VENUE:  UPC ARENA , GRAZ, AUSTRIA

DATE:     SUNDAY 30^TH MAY 2010

FINAL SCORE:  ENGLAND 2 JAPAN 1

ATTENDANCE: 15, 300 (including 1,373 England fans and 700 Japan fans respectively on official trips)

After meeting up with Mark Winterbottom for the Mexico friendly a few days earlier, we were entrusted with the safe keeping of the Ernie flag for England’s visit to Austria. Our crew consisted of 2 Blues of the MCFC variety (go easy on us, at least we love our country, not like the other crowd from Stretford!), Alan H (OAFC naturally!), and Jazz from Sheffield (the original Heeley Blade!).

With the benefit of good street maps, we were soon checked in to our hotel, and found a late night retro American Bar complete with Sinatra songs, every whiskey you could ever think of available for sale, and smoking allowed on the premises (sounds like heaven I can hear some of you thinking!).

With Alan’s Sat Nav giving us the options of no fewer than 4 stadiums as we approached the outskirts of Graz (incidentally it being Austria’s second biggest City with 250,000 inhabitants), I was asked to check the match tickets to see what name was on them, only problem was, the tickets weren’t where I thought I’d put them, they were still sat in an envelope 150 miles away in the hotel back in Vienna!

Talk about feeling deflated! As everyone unmercifully took the proverbial, I was devastated, the game was sold out, and there was no way we could turn back and make it back in time…….. but every cloud and all that, our friends at the English FA were sympathetic to my plight, and hastily made arrangements to replace our tickets (freeman’s was never an option, but the extra £20 each felt like a small price to pay, although Alan may beg to differ!). Now we were sorted, we could enjoy the pre match build up, whilst Jazz did the honours with all the flags, ensuring that the Ernie Cooksey OAFC flag was in a prominent position.

The texts throughout the game would seem to back up the theory the boy done well with the positioning of them. As for the football itself, well it wasn’t a thriller, but England friendly games rarely are, its all about the trip, the camaraderie, the match is often incidental. We got back to Vienna for a longer night out on the Sunday, and then enjoyed a relaxing Monday taking in the sights around the City, if there is a cleaner, tidier place with buildings to rival the Austrian Capital, then I’ve yet to see it…….

We flew back via Munich on the return leg home, and after an eventful 48 hours or so, we landed back on English soil, no doubt a few hundred quid poorer, but having had a fantastic long weekend away. It was our privilege to take the Ernie Flag to pastures new, and if called upon again to do so in the future, consider it done!

SEAN & JANE, ALAN, JAZZ – English, and we’re proud of it!!!