Azerbaijan Away - Saturday 9th October 2021

The football makes a trip and good result was cherry on top for a very enjoyable away. 

 

The night before my departure, asked hotel to book me a taxi to the airport at 6am. The following morning the car was there waiting for me. It had no seatbelts in the back and a juddering sounding engine as or sped along (and I do mean speed). The fact the the driver had no taxi registration on display, or a meter, or even a taxi sign on the car leads me to suspect the hotel receptionist didn't so much as book me a taxi as ask a mate to drive me to the airport for a nice little earner. When we arrived at the airport, instead of dropping me off at departures, my ‘taxi’ stopped in the short stay car park. Possibly because as an illegal taxi, it wasn’t entitled to use the drop off points. All this for an extortionate 50 menat (about €25) 😡

Baku is absolutely class, one of the cleanest cities I have ever been in. The locals were sound. In fact they hadn't a clue the football was on which meant there was no interest or rivalry as such. 

I could list 100 mad stories but I will leave it at 3.

When I was leaving the hotel I dropped my credit card when I was going to the ATM (actually another lad did but we won't play the blame game ) - Once I got to the ATM I realised it was gone and headed back. Half the lads were out having breakfast - I had the mobile data off so in the time it took me to get back - suppose about 5 mins, the lad at the hotel had picked up my card and send text messages to the lad in our group who was sorting the hotel. When I got back he was buzzing that he had it and handed it over. You just don't see that in many places.

When we arrived in the hotel on the 1st night - there was an offie next door. We asked the hotel staff if we could bring in cans to the hotel. Not only did they say yes, they came in with me and picked out the nicest local beers for us. Once we got back in, they gave us glasses to pour the beer in to and then went ahead and ordered us loads of pizzas & kebabs . No joke we could / did stay up drinking every night at the hotel until whenever we wanted. They just sat across from us and were delighted with the entertainment. Every once in a while they would ask if we were ok.

We had issues with getting a bolt to the airport on the last night. We couldn't get a 6 seater. Well that's not true as such. We had gotten a 6 seater a night previous and when the lad arrived he didn't want to do bolt and wanted cash so was straight on the scam. So when the 6 seater turned up the next night it was the same scam artist so we had to tell him to jog on. Anyways we said we would order a standard car as time was ticking by. Taxi man showed up and said taking the extra person was no hassle. Lads were squashed alright but the trip still cost us less than €2 

Lunatics & a great bunch of lads

Saying that - outside Baku city is one of the biggest dives I have ever seen. The poverty outside the city is actually scary.

The flags are in relation to 30 years of freedom

Might make things interesting if we draw Armenia in the Nations League.

Yeah they did but appearently that's not an issue 

Armenians f**ked over enough down the years.