On my 5th business trip to the Republic of Moldova, a country with one international airport (the size of baggage reclaim in Heathrow Terminal 2), and a population of roughly 3 million I was informed by a contact in the British Embassy that he couldn’t meet me for a beer as “2000+ Scots are flying in next week”. I paused…. “what a friendly?”. “No” he says “a World Cup qualifier”.
I really should follow football more closely. I only ever watch the European or World Cups and couldn’t car less about Mr Potato Head Wayne Rooney beyond jealousy that he could retire at 22. Moldova are ranked 113 in the world and here they are playing Scotland. This explains why tickets to fly back on Thursday were ludicrously expensive.
Sunday night and I was with my friend Kate when 4 Scots in kilts and sporrans came into Bar Nistru on the main city road. Two were the size of houses and the locals were unembarrassed in pointing and laughing every time one went to the toilet. Introduced myself and offered to show them around the city over “a pint” the next day.
Met up with Alan, Colin, Lee and Iain and introduced them to the joys of forced rolled cabbage leaves with pork and rice stuffing, sour soup and a superb, dark Russian beer called Baltika 6 (7% abv).
The women in Moldova by and large are tall, slim and attractive and having four of them with me on the Tuesday evening led to a lot of giggling and asking me to enquire “if he’s wearing anything under”. Chatted away to lads in various pubs who were only too happy to get their pictures taken, let the girls try on their hats (Helen did look so fetching in that one with the huge feather in it) and sing us a song (albeit an anti-English one) in return for the ladies belting out the Moldavian national anthem.
All the girls thought the Scottish guys were wonderful and I spent my journey back to London feeling really sorry for myself after taking them and about 10 Scottish to a bar named Déjà Vu that was still serving spirits (beer was gone throughout the capital by about 11 o’clock) as we left at 5am.
This whole experience was just beyond words. Had such a good time without any of the “worry” that comes from hanging around with English fans abroad and I can’t say I’ve ever before had the energy or inclination to be drinking huge gin and tonics until dawn.
Thanks to all the guys I met out there for a very pleasant couple of days in Chisinau. If your team was as good as your fans you’d be top of the world.
Cracking post Lance, good to hear that you enjoyed yourself so much and nice to hear that you got a chance to meet some of The Tartan Army. Only 2 from the Tap Shop Tartan Army were over in Moldova. We originally had 27 going but most pulled out when we were ripped off as our to be 2 day trip was to become just a one day trip with no price reduction.
It's an interesting point you make obout the English. Trust me they do have a lot of very decent fans that we have shared a beer with on Wembley visits. You'll always find that 99% of the Tartan Army are amiable, social and respectful when abroad (making the obvious allowances for drink). We also have the 1% in the idiots category but as you are probably aware if you were following England this percentage increases by around tenfold. The good thing is that our 1% are almost always given a "good talking to" by the others, if they get out of order. It's a shame that England's 10% put a dampner on their decent fans.
It might interest you to know we actually have English members in our club as well as Irish and Canadian representation.
Please feel free to look around our site, particularly of photos and stories of our tours and remember our disclaimer that any anti-English bias you find is not to be taken seriously.
