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With only 27 hours to kick off to what would be one of the most popular Old Firm battles in years, we made our way up the main Derry Belfast road.
It was blearly Tom 'Red-Eyes' McCloskey in control of the Volvo
and his co-drinker... err sory co-pilot Aidan 'Morning After' McDermott
second in command. Thankfully it was a fairly uneventful journey up to
Chez Sweenster, where the Volvo was parked and Joe Maxi's were ordered.
Frankie 'New Bhoy' McKay's new place of work was to be the meeting point
for the 'Shamrocks' to meet. And one by one they gathered..... Whilst
Rory was busy increasing the Celtic family with new additions, Gavin
OKane was filling the void. Red-Eyes and Morning After along with myself
were only there a matter of minutes before 'The Solicitor' and Decky
arrived. Next was John 'Thanks for your Money' Sweeney, Joe 'Thanks for
your money too' Sweeney. We spotted Frankie working away, keeping his
head down making sure he was impressing his new employers.
'We Love you Frankie we do! We love you Frankie we do!'
'WHAYYYY... Frankie!!!!'
'Did that cream work Frankie??!!'
'Do you know those Guys Frankie?'
'Never met them before in my life boss'
Old Red-Eyes wasn't one bit impressed at having to Check his luggage
through. Reiminscent of Gaylord Focker Tom replied to the ticket desk
guy:
'I'm not checking my luggage. Fcuk sake! Its only half full'
(Glad you are a Half Full person Tom as opposed to Half Empty!)
Well Tom, whether it was half full or even half empty, your case was
still the size of a small south-east Asian country. And in true
Claudy-esque fashion Tom just piled on through with case in hand 'I
ain't Cheking the case' - I was glad he did just pile on through, cause
if the HSS ever got into any difficulties out on the Irish Sea, we could
probably used Tom's case as a life raft. All Aboard!
Prime seats were secured on the boat and the Celtic deck of cards was
produced by John. Due to the lack of small change, bets were big from
the offing! And I, was on Fire!!! Gimme a Yo!! It was a good job I
was winning big style..... cause when it came to buying rounds, it
looked like I was the only person that had feckin sea legs. Full round
for all the card playing shamrocks...... 2 pints of Tennants, 2 bottles
of bud and a bottle of magners for Joe 'CSA' Sweeney. The lhads scoffed
their delicious beverages as if they were laying on a beach in the
Costa..... after finishing the drinks Joe said:
That was a rough enough journey... I didn't even feel like drinking much
after that Magners'
Said me, dying with drouth..... 'So I noticed! Saving your money for
the CSA were you Joe? Cheap-skate Bassa'
So having just made my money back in cards to cover the round of drinks
for my charity cases, we touched down in Puerto de la Stranraer.
The train journey from a sheer pleasure, we didn't want it to end......
On-Carriage entertainment was provided by John The Pie-Eyed Entertainer
from Letterkenny. This was a guy that had not been to bed since getting
his leaving cert results the previous weekend and was on his mission of
self-destruction: no better place to go to self destruct than in
Glasgow. Didn't take John The Pie-Eyed Entertainer from Letterkenny
long to pack me thinks, a rap of speed and a ghetto-blaster, with a
couple of LA's finest 'DJ TepoShack' tapes. With his brother's
girlfriend Lindsey being his target for beer cans, The Pie-Eyed
Entertainer from Letterkenny never failed to provide entertainment. He
was the sort of buy that would make a lot of friends in Glasgow drinking
emporiums....
Pulling into Glasgow Central couldn't have come soon enough, John The
Pie-Eyed Entertainer from Letterkenny was just too much fun. So a 5
minute walk (or 10minute Taxi Joe & Tom) to the Travel Inn. We checked
in and then assembled at the quiz machine. Pauric and Dr Joe R had
arrived at this stage and had their arses firmly seated to the bar
stool. In much the same way as Dr Socrates of Brazil, Dr Joe R of Derry
was smokin like a trouper. With one eye on the Man Utd Everton game on
the TV screen and the other on the very insensitive touch sensitive quiz
machine screen.... we went about emptying this machine. After half and
hour we were broke and hungry. Some of the shamrocks had already left
for food, so it was Gavin, Tom and myself that went to Bella Italia for
what was to be a massive feed! 12quid for a bottle of wine and whatever
else you wanted, we all rolled out around 8pm. I do have to say that I
absolutely wreaked of garlic.... but boy was it good.
