Brussels by bus – day one.
The beauty of Wales Away is travelling to interesting new places. But this is the third time in ten years we have played in Brussels, and we thought it was shit last time. Yes there are some grand buildings, but many of them look grubby up close. And the place is full of pickpockets, scallywags and nerdowells. Loads of Wales fans were robbed on our last trip. Our regular travelling companions decided to give it a miss, having been robbed after the game in 2022.
Two things made our minds up for us. Firstly we were pretty much guaranteed tickets and it’s good to keep your loyalty points up. The second was that Snowy was running a trip from The Rose and Crown in Pontypridd. Basically a bus door to door. Ish.
Snowy does a good trip, but he’s been off the scene for a while. As soon as we saw he was running a trip our mind was made up. There was the added bonus of only two nights in Brussels. We didn’t want to spend any more time there than we needed to – although the Dibbs killer, bus to Brussels, watch game, bus home with no overnight stay, was a step too far.
Some of Snowy’s trips have featured a lively crowd but this time he made it clear, ‘this is not the twenty-four hour party’ bus of old.
Snowy looks after his travellers, the bus is ‘all inclusive’, as in loads of complimentary refreshments, including cheese and biscuits, delivered to your seat on a silver platter. Well, a cardboard platter covered in tin foil. All very civilised, don’t you know.
After going through passport control we board the ferry. We are travelling with DFDS, a French company, rather than the P+O blaggards that sacked all their crews a few years back. Before we get off the coach we are given meal vouchers – I don’t recall P+O doing that.
By the time our coach pulled off the ferry in Calais, the hospitality had kicked in and it had turned into a nineteen-hour party bus (got to have a couple of hours kip at our age).
As we approached the hotel a few helpful people tried to give our driver advice. Wyn the driver thanked them for the help. “I’ve just driven five hundred miles without any help, now we are fifty yards from the hotel you want to give me fucking directions?”
Now is as good as time as any to big up our driver. He drove from Pontypridd to Brussels only stopping when the tachograph told him he had to. He must have the bladder of a twenty year old.
The hotel was a couple of miles out of the city centre. Most of the gang opted to head up into town and soak up the ‘Christmas Eve’ atmosphere of the day before the game. For various reasons, we opted to stay local to the hotel and drink in less touristy pubs where you didn’t have to queue for a beer and pay inflated prices.
Despite being the supposed ‘capital of Europe’ and sporting some impressive architecture, Brussels really is a bit of a shithole. It has fantastic artistic murals, but they are outnumbered by dreadful graffiti tags and general vandalism. There’s galleries and museums, but they have way more than their fair share of organised thieves and muggers. On that night before the game the Football Supporters Federation was made aware of at least twenty robberies – including a BBC reporter and someone off our bus.
I hasten to add, we stayed in Bruge last time, which was magnificent. So it’s not all of Belgium, just Brussels that lets the side down.
In fact, it’s not even the whole of Brussels. A short walk from our hotel we found a lake with fountains and shit and several bars around the edge. We plotted up outside the Market Tavern ordered beers and sat watching the world go by – without being mugged. It was calm and civilised. It was like being in Europe. It was what the doctor ordered.
Then we went back to the hotel to have a few more beers. And gins. And have bizarre conversations, such as how much juniper berries resemble rabbit droppings. You can take the boys out of the valleys, but you can’t take the valleys out of the boys.
