First Wales Away trip of a new campaign, the qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
The first away trip of a campaign should be a joyous affair. The excitement of a new beginning, a clean sheet, a time full of hope. And indeed this trip to North Macedonia is all of those things, but there is a dark cloud hanging over the trip.
Just one week before we depart, a fire in a nightclub took the lives of fifty-nine young people attending a gig in Kochani, sixty miles to the west of Skopje. Hundreds more were left hospitalised. It is a tragedy that has hit the headlines all over the world.
Apparently there were twice as many people in the venue as there should have been, many of them too young to legally be in the club. The license was dodgy, the building was unsafe and within forty-eight hours, fifteen people involved with running the event were arrested. The truth will no doubt be revealed with the fullness of time and I don’t want to spend too much time speculating.
I suspect the country is going to be in a state of shock, and no small amount of anger, when we arrive. There have been angry protests and seven days of national mourning have been declared by the government.
I have no doubt it is a subject that we will return to over the trip. There have been many tragedies at gigs over the years, which have been distressing. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but as we are about to head out to North Macedonia and had been hoping to squeeze in a gig, this one is resonating a bit more than the others.
Due to family shizzle, we had to miss Wales beating Kazakhstan at home, but it did mean we were already in London, so the journey to Heathrow was not going to be that much hassle. All be it, a flight at six of the AMs would mean getting up before we had gone to bed.
And then…
First we discovered that part of the M25 that we should be driving will be closed. Just have to leave early.
Then just as we were due to check in online, forty-eight hours before flight, a fire breaks out at an electricity sub station that provides electricity to Heathrow. The airport announces proudly that they have a robust back up system… all be it not robust enough to keep the airport open.
A nervous few hours followed, with a major question mark over whether our flights would be taking off, with us on board.
As it turns out, Heathrow got it’s shit together fairly quickly and our flights were unaffected.
We left early, to take into account roadworks and possible backlog in the airport, which meant we arrived at the off site car park at three of the AMs. The time I had booked us in. But it turns out, despite taking money for a 3am arrival, the car park doesn’t open til half past.
We eventually got parked up and shuttle to Terminal 2. There were quite a few red bucket hats and shirts in departures, half the Red Wall were on our flight.
In normal circumstances, if you were to get up and start drinking cider at 4am, you might be considered a bit sketchy, but if you are in an airport, it seems to be the law that you have to have a pint, and put a picture on social media, no matter what ungodly hour it is. However, Heathrow bar doesn’t open till 6am so we had to make do with coffee. Bloody third world airport. Luckily I had brought two power packs with me in case they needed electricity.
With their usual germanic efficiency, Air Austria were soon dropping us off in Skopje, after a quick stop over in Vienna.
As we walked out of the departure lounge, there was our pre-booked taxi driver holding a sign up for us, like in the movies.
We walked through the rain across the car park, then back again, as our driver had forgotten where he had parked his mobile ashtray. But soon we were off into the rainy Balkan morning wondering which side of the road they drive on here. Cos I don’t think the driver was sure. Luckily, I was wearing my brown trousers.
We landed safely at our apartment on the edge of the city centre. The area has the look of a Banksy training ground, but the apartment is very modern, warm and clean. Certainly clean of any complimentary coffee, sugar or basically anything. Old Mother Hubbard would have been taken aback by the bareness of the cupboards.
The rain prompted us to reschedule our three hour walking tour of the city. But to be honest, we were already knackered so just headed to the pub.
The latest issue of Alternative Wales landed on our doormat just in time for it to be packed into me luggage of the hand. It’s got some interesting stuff about North Macedonia, and indeed Wales footballing adventures in the rest of the area formerly known as Yugoslavia.
Writing in the zine, the Boy Hartley has made a good fist of setting the scene for the trip, so I’m going to have to up my game. I’ll try to avoid replicating what he has written and I promise to not refer to Skopje as ‘like Disney Land’. (Oops, too late)
North Macedonia, like most of the Balkans, has had a complicated history. It has been part of various empires over the years, including the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. It has been ruled by Bulgaria and Serbia. It was part of Yugoslavia until the country’s break up in 1991, but managed to avoid the violence that engulfed the region at the time of the break up. It seems North Macedonia managed to slip out the back of the pub whilst the rest of Titos children were turning over the tables and smashing glasses. Whilst peace has been the order of the day for a good few years now, it’s fair to say there are underlying tensions throughout the region. Even, according to the Boy Hartley, in North Macedonia.