'To the Marriot my good man!'
Tom, Gavin and myself where met at the door by The Solicitor and John
Sweeney, tickets handed over and drinks were ordered. With the
specially commissioned painting 'Unity' being sold of at a cool £1800,
and a few rebel tunes being blasted out a very good night was had. 
But yet again we had a few of the Shamrocks splitting off and doing their
own thing again.... The Garage was the place that most people decided to
get refused from. Whilst Mickey, Gavin, Aidan McDermott and myself
partied till 2 with our German friends and very nicely tattooed
Glaswegian Ladies. The ladies loved talking to me, full of booze and
wreaking of Garlic... I really don't know how how they controlled their
selves.   
Back in the Travel Inn at 2am and in desperate need of beer! And they
say they can't serve us!!! What a travisty! We clearly needed more
beer and lots of it!
'Can you not see that we are in desperate need of more beer?' I shouted
at the indian receptionist.
'Sir, the bar closes at 1am. We cannot serve you drinks'
'Look at us.... do we look as if we need more beer? And the answer is
Yes by the way!'
'Sir, go to bed.'
'OK, good night'
Morning came and I don't know about you, but I always think its nice to
wake up in a place that is not a police cell, or that is not outdoors,
or not an outdoors police cell. Breakfast was good, and after filling
our faces we decided to have the draw to see who gets the ticket. I was
Bomgsong, Aidan McDermott was Alex Rae and Dr Joe was Bobo......
Toothless Rae won. So it was up to the park we went, Dr Joe, me and
Gavin in desperate need of tickets. We did get our hands on some Celtic
Rangers tickets but it was for the cup game several month before......
we tried and failed to get in with these and duly took our places at
Lynns Bar. Although we were 1 mile from the action we had an amazing
view of the first Rangers goal:
Truly stupendous. Dr Joe is clearly pointing the way to Paradise. How
was he to know that this thonged wonder was going to take his fags!
The game itself was worth missing and if the truth be told it was
probably one of the worst performances I've seen in a long time from
Celtic. But if that mob think they are going to take our title they
have another thing coming. To see whats coming you have to be looking
the right direction.... remember that Rickson!
Over to Haughians for the one man rebel band, and a few cans of Red
Stripe later we were starting to have our memories of the game
numbed..... but we seen the fag stealing thong lady again.... in fact Dr
Joe may even have kopped a feel of one of them.... allegedly!
  
Having parted company with the German lads again it was a bit of a dash back to
the station for the Orient Express back to Puerto de la Stranraer.....
but were was John The Pie-Eyed Entertainer from Letterkenny?? He must
be somewhere....Nope! we didn't see him either on the train nor on the
boat home... he must've meet a lot of friends over in Glasgow and
decided to stay. Hope he didn't get kicked to death or anything.
A couple of prime seats on the train for snoozing..... right beside
where someone had decided to puke their rings up..... thankfully I
couldn't smell anything but the Garlic I ate the previous eve.....
perhaps I made the person puke by accidentally breathing on them, I
dunno, but needless to say that whoever it was puked was clearly sitting
too near the huns at the front of the carriage.
Strikes sports bar on the HSS was were we were to take up position for
the journey. We were like a bunch of horses in the bar, a load of Van
Nistlerooys's.....a lot of long faces! But the beer made the journey go
a lot quicker and it was back to Belfast for 9.30pm..... I was in the
house sitting on Steve O'Hare (couch) by 10pm...... I'd say with 'Old
Red-Eyes' and 'Morning After' in charge of the Volvo the rest of the
lads were sitting on their Steve O'Hare for 11.
Hopefully John The Pie-Eyed Entertainer from Letterkenny is not playing
his ghetto-blaster in the big Discotheque in the sky. The Weekend........ 
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