ther ticket appears and we are all on the road to good time city. Stuttgart?s ground is a stran­gely shallow coli­seum for the beau­tiful game. Then, after a quick survey of the arena, I see it, there in the distance, the pitch. Not the most inti­mi­da­ting sta­dium for visi­ting players/​fans, but what do we care. I chant, cheer and sing until my voice is lost (for 5 days as it turns out) and so is my will to live when Bonnie Tyler is announced as the enter­tain­ment ? this made little sense at all but what was beco­ming incre­asingly clear was the massed ranks of the Cetic?s tra­vel­ling army had infil­trated every area of this swee­ping arena. Bonnie bloody“ Tyler, what have we done to deserve this Hol­ding out for a Hero“! And as she announces her new single I slump into a coma. To my com­plete asto­nish­ment Danny knows the song word for word and pro­ceeds to belt it out Shirley Bassey style ? we all refrain from joi­ning in espe­ci­ally Floyd who has incurred an injury with his robotic dancing the night before, or as he likes to call the Lego-man dance.
And so to the match, if our talisman Henrik Larsson was fully fit, I would have had no qualms in pre­dic­ting that we would go through at the begin­ning of the night, wit­hout him we are a little light, but under our guru Martin O?Neill the Celt?s have become dif­fi­cult side to beat with a team spirit and unity that bonds the players which in turn is app­re­ciated by a well edu­cated (at least in mat­ters of foot­ball) sup­port. The din from the tra­vel­ling sup­port must have been music to the ears of O?Neill & Co. who, they knew the sup­port would travel, but they surely could not have hoped for the 12000 or so who made the trip from Scot­land and Ire­land. After a couple of spe­cu­la­tive shots on our goal in first ten minutes Didier Agathe opens his legs and shows Ger­many what he has to offer, three minutes later he does the same and we are 0 – 2 up ? ecstasy tinged with dis­be­lief. If I were ever to try free­style levi­ta­tion this surely would have been the moment as there has been no hap­pier moment upon this planet. Now Celtic were at a stroll and could have played the rest of the match in their slip­pers whilst smo­king a pipe, Celtic, however, are not used to defen­ding and this shows as they try to play the game out. Alt­hough our pro­gress is never in doubt, to lose 3 – 2 on the night is a little dis­ap­poin­ting. The tie is won but the game is lost and we are still wit­hout a win in Ger­many on com­pe­ti­tive duty ? the massed ranks swa­thed in green and white care not, as we are through to the quarter finals of a Euro­pean com­pe­ti­tion for the first time in 23 years. We exit the batt­le­ground to the hea­venly sounds of You?ll Never Walk Alone“ an anthem that will con­ti­nu­ally reso­nate throug­hout an emo­tio­nally charged Celtic Park and Anfield in few weeks time. We now have the belief to go into our most exci­ting month in our history for 20 years with our heads held high.
Our post match debrie­fing is held back at the Traveller?s Bar were we brag and boast, lie and lam­baste. Ano­ther few beers are con­sumed (a common occur­rence as you?ve pro­bably guessed by now) as we swap sto­ries, theo­ries, and tips on the game we love with German fri­ends, old and new, then we are all so emo­tio­nally drained from expen­ding so much in the 90 minutes of combat that bed is ine­vi­table. Still time for one last beverage at the hotel before bed however. We depart Stutt­gart around 7 a.m. on the Friday mor­ning han­gover, unwa­shed, smelly, tired, hungry but abol­su­tely elated. When we hit Frank­furt we are stunned with the news that our flight has gone wit­hout us due to a com­puter failure and the next flight is 8 hours later ? how happy were we at that pre­cise moment ? slightly peeved you might say. So we have a day to kill in an air­port ? oh joy of joys. The only saving grace is that Frank­furt air­port has a Sex Shop. Ger­many, we like your style.