Flight of fancy

It had the makings of a fabulous trip; temperatures mid- seventies, a beautiful city to explore, lovely food and drink, great company and the chance to see Celtic progress to the next round of the Champions' League. I knew it was too good to be true.

My brother, Chris, his wife Susan and her parents were all going to Porto to watch Celtic play and I had decided to join them on one of those organised trips for fans. My mum was her usual worried self, especially as my bowels have been acting up again. But I had managed to get a supply of special tablets that turn your stomach to concrete, so I could manage the flight.

We checked in and when we made our way to the departure gate, I was impressed with the amount of time the players took to speak to the fans. A new signing, Bobo Balde, spent at least 20 minutes patiently posing for photographs with fans. My brother had his video camera, so he was off bothering every player he saw. Once on the plane, a lot of the fans were imbibing alcohol, and I pitied the air- hostesses as they handed out the airline meals, as they were met with requests for more drink. I had been up at 5.30am, so I slept through most of the flight. But it wasn't until we arrived at Porto airport that things really started to hot up.

The Porto police were obviously unaware that Scottish fans have a good reputation abroad because they had batons drawn at the ready and some ominous looking shields. Fortunately for them, the most vicious thing they had to deal with were fans' beer breath.

We were all shunted on to coaches with our hotel name on the front of them - simple until you take into consideration the level of alcohol consumed and fans getting on wrong buses. I met one of my friends, Mark, who is married to Anne, my last girlfriend's big sister. He said he was going to the Hotel Grande. I cursed his good luck because his hotel sounded better than mine.

The police gave us a high-speed escort into the city, running other cars off the road, so we felt quite important. But this changed as we reached our hotel. It seemed nice enough, but with 150 Celtic fans all arriving at once looking for room keys, chaos reigned. There were only two people behind the reception, and their English was akin to Manuel from Fawlty Towers. I really shouldn't cast aspersions on their language skills because my Portuguese is woeful. Eventually, we all got our rooms sorted and they seemed fine. Then we decided to explore the city because the weather was warm and it seemed to have such a great atmosphere. It's a real cafe society with outdoor cafes on every street, so we had a few drinks to celebrate our arrival (although to be honest, beer never tastes quite so good from a plastic glass.) We toured the city and marvelled at the specialist shops that occupied specific streets; one street specialised in supplies for chapel selling vestments, candles and other religious accoutrements. Turn a corner and we were faced with a whole street full of quite beautiful patisserie shops. I have never seen cakes look this good, and knew I had to sample some before I left.

Now, those of you who have travelled abroad before will know that the visiting support usually occupy part of the city before the game. After a fantastic meal, we decided to find the other fans. It's strange, because if there's a square in a town surrounded by bars, you can bet your bottom dollar that your average footy fan will find it, and after an hour will have taken it over.

When we found the fans, we discovered "the square" swathed in green and white. It's funny, in Glasgow we have the man on horseback outside Goma who always manages to get a cone on his head, no matter how many times the council removes it. In Porto, there was a statue 30ft high which somehow had a Celtic tammy on, and he was tastefully swathed in Celtic flags. Ah well, you take the bhoys out of Glasgow Anyway, the locals (including the police) watched with detached amusement as the drink flowed. We bailed out early and retired to the hotel bar, where we had a jug of sangria - well it was quicker than ordering coke. We called it a night after that, travel, beer and a good meal all conspiring to add weight to our already heavy eyelids, although I took a couple of valium just to be sure. I had a big day ahead and didn't want a wave of tiredness to waste it. Little did I know what was to come. Porto, part two: next weeku You can email Jonathan at Deadherald@aol.com

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