A Chance In A Million

So there I am at JFK airport in New York trying desperately to fly back to England for the LDV final

I'm screaming into my phone to Edson, who is trying to act as an impromptu Samaritans line, but I suspect from the noise going on was actually in a superstore trying to cope with me on the end of the mobile while pushing a trolley and interjecting with Mrs Edson and the junior Edsons.

I am calling Edson because my meticulously planned flying visit (literally) to savour an historic City game has turned into a nightmare. Now this is going to get complicated, but bear with me. I'd had the tickets booked for weeks. But the important thing - no, the VITAL thing - was the timing. I had to leave on Saturday morning because I knew I would be working well into Friday evening, and had to get back on Sunday night to avoid missing Monday at work. After consulting travel agents, frequent fliers, airlines, and other City fans online I had ascertained that the only way I could fly out on Saturday, get to the game and be back at my desk on Monday morning was to go with Virgin Atlantic on an 8.30am Saturday flight and take the 8.30pm back to New York from Heathrow hours after the match had finished. I knew that if I had taken a later flight on Saturday and landed back at Heathrow on Sunday morning, I would not have enough time to make it to Cardiff in the traffic. So it had to be a Saturday morning flight. Likewise, the 8.30pm was the last flight back to America from the UK that night that could get me back before Monday morning. I hunted high and low for other possibilities, checked out trains, studied flights from Bristol, Cardiff and even Manchester but that was it. With me so far? Good.

It was a military operation. General Tommy Franks and all the supercomputers composing thermonuclear battle plans in the US military couldn't have planned it more precisely. I even phoned Virgin to double-check that the last check-in for the return flight was 7.30pm, which left me precisely four hours to get out of the ground, run to the pre-planned spot nearby where my father-in-law would be waiting nearby the engine running, race up the motorway to London and belt it in to the check-in desk.

Now, admittedly the timing was tight. Possibly even a tad optimistic. But I’m a City fan. Therefore living on half hopes rarely fulfilled is a way of life. So I got on the Internet and booked it. I just clicked the mouse and confirmation arrived via email. It was easy. In retrospect, it was too easy.

So this is how my trip to watch City started:

Saturday 4am: Crawl out of bed after a few hours sleep, eyes stinging. Feel like death warmed up. Not a good start.
4.20am: Taxi arrived. Not packed. Feeling worse.
5am: Arrive at Newark Airport. To be told the flight has been cancelled.

Yes, that's right. Cancelled. Not just any old flight. MY flight. THE flight. The single fragile link between me and my awaiting seat at the Millennium Stadium, the only thing I had been thinking of for the past month, had just vanished. And they were very kindly trying to put me on a later overnight flight which got me to the UK just in time to miss the match and fly back.

Or at least, I could hyperthetically have flown back if they hadn't also cancelled my return flight. The only flight which would get me back in time for work. The flight I had used to persuade my boss to let me desert my post and come back for the big game. The one that had convinced me the whole operation was just possible.

It gets worse. I found a flight from JFK airport on the other side of New York - a tantalizing second chance dangled in front of me - and Virgin couldn't switch my ticket. They switched everyone else's ticket, but the Virgin manager behind the counter kept telling me in techno-babble that I had an e-ticket and she had to print it out to convert it to a paper ticket so that she could then endorse it to the American Airlines flight. But the words blurred, everything went fuzzy as sheer panic overwhelmed me, and all I seemed to hear coming out of her mouth was: "You're gonna miss the game. You're gonna miss the game."

So I'm stuck with a ticket I can't use, a flight leaving from an airport a 45 minute drive away which I'm not booked on and a check-in time I could just, just, make if I left immediately and jumped in a cab. But it meant buying another ticket on top of the useless Virgin one. To be precise, because of the closeness to departure, it meant buying a bloody expensive ticket that I couldn't afford. And if I miss the flight, I miss the final.

I admit that for one fleeting moment, I considered all the other things I could do with the $1,400 I was being quoted for a last-minute return ticket (on top of the $487 for the original bargain bucket flight) and nearly admitted defeat. But this is football. It's a final. I'm a fan. And the sickness I felt in the pit of my stomach at the prospect of missing one of our most glorious moments told me that even if MrsRedTop walked around in rags and RedTopJnr had to go without food or heating for a month, this was the best use for the money. I know you all understand.

