Interesting to read the accounts of what happened in the cinema complex just before the game. My little crowd got there just after the skirmish and were wondering what had happened. Can well believe that some of the Twente fans were looking for bother - we had one make a half-arsed attempt at starting on us. But it soon became apparent to him that shouting "I hate English" wasn't as intimidating or inflammatory as he'd hoped and he soon skulked off.
Anyway, I digress. As has been pointed out before all clubs have a band of idiots. Fortuntately for us, we had an encounter with one Twente fan who I hope represents the decent majority. One of my mates is absolutely hopeless at finding his way around anywhere and has a tendency after a few beers to wander off for a little explore and get completely lost. This he did again about an hour before kick off on Thursday (we really should look into buying him one of those kiddie harnesses...). But this time he completely surpassed himself by managing to drop his phone somewhere so not only was he lost, he was incommunicado.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to ring him blissfully unaware that he's not got his phone any more. It's half an hour to kick off and things are looking desperate...do we abandon our "no man left behind" policy and hope he realises he's got his ticket or wait until everyone's inside and then try to find him in the empty complex? As I'm pondering this, I get a call from The Wanderer's wife. It turns out a Twente fan has found the phone in the car park and has called the number stored as "home" to try and get word to someone that they've lost their phone. Understandably, my mate's missus is more concerned about where's he's got to than where his phone is. Anyway, we give the Dutch chap my number and he phones me up to let me know where his is and we meet up just before kick off for him to return my mate's phone.
I'll not bore you with the rest of the story, suffice to say I tracked down my mate at half-time and tore him a new one. But it should be acknowledged that the Twente fan went above and beyond the call of duty to get that phone returned to it's rightful owner.
As I say, I hope he's representative of most of their fans and just felt it worth recording our gratitude to him somewhere. I realise this sentiment would probably be best recorded on one of their forums, but all the ones I can find are in Dutch so there's no hope of me navigating my way around there never mind posting a coherent message
