Smiddy is a cracking guy and we spend a brilliant couple of hours chewing the fat all things Celtic. He tells me that he has my first book INVINCIBLE, and I’m made up about that until he adds that he hasn’t had the chance to read it yet, as a guy with two jobs and a young family.
Turns out, of course, that Smiddy was the guy at the bar earlier asking for Irish Folk music to be played. A few other customers have also struck the same deal with the barman apparently, as every now and then, the Wolfe Tones meets Thin Lizzy or Queen. His own choice of song is from a group he says are the best rebel band from Glasgow, the Blarney Pilgrims.
There’s depressing news sporadically shared about the plight of the supporters on the other flight. They seem to have been diverted to Trondheim and at this stage I’m wondering if they will see the game at all.
My phone is now sufficiently charged to allow me a photo, and there can be only one choice…when Boola Vogue met Boola Vogue, shown above. Out we go to the front of the pub, dragging one of the other guys out to take it. Standing next to Smiddy I feel like the doll with the monocle whom Ray Charles used to sit on his knee. I’m not going to suggest that as the pose, instead I jump on the bench and a wee moment in Celtic time is captured forever.
Soon it’s time for the fun to stop and head to the game. I bid my farewells to Smiddy and his crowd and promise to keep in touch. My destination is the pizza place from earlier and in I go in search of food. That’s not my greatest decision of the day, as an insufferable wait means I am now behind the main tranche of Celtic support to arrive at the stadium. Long story short, my advancing years and wet, bedraggled state see me sympathetically escorted to a seat in with the Bodo supporters rather than behind the goal. The Nae Brigade are in the house.