So I swallow hard, book the ticket, jump in a cab and order the driver to race to JFK airport on the other side of New York. It's a bit like being at Bristol airport, discovering there's a flight you need in Cardiff that leaves in an hour, and racing to the terminal there to catch a flight.

So 45 minutes later and another $77 taxi fare which I can't afford later, I am heavy breathing down the phone at Edson, my lungs burning from running to make the flight and feeling desperately sorry for myself as I imagine the zeroes vanishing from the end of my bank account.

And then, as I'm stood at Gate 9 at JFK in New York, 3,500 miles from the football stadium I am trying to reach, it happened.

I put the phone down after ranting at Edson, breathlessly getting off my chest everything I've just mentioned, and this embarrassed-looking guy I've never seen before comes shuffling up to me.

And he says: "Excuse me, I'm sure I must sound stupid, but are you Brian - Redtop?"

Yes, I kid you not. I had no City shirt on. No coveted Incider T-shirt. But this guy is a forum user and (of course) an Incider reader who has somehow overheard me in the middle of an American airport panicking about possibly missing "the game in Cardiff" and had put two and two together and figured out I must be going to the Bristol City and that, furthermore, given our particular GSM position at that precise moment, the balance of probabilities is that I must be Brian. On the balance of probabilities? Given that there are currently only 2,004 registered forum users in the world, most of them are in Bristol and I happen to be in a US airport 3,500 miles away at an airport terminal in America, I’d say the chances of meeting, and recognizing, another forum user dressed in normal clothing was pretty slim bordering on negligible.

So in the middle of Gate 9, I shake hands eagerly with Mark Morgan from Westport, Connecticut - RedInTheUSA to official forum users - and am introduced to his wife Claire and beautiful young daughter Pippa. And that was it. Me and a complete stranger who travels the world working for a multinational while harbouring an avid love of the same club as me clicked like we'd known each other for all our lives. Throughout the flight we swapped City stories. I told him about the time I went in the home end at Trumpton for a Gas game against Huddersfield and couldn't stop myself from cheering when the Terriers scored. He told me how he used to live next to our former centre-back Dave Rogers, who drove a Cavalier with his name emblazoned on it and used to say “hello” to him at the front gate. Claire was a Liverpool fan, so no prizes for guessing another cherished moment that came up. Mark got Pippa to sing me her favourite song - the one she'd learned after "A, B, C" - "There's only one Danny Wilson". In fact, we shared our joy for the club so excitedly and so animatedly that the miserable bugger behind kept complaining that we were shaking "the whole plane" and that we were distracting him from the in-flight movie. And we have already arranged for the whole family of RedTops to go up to Westport for a Sunday barbecue.

And that is why it's worth it. That's why City means so much to me. That's why we all spend time, money and effort we can often ill afford to cheer on 11 men play football in red shirts. It's not just about watching a game of football. If it was, I could wander down the park and see a match there (yes, even in the U.S.). If it was all about seeing the highest standard of sport possible, then logically I would go and see a Man Utd or Arsenal game if I was going to make the effort of flying so far.

But it's not about logic. Being a Bristol City fan gets under your skin. Being Bristol City fans is part of what we are. Our love for the club makes us do the most extreme things sometimes. It's about belonging, about sharing in the emotional ups and downs of the real-life soap opera that unfolds relentlessly at Ashton Gate decade after decade. About having experiences you could not get any other way. It's about spotting a stranger in a City shirt on holiday in Ibiza and saying 'hi'. It's about seeing a guy in a Gas top and swapping banter. It's about glimpsing a St George flag at an England game on telly with "Bristol City F.C." emblazoned across the middle and feeling an overwhelming sense of pride. It's about reminiscing about special moments following the club with others who were there too and know just how special that moment made you feel, because they felt it as well. And it's about meeting a guy in a city thousands of miles away when you've had a really crappy day and feeling 100 per cent better because you both follow the same club and know you belong to something special.

RedTop