On April 17th, 1980, various members of City F.C. and some hangers-on went to Amsterdam for a weekend of fun and football, arranged by Roger. Here follows the words and pictures from that weekend as recorded by me in the scrapbook, so forgive me if things are seen from my perspective.

City Go To Holland

or   The Chris Brown calendar location shots

or   Rudi Kroll is a poser

or   Roger's in love again

or   Hey Soreeta !

or   Have you dropped your guts, Tel ?

or   Ooohh Oddbod !

or   Andy is so boring

or   Where's me chips ?

or   I'd better phone Bev

or   I'm not a poser

   The day started well, with Chris L reporting unfit for football with a bad ankle sustained whilst trying to prevent his dog, Gos, from getting into his suitcase. Then Phil decided to get smashed on a 50-50 mix of gin & bitter lemon. To cap it all, Pat found that he couldn't go to Holland without a visa, so Clive "Ginge" Jones stepped in.

  After a final cup of tea in the canteen, with Chris B getting in some pre-tour posing, we set off for Victoria Coach Station.

 Outside the station, Bob dared Phil to moon at a cafeteria.

He did. We formed our own disaster area at the station waiting for the coach to come in, watching various crashes, listening to Colin phoning Bev (his wife) and generally messing around.

Quote - Chris B to Andy - "What position are you ?"

  3 young ladies (??) turned up to go on the same coach as us, Rogers mate Bernie arrived, and Bob combed his hair.

  The coach left 15 minutes late, with us & the girls taking over the back seats. It took 10 mins for Al to want to stop for a pee, and he spent the next 15 mins telling everyone that he was dying. The driver, Dick, ("That is not my name, call me by my proper name and I will answer") would not stop, so Al was forced to relieve himself into a Kia-Ora bottle, which was emptied when we stopped at a service station on the M2.

The coach next stopped at Dover, where we passed through customs and on to the ferry 'Free Enterprise III'. We spread ourselves out, some going to play the machines, others drinking, eating or sleeping.

   One eating group found the portions rather small, Chris L decided to put all the chips on his plate, not realising that they were to be shared. Colin spent most of the trip sleeping or looking for a phone.

Chris L found Phil's toothpaste on a chair, and added some to a sleeping Martin, and this finally led to Steve & Ginge becoming intimate.

 Apart from the noise we made, and a quick game of 'hunt the poser' by Ashley & Robin, the trip was smooth.

  We landed at Zeebrugge after 4 hours on the boat, and then it was motorway through Belgium into Holland. Al was joined by Phil, Steve & Ginge in the fill the bottle game, with a short respite at Breda, where TC bought a roll with jam, only to find that it was a sausage roll, and we had our first go at using the monopoly money.

  Community singing led by Bob, kept us all amused until we reached Amsterdam, via Rotterdam and The Hague.

  Saying that it we got a shock when we saw the hotel would be an understatement. Confronted by stairs at a 1in1 gradient and finding that the hotel was not paid for merely heightened the horror of the rooms. Cobwebs were shifted from ancient resting places to make room for a 4th bed in two of the rooms, which meant climbing over each other to get to bed. We dumped our bags and went looking for refreshment. Civilisation !! The golden arches ™ of a McDonalds beckoned from twenty yards, and little did we know as we devoured the almost edible Hamburger Royal & Franse Frietjes that this was to become the staple diet of the team.

 Showing the Englishman's legendary ability to keep any food down, we staggered to an amusement arcade for pinball, space invaders and posing.

Several guilders lighter, we set about surveying the area, where we met our female friends from the trip over.

Much posing, then back to the hotel to compare notes.  

   Roger had been to a peepshow and had fallen in love with one of the dancers.

  Some of us found the red light district, and Terry's face was a picture when he was told, as the other groups had searched unsuccessfully for it. Colin got drunk and began his attempt at the world record for fighting by offering Ginge out.

 In one sex shop, a spin-off from Star Wars and space invaders was discovered in the 'Anal Intruder' set.

 Chris B wanted two.

Page 2