save them flashing their ciggies around. But this trip began like a Red Cross mission. By the time I got to the end of the train, I’d been given a can of ale, a bag of crisps and a packet of beechnut chewies. The exuberance was so full on that even tight-fisted bastards were acting like Mother Teresa.
Our kid and the lads weren’t on board, so I made me way back down the train, scanning round for a seat. The five-hour stint to Folkestone was only the first leg of a 3000-mile round-trip, so I badly needed to park me arse. It was starting to get a bit nippy, which was nothing new on a special, with the heaters always being fucked. They were a waste of space. To be honest, the only time I was ever roasting on a footy special was when some bastard set fire to the next carriage on the way home from Leicester in ’75. But bringing a coat to Rome was unthinkable. Of the 26,000 who went, I was one of the 25,999 who didn’t have one. I took me chances with a black V-neck jumper over a white T-shirt, a pair of Levi’s (Lionel Blairs) and a pair of Clarks boots.
By about half ten things had settled down. The singing had fizzled and the wine-lodge buzz had faded to backdrop, replaced by the racket of the moving train. Halfway through a carriage I heard ‘All right bollocks!’, then saw a couple more Kirkby heads. There was an empty seat by them. Wardy was wearing one of those floppy Liverpool hats and was grinning, with a can of ale in his hand. It was a sight I’d get well used to over the next few days and how I’ll always remember him. Jimmy had the same hat as me and thousands of other Reds – the thin-nylon peaked type with red and white quarters. My abiding memory of him is of a fella permanently blitzed. His raw, croaky voice sounded like he’d been inhaling smoke from a bus exhaust. He passed me a can: ‘Ee-arr, swallee that,’ he said.
I ‘swalleed’ it with three cheese sarnies. My food supply was half-gone, but I knew I had Vinnie’s as backup. A fella on an overloaded table opposite started moaning about the lack of baggage space. Wardy reassured him: ‘At least it won’t be like this in Europe. I believe the trains over there are brilliant.’ As far as statements backfiring go, that has to be on a par with Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 ‘Peace in our time’ speech, when he waved that white paper and said that Hitler was a great fella. To be fair to Wardy, at that time nobody knew what the rail networks on the other side of the Channel had in store for us – thank fuck.
By midnight the carriages were quiet. We were catching a ferry in the early hours, so we all needed some kip. The cold woke me a few times. I remember curling up on the seat and wishing I’d brought a flag to wrap around me. When Wardy woke me at Folkstone Harbour station, I was completely zombied. ‘Come ’ed, it’s D-Day,’ he said, grinning, with a can in his hand. Jimmy was sprawled across the table, using his plastic bag as a pillow. One side of his head was matted with sweat.
I was surprised how big the ferry was. I’d only ever sailed over the Mersey on the Royal Iris. As we boarded, everyone had their beige cardboard passports ready, but no one asked to see them or even bothered checking our tickets. The boat was chocka. A lad called Ammo told me that our kid and the others had got the earlier ferry: ‘Your Mick said if I see yer, to tell yer they’ll meet yer by the Colosseum somewhere.’
Below deck the bar area seemed as big as Anfield. It was a mixed scene. Loads were sitting or lying around shattered. Some slept while others drank noisily. Jimmy moseyed over with two full, dripping pints: ‘The bar’s shut. Everyone’s filling their boots.’
I stood on a chair and saw about six Reds behind the bar passing pints over into a forest of waving arms. Any other time and I’d have been right over there, but lack of kip, ale, cheese sarnies and ciggies had set fire to me gullet, so I popped a Rennie and got me head down.
It was about half eight when Wardy woke me up at Ostend … grinning, with a can in his hand. Jimmy was sprawled over a chair as if he’d been shivved. There was a huge queue to get washed, so we decided we’d wait till we boarded the Belgian train, thinking it’d be a modern, state-of-the-art job. At Ostend no one checked our passports or tickets again. I couldn’t help thinking how easy it would’ve been for Vinnie or anyone else bunking. We waited on a chilly platform at Ostend station for half an hour, then this minty old train rolled up. The buzz simmered down. The looks of concern said it all. ‘This bastard better not be ours,’ Jimmy said. It was what we were all thinking. A steward confirmed the worst. Wardy put it in a nutshell: ‘It looks like the fuckin’ thing they used in The Railway Children.’
The interior was similar to an English footy special: sliding-door compartments that held eight, with roped luggage racks above the seats and a sliding window. Further down … the carriages changed to just seats with no tables. A steward told us it was because the carriages were half-Belgian and half-French. We sat in the French half (just seats). The entire train smelt musty and felt crusty, but because we were still in adventure mode we just got on with it. All that mattered was that we were well on our way.
The first couple of hours were weird. People in the Belgian half of the train kept coming into our half saying ‘It’s fuckin’ freezing down there’. The crazy scenario was that the heaters only worked in the French half. Then, as morning warmed up and the sun got going, we kept going down the Belgian end saying ‘It’s fuckin’ roasting up there’. A steward eventually turned the heating off, though it was still stifling. The air conditioning was just a simple case of opening the windows.
The tannoy system was on a par with the train. Before any announcement you’d hear a few seconds of crackling, like an old wartime radio broadcast. A few mimicked Lord Haw-Haw: ‘Germany Calling’. Most messages were in broken English, the clearest being a warning not to drink the water on board because of contamination. That isn’t something you wanna hear when your throat feels like you’ve been gargling sand. I had nothing at all to drink, and Wardy and Jimmy only had ale. The situation led to an announcement that the buffet car was giving away free cans of soft drinks. When I got there, they’d all been snaffled. My salvation came when a few lads walked through our carriage carrying bags filled with drinks. They’d had a can whip-around on the train and were handing them to people who were thirsty, which I thought was a great Scouse touch.
It was boiling hot that afternoon. The open windows played havoc with any card games. It was as if there was a poltergeist in the carriage – cards flying all over the place. Plenty of yawning was going on. The initial hit of travelling on foreign soil had well worn off. The countryside seemed endless, flat and boring. Jimmy put his own geographical slant on it: ‘It looks like them fuckin’ cornfields at the back of Kirkby.’ I must admit I still laugh at that.
I wolfed me last three butties, then gave Vinnie’s sarnies to Wardy. His face was an absolute picture when he took them out the bag. The tomatoes on them had blown. They were like dripping porridge in his fingers. It was the only time I saw his grin disappear. His kite resembled someone holding his breath underwater as he lashed the lot out the window.
I don’t think anyone noticed that we’d crossed over into Germany.
It looked exactly the same, apart from the occasional six-foot-five, blond tit-head you’d see on a platform. Slowing and passing through stations were the best parts of the day. All the red and white colours would come out the windows, and the singing would start. You could tell that the Belgians and Krauts had never witnessed anything like it. Most of them stood gaping at the train with constipated expressions. In one station we all started throwing English coins and sweets to people on the platform. They were holding their hands out and pushing each other out the way to get at the booty. Any neutral observer would’ve seen it as a gesture of good will from one culture being warmly embraced by another. Jimmy’s piss-holed eyes saw it differently from the train window. ‘Yer fuckin’ tramps,’ he shouted.
As we got further into Germany, the countryside got more lush and picturesque, while the scene on the train became uglier. The Lord Haw-Haw voice announced that the buffet car was out of stock and that the handbasins and toilet
