Fotbal! Football with London's Romanian fans

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Yet another team I'm supporting loses. Last night, it was the Romanians. I went to a Romanian restaurant at 32 Old Bailey. The restaurant carefully segregated eating customers and drinking customers.

Romanian football fans, London

Happily for me, I was drinking next to Gloria & Leonard (like Leonardo with no 'o'). Gloria was not best pleased about the price of the beer, so went out and bought cans to drink from.

Gloria was a hoot, with a racuous giggle. At first, she declared she didn't care about the match. 'Let the king be the king', she said (I don't know either). Then, it turned out that she was a decathlete champion and crazy about sport.

Both came from Transylvania, and told me stories about Dracula and his castle (it's fake). And how in the 1980s, 1 million Germans lived in that part of Romania.

Romanian football fans, London

The Romanian fans were happily supporting Romania, but with the first goal against them, became fatalistic and gave up. One man stormed out immediately after both goals, fag in hand, slamming the door both times. Leonard started talking about not finding something in a google search - it was like he was announcing a funeral.

Happily, just then, comedy moment of the evening happened: the dessert trolley was wheeled around. You don't get that at Old Trafford.


So, in the end, the Romanians were out, but Gloria went off laughing, and so did I as finally, finally a foreign fan talked to me!

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