I should've been in France!

Yesterday I happened to have the day off work. I had hoped to be in France for the weekend, but lack of funds conspired against me. As did late fixture planning by the Gaffer who currently runs the Dulwich Hamlet Supporters' Football Team.
Those who know me I am still slowly, but surely, paying back long term debts, stretching back to my drinking days, when I ignored all bills in pursuit of my only idol alcohol, & ran up huge debts with various credit companies, some of which I'm repaying, others...well if I think I'm financially fucked now I dread to think how bad it would be if ever they caught up with me!
I could pay back what I owe quicker than I do, but if I were to live on a diet of beans on toast, & stay cocooned within my four square walls of my flat I would crack up completely, & it would be back to square one.
So I pay back what I can afford, & basically live on a monthly income of about two hundred quid, after all bills, repayments & rent. Which has to inlcude food, and basic living costs which we always seem to 'forget about' unless money is tight. stuff like laundrette, washing powder, shampoo, toilet paper, that sort of stuff.
Out of this I try to save a few pence for my trips abroad, which really are the highlights of my year, though I live extrmely frugally on them. Staying at backpackers hostels, & practically eating out of chip shops and supermarkets. One day, in a few years time, I will be able to 'treat' myself when debts are clear, to a 'real' hotel & 'proper' meals in restaurants. I enjoy going to visit new grounds to watch foreign football on my jaunts, as well as ice hockey, if I can find any. I'm also 'fortunate' in that I love going around taking photographs of empty grounds and also cemeteries, both of which are time consuming, but free!
I pick and choose my trips carefully, and can only go on a few of them a year. At the end of February I went to Belgium for a long weekend. I stayed in a Belgian Youth Hostel in Mechelen on the Friday night, having watched one of the local teams. I didn't see anything of the town centre though, as I spent the afternoon at Fort Breendonk. In the morning I headed to Namur on the Saturday morning, to stay with my good friends Belgian Anorak & his fiancee Rocky. I really do love them as thoroughly decent people. And they are kind enough to put me up in their house for a couple of nights. On Saturday evening we saw Namur get stuffed again, this time at FC Brussels, & on the Sunday he drove to Paris to watch PSG! Magnifique!
I now have a big soft spot for PSG, thanks to my friendship with Belgian Anorak. But my first Parisian love is for 'little' Red Star. It really was love at first sight when I first went there in early 2004! And how that came about is somewhat strange too! I happened to pick up a discarded copy of the 'Independent on Sunday' which carried a story about the imminent demolition of the Stade de Colombes, in Paris. Which was the Olympic stadium from 1924, & also staged the 1938 World Cup Final. Now up until then I'd never been to France properly before, apart from day trips to Calais or Boulogne, which don't really count. Oh, and one to Dunkirk, I've just recalled. But they were just day trips with school, or family type things, or piss ups doing beer runs with mates. Even going there to get drunk on my own! My very first trip across the Channel was when I was about eight or nine, on a day trip to Boulogne, with the 8th Camberwell Cub Scouts! It was a great adventure for me, though iIdon't recall anything about it. On our return there was an essay competition on the day for all f the cub packs in the Camberwell area, and despite my really untidy writing, I won! I think I got a really boring (at the time) book on planets & the universe. I wish I still had it as a little momento. I thnik this was one of the few times in my life that my mum was proud of me...
Until my first visit to Red Star I didn't like the French, & thought they were rude bastards. It's true they still are...but I am English after all, what do you expect me to say! So how did I end up a Red Star from afar? It could quite easily have been another old, historic French club called Racing, who are based at Colombes.(It is also home to the Racing rugby union club) Until the fickle hand of fate stepped in! I had booked an overnight coach from Victoria to Paris for the Saturday night, go to watch the Racing match on the Sunday afternoon, & make the return overnight coach trip that night. But after I'd booked the tickets the Racing fixture was switched to the Saturday. So my chosen game was off for when I was in Paris. Fuck it! I dropped an email to my mate History Snob, and he suggested I go to watch Red Star, who had a nice old stadium, with a good fan base for their level, which was then a regional division six. I liked the ground straight away. I located the club shop & bought a few souvenirs, asking the geezer behind the jump if he spoke English, but the answer was 'non'. Not to worry. At half time I was minding my own business when the Club Shop Man came up to me with another bloke...who was a Red Star fan, originally from England! I spent the whole of the second half chatting to him, and ended up with my photo on their website, for which he does a regular English page! I told him we had a Supporters' Team, & said, only half in jest, that if ever they raised a side we'd go over to play them. Which we did the following season! And I've been back to at least one game every season since. Until this one, which finally brings me back to the weekend! I had this weekend booked off as annual leave since the start of the season, as I picked out the fixture away to Le Havre B to go to.
This was to have been my last foreign trip until the Supporters' Team summer tour to Helsinki in late July. Now Helsinki is an expensive city at the best of times, even more so with the economy being fucked, & the pound crashing against the euro. But I haven't missed a tour yet, since I instigated the first one to Amsterdam, in May 2002. Following which, incidentally, I stopped drinking, and have been sober ever since! For the last three seasons we have also had a mid-season European 'mini-tour' over a weekend. But this year we didn't. The Gaffer originally gave the the go-ahead to investigate one for Lisbon, but as soon as I did, and starting making initial contacts, he pulled the rug from under me, never having given a reason as to why. It me feel so small & a total cunt, and I've never been given a satisfactory explanation as to why. Though that's all history now, in the past. It's not worth dwelling on it. I know I did everything correctly & all I've lost, apart from a bit of face, is some personal respect for him as a person.
Later he explained it away by saying there was to be no mid-season tour because he thought some people might not be able to afford two tours, what with Helsinki being a little more expensive as a destination. Which is perfectly feasable...
In the meantime the Belgian PSG supporters' team had got an invite to the Queens Park supporters' tournament in the middle of June. So I decided I could just afford a weekend up in Glasgow, combining meeting them & cheering on the Belgians, with a bit of sightseeing, for a long weekend.
So my 2009 holidays were all laid out, as I could afford them...just! February-Belgium. March-Le Havre. June-Glasgow. July-Helsinki, from where I'm oving on to Riga, in Latvia, for a couple of days; then, lastly, my annual birthday trip to Prague in October.
Then came an amazing two faced about turn from the Gaffer! Suddenly-after having booked Glasgow- we are now in a tournament in Brussels, run by the Union Saint Gilloise supporters' the weekend after the Scotland trip! I've not missed a tour yet, and have no plans to do so now, but two foreign trips in consecutive months really is crazy-even more so for me who is semi-permanently 'fiscally challenged'. I'm committed to seven days in Finland & Latvia, which I could have cut to four. And five in Scotland, which could have been only two. Which would then have left me enough to go to both Le Havre this weekend, & also Brussels.
But I had to knock Le Havre on the head, & stay at home to try to keep some money back, which isn't easy at the best of times. It will mean, for the first time since I've been following them, I haven't watched Red Star during a season. I will try to squeeze in a very short, probably consecutive overnight coach trips, in late May, to see them. But how I really wanted to go, or where. I know I will enjoy the Brussels tournament when I'm there, but it really is an expense I could do without. Yes, I could just choose not to go, but it is something I do not want to miss. I can-& do-travel cheaply, & live on proverbial peanuts, so will just cope. At the moment I'm not entirely sure how, but I will!