It was 8.50.The cut off for applications for the 2023 European cup final was at 9pm.Would I be given a £600 ticket? Would I get battered on match day and never be seen again?I pressed apply.
The rest is history and remiss of me not to tell about it but here it is.The best 6 days of my life.
Pegasus airline turned out to be a bit of a shambles but threw me alongside one of the funniest people I’ve ever met who as I found out later was actually the Queen of Burnage and as we approached Istanbul we had to cuddle the empty mini bottles together so they didn’t go flying themselves all over the plane.
The chaos continued in the Taxi into town. I took three taxi rides during my stay each one thoroughly dangerous so much so it wasn’t funny.
In one piece just at sunset I arrived at just the best accommodation in Europe.
Overlooking and quite literally too the Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Camii Mosque.
I had booked this with care as I had fallen in love with the pictures online and boy oh boy did it not disappoint. Abuzer and Nur…the owners were on floor one and on arrival I was sat down and fed royally. Tea was made and conversation via google translate was free and easy, very easy with these two gorgeous human beings and then it was time and I’ll never forget the view as I entered the flat on floor three with my own huge balcony overlooking the floodlit Mosque 15 feet away.
Two days wandering, looking, photographying and eating Turkish delight followed. Then it was Saturday and City were in the European Cup final.
I’d ended up with a £160 ticket and i’ll be brief here as the day, result aside was a mess ending up with a walk through Istanbul at 4am…if my mam knew the motorways I had to cross and dodgy areas I went through she would be livid..It was like that film “the Warriors” but City had won the cup. I actually missed the goal but as I found a kebab house at the bottom of the street and had a beer Gillingham at Wembley seemed a long way away.
Two extra days, one a ferry trip to Asia and it was back home.
A few paragraphs tell a tiny slice of those 6 days. It was memorable. But we should talk about Rodri. He scored in Istanbul
