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My Olympic experience today
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I know I am not a big fan of the Olympics, but that does not mean I dislike them, (nor does it make me anti-British as some would try to contend) so I thought I would go to Hampden today. It was a day of mixed experiences.
First came the train to Glasgow, and Scotrail yet again proved themselves the only rivals to BT for sheer, unadulterated incompetence. A jam packed train of two carriages with people crammed in too tightly, and no air conditioning meant the sweat was literally running down my back within a few minutes of leaving. I've complained about this before and Scotrail told me that H&S doesn't apply to them. They apologised for the overcrowding today, blang a lack of rolling stock. So where was it all at 10:00 a.m. exactly? I forgot, ticket office closed at Falkirk and no room for conductors on the train meant a long queue in Queen Street to buy a ticket.
On to Hampden, and there were volunteers everywhere, but Care in The Community must have been having a flag day, such was the sheer gormlessness among the majority of them. I asked where the box office was and was met with blank looks from seven different "staff", before a very helpful English chap pulled out a small map and showed me. If he had this map, did the others? It was on London 2012 paper so it was an official document.
Anyway, on to the box office, and this really was utterly chaotic. There were two clearly marked areas for collection and the rest were cash booths, but "staff" were telling people "just go to any of them". They were staffed by some of the slowest and most incompetent people I have ever experienced in my life. I dread to think what visiting fans suffered, or made of it all? The upshot was that I was late, something compounded by the entrance to the BT Stand upper being moved, although this was not marked. A steward sent me the wrong way and I had to walk half the length of the stadium to get back. I could have walked up the staircase I had just come down and got there in less than a minute, but this was a "downstairs staircase only". Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
There were hundreds of volunteers standing about doing absolutely nothing, and the girl in the merchandise programmes tent had the IQ of a housebrick,struggling to work out my change from £10 when I had just spent a fiver. She wasn't foreign!
Still, once in, a very helpful girl took me to the new entrance and I sat down fifteen minutes into the game. There were 15,000 to 18,000 in the ground at this stage. Makes you wonder how sell-out Old Firm crowds manage to get in on time and without all those volunteers?
Things got much better. Honduras v Morocco was excellent and the atmopshere was good as well. Four goals, a sending off, sunshine and a good seat improved the Duncer mood no end. Until I went for food between games.
The queue was six long but it took thirty minutes to get served. Kyle could only have got slowe by dying. As for the choice of food? Pie, (scotch), pie, (steak), pie, (chicken curry), or pie (cheesy bean). Four different sorts of pie, and you could have crisps to go with them.
Exorbitant food procured, I went back to see the crowd cheering the sprinkler and doing Mexican waves. The friendly Japanese fans were magical, singing throughout and adding a wonderful splash of colour to the game. The game was very good too, even if Spain were a big disappointment. Only black spot were the stewards trying to force some Japanese fans back to their seats. It is perfectly normal in Japanese football culture for fans to cheerlead from the front, and they were doing no harm whatsoever, in fact they were adding to the occasion.
One final observation, for the on pitch announcer who said "Please give the sides a round of appluase as they head for the locker rooms". you are Scottish; when the f**k did we start referring to locker rooms?
If you get the chance to go to games then I would thoroughly recommend it; just be patient and count to ten. I'm going back on Saturday
First came the train to Glasgow, and Scotrail yet again proved themselves the only rivals to BT for sheer, unadulterated incompetence. A jam packed train of two carriages with people crammed in too tightly, and no air conditioning meant the sweat was literally running down my back within a few minutes of leaving. I've complained about this before and Scotrail told me that H&S doesn't apply to them. They apologised for the overcrowding today, blang a lack of rolling stock. So where was it all at 10:00 a.m. exactly? I forgot, ticket office closed at Falkirk and no room for conductors on the train meant a long queue in Queen Street to buy a ticket.
On to Hampden, and there were volunteers everywhere, but Care in The Community must have been having a flag day, such was the sheer gormlessness among the majority of them. I asked where the box office was and was met with blank looks from seven different "staff", before a very helpful English chap pulled out a small map and showed me. If he had this map, did the others? It was on London 2012 paper so it was an official document.
Anyway, on to the box office, and this really was utterly chaotic. There were two clearly marked areas for collection and the rest were cash booths, but "staff" were telling people "just go to any of them". They were staffed by some of the slowest and most incompetent people I have ever experienced in my life. I dread to think what visiting fans suffered, or made of it all? The upshot was that I was late, something compounded by the entrance to the BT Stand upper being moved, although this was not marked. A steward sent me the wrong way and I had to walk half the length of the stadium to get back. I could have walked up the staircase I had just come down and got there in less than a minute, but this was a "downstairs staircase only". Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
There were hundreds of volunteers standing about doing absolutely nothing, and the girl in the merchandise programmes tent had the IQ of a housebrick,struggling to work out my change from £10 when I had just spent a fiver. She wasn't foreign!
Still, once in, a very helpful girl took me to the new entrance and I sat down fifteen minutes into the game. There were 15,000 to 18,000 in the ground at this stage. Makes you wonder how sell-out Old Firm crowds manage to get in on time and without all those volunteers?
Things got much better. Honduras v Morocco was excellent and the atmopshere was good as well. Four goals, a sending off, sunshine and a good seat improved the Duncer mood no end. Until I went for food between games.
The queue was six long but it took thirty minutes to get served. Kyle could only have got slowe by dying. As for the choice of food? Pie, (scotch), pie, (steak), pie, (chicken curry), or pie (cheesy bean). Four different sorts of pie, and you could have crisps to go with them.
Exorbitant food procured, I went back to see the crowd cheering the sprinkler and doing Mexican waves. The friendly Japanese fans were magical, singing throughout and adding a wonderful splash of colour to the game. The game was very good too, even if Spain were a big disappointment. Only black spot were the stewards trying to force some Japanese fans back to their seats. It is perfectly normal in Japanese football culture for fans to cheerlead from the front, and they were doing no harm whatsoever, in fact they were adding to the occasion.
One final observation, for the on pitch announcer who said "Please give the sides a round of appluase as they head for the locker rooms". you are Scottish; when the f**k did we start referring to locker rooms?
If you get the chance to go to games then I would thoroughly recommend it; just be patient and count to ten. I'm going back on Saturday
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sounds like you need to count to a million instead. i think i would definitely lose my temper and offend people. this is the whole reason i am not going to the games - we couldn't organise a Fosters up in a brewery if we tried. factor in the gormless tw@s who will have volunteered because they can't do anything else.....and you have the great and the (not so) good british public. i can't stand other people at the best of times......x
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