Upon the break up of Yugoslavia the country was known as The Republic of Macedonia, but Greece took issue with this because there is a region known as Macedonia which includes a large chunk of Greece. For a while they used the name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but since the 2018 Prepsa Agreement with Greece, which came into force in 2019, it has been known as Republic of North Macedonia.
North Macedonia is a member of NATO (Greece had put a block on this till they changed name), but not the EU. Given we are here for footy, it is obviously part of EUEFA.
Not being in the EU, obviously means it is outside the Euro Zone. The currency is ‘closed’, meaning if you don’t spend all your sheckles here, you’re snookered, cos you can’t spend them or exchange them anywhere else.
As we walked from the apartment we didn’t see a much that resembled Disney Land. Dismal land maybe. I’d done my own research into cool bars and music venues, but with it being Sunday, and the country being officially in national mourning, we weren’t convinced anywhere would be open, so just headed for Macedonia Square, the North Macedonian equivalent of Trafalgar Square, John Frost Square, or Central Square in Cefn Fforest.
After a while, the graffiti gave way to statues, ‘faazands of em’, as Michael Caine might have said. They are huge and numerous. Two hundred and eighty four in total. Caine was always known for exaggerating. It’s like walking through Land of the Giants.
They are not as old as they look though. They were erected in 2014 at a cost of five hundred million euros. A lot of money for a country with a desperately poor population. Eyebrows were raised. Apparently it was to make the city attractive to tourists and to piss off Greece, cos all their statues are old and broken.
For reasons I can’t be bothered to research (Google) there’s a replica of the Arc de Triumph in Paris. Once we walk past this, the shops become less Soviet looking and more expensive looking.
We arrive at Macedonia Square, which is not actually square. It’s a circle. There’s a big f**ck off statue of Alexander the Great, on top of a plinth, surrounded by loads of statues of hard looking blokes with big pointy spears.
We spy a restaurant called Boca and dive in. It’s very pleasant and we order risotto.
We look out at the circular square and spot many Wales fans. Some of them obvious by their bucket hats and red shirts, some, you just know. Most of them are in holiday gear and totally unprepared for the inclement North Macedonian weather.
When in Rome and all that – we opt for the local beer, which, to put it politely, would make good cooking lager. So for next round we go for cocktails. Most of them appear to be mainly one or two spirits with a mixer. I opt for something I’ve never tried before, a Long Island Ice Tea, which contains vodka, gin, rum, tequila and meths. After my first slurp I temporary lose the sight in one eye. After the second slurp, I lose the ability to walk to the toilet in a straight line.
Fortunately the effect is not long lasting, so we head over to the Ibis to meet up with the Wonky Massive. After hugs and stuff, we go back down to the circular square and head over the old stone bridge into the old town (which might possibly be the ‘Albanian Quarter’). There’s even a statue of someone diving into the water.
We enter into a maze of little cobbled alleyways with restaurants, and shops selling carpets, gelato and fridge magnets.
After a minimal amount of faff, we find ourselves in a nice local pub and order a round of ten beers. I briefly wonder how we are going to split the bill, then decide to worry about it later.
Four beers later we decide to move on, and discover it is cash only. None of us have cash. So we take it in turns to go down the cashpoint.
On my way back from said point of cash, I realise that the Long Island Ice Tea hasn’t completely worn off. I wander back to the bar with a million pounds worth of currency that I can’t spend outside the country. And the beer is cheap, so it will take a lot of getting rid of. I pay for the round and start giving out my PayPal details.
We then wander in search of authentic local cuisine. At this point the gang ends up dividing into those that fancied an authentic local meal in a lovely alfresco restaurant and those that wanted to sit in the warm. And the dry.
We finish a very pleasant meal – when they say baked beans over here, they don’t mean the type that come out of a tin and go over your toast or your cheese and chips. I pay the bill, again, and we leave the table for the pack of feral cats to finish off. Then go and meet the others in the warm dry place they found. Unlike our traditional, Muslim-run, establishment, they also serve beer. And have heaters.
We spend a happy few hours reminiscing about past trips, share anecdotes about idiots we all know and I explain to the uninitiated how PayPal works.
Not wanting too peak to early – too many trips have been ruined by first night excess – me and my glamourous wife, slip on our stab vests and head back to the shanty quarter where our apartment is located. Then, twenty-two hours after we got up, collapse in bed ready for what day two has in store for us. We might have missed out on the guided tour, but at least half of Wales now owe me money.
