Friday 28th SeptemberThis was our most ambitious trip yet. In one weekend we were planning to see three games, including our first in a German guestblock and for me, my first Belgian fixture.
We had decided that the train was more civilised way than the all-nighter on Eurolines. The only drawback was that I'd booked the first one of the day to Brussels (it being the cheapest), which meant an early alarm call.
We took the night bus down to Trafalgar Square.
From Trafalgar Square we walked across the river to Waterloo station, which took a bit of finding.
At the Eurostar terminal, there were lots of England rugby fans heading to Paris.
But our train was bound for Brussels.
In Brussels, we got some Cherry Beer and connected onto the Liege service.
The Gare de Liege Guillemens was a dump, which was being completely rebuilt. In truth, most of Belgium could do with being completely rebuilt.
From Liege, we took the local service over the border into Germany. The rickety old train, took us through the picturesque scenery of the Ardennes.
All along the way we had looked for football stadiums but weren't having much luck. This was about all we saw:
Into Germany we changed again in Aachen. As we had a bit of time we took a stroll into the city. Aachen is a beautiful historic city full of amazing shops such as this one.
Aachen have a fan shop in town, similar to the one at Tivoli. I made friends with Al-Aix.
No visit to Aachen is complete without a pint of KP, this one was as good as ever.
Nicely oiled, we were ready to go. The train upto Gladbach was full of Alemannia fans.
A long bus ride took us out to Borussia Park. From the outside, it's a bit of a concrete hunk.
Denim jackets with sewn on badges are very fashionable among fans in Germany. Many BM Nordkurver's looked like this.
Goats are not allowed inside Borussia Park. If you try to smuggle one in they might notice.
Once inside, the atmosphere started to build up. The lower Nordkurve is the home standing area.
Away fans stand at the other end.
More views of the ground:
Aachen's capo.
We couldn't get tickets in the main fanblock but ours was next to it, so there was still a good atmosphere during the game.
Unfortunately, Gladbach were the better side and edged it 2-1.
Not too despondant, we headed back to the station and towards Bochum. Our train was bound for Gelsenkirchen, where a connection would take us to Bochum. Rather tired by now, we arrived at GE Hauptbahnhof to see that our train was to depart from platform.... 25. For some reason they'd numbered the platform's 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 25. I had been warned that Schalke folk were a bit odd.
Here is our departure board, two minutes before departure. A minute later it was blank. The train had vanished into thin air! The DB staff promised another one half an hour later but we couldn't see much evidence of this.
With time marching on, the station started to fill with Schalke fans, returning from seeing their team beat Hertha Berlin. We escaped GE with a train to Wanne-Eickel, but again there were no connections. Thankfully we found a bus outside to take us to Bochum.
At least I thought it was a bus until it started driving on the train tracks. Apparently it was a tram. Finally we arrived at Bochum Hbf. We were staying at the Park Hotel opposite. The Park Hotel, as we later found out, is the official sponsor of corner kicks at the Ruhrstadion.
Saturday 29th September: Bochum v Nurnberg
The following morning, we had a bit of a lie in the following morning. The hotel was very smart, and being on the 11th floor we had great views over the town and towards the stadium. Unfortunately it was wet and dreary like last time.
We took the tram upto the stadium, which was very straightforward.
In one of the Fanmobile's I found a Barnet badge which I was very impressed by.
First it was off to the Bierkutscher to meet Christoph and friends.
Into the ground.
The ground was barely half full though the Nurnberg fans had filled their block. You've got to love the crazy advertising boards.
Before the game we received a welcome on the tannoy, as well as a message on the scoreboard. A wonderful gesture.
The Ostkurve is the heart and soul of the stadium:
We stood in the middle of the Ostkurve, behind the Ultra section. There was a great atmopshere.
The terrace was popular with kids...
And hoodies...
The game was very exciting, with lots of poor defending. Bochum twice came from behind and led 3-2, but a late Nurnberg equaliser meant that the points were shared.
Not a great result, but spare a thought for the Bielefeld fans.
We left the ground and headed back to the Bierkutscher. The Nurnberg fans were getting a police escort back down Castroper Strasse. A few broke the cordon and made a run for it, to be chased by the coppers, which was all highly amusing.
Back in the pub, we sang a few Bochum songs and taught the locals a few of ours.
At 2am, my time was up so I headed back to the Park Hotel, official sponsor of corners at the Rhurstadion. John went back out again and finally surfaced... at 5am.
Sunday 30th September: Mechelen v Dender At 7am it was time to get up again. We had a long journey to make back to Brussels, but not fully awake we dozed much of the way.
Our train went via Cologne and the famous bridge over the Rhine.
Harry Potter looks a little different nowadays.
I asked John how he felt.
Bleugh!
In Brussels, we found our three and a half star hotel.
After watching a bit of the Women's World Cup final, we were out again. The Grand Place is Brussels most impressive feature, with some great buildings around the old square.
Mechelen is about half an hour out of Brussels, en route to Antwerp and the Netherlands. From the station, it was a short walk to the ground.
We didn't really know what to expect from Belgian football. The two teams had just been promoted to the Jupiler League. Neither side had started well. however, so we braced ourselves for a poor game.
The stadium was fairly old, one of those where none of it quite fitted together. It was a hotchpotch of seats, terraces, wooden benches and executive boxes.
The visitor block:
Our end was especially quirky. Rarely has anyone built a taller, thinner stand than this.
We stood on the terrace below, although the people up above made quite a racket too when they walked up and down the wooden steps.
A pre-match prediction?
The build up.
Our view was pretty poor, although it was quite exciting as Mechelen attacked our end in the second half.
The players were like walking advertising boards, such were the number of logo's on their kits. Would anyone seriously buy a pair of shorts looking like that?
The game was packed with incident and finished 2-2. It was a nice end to the trip. We'd seen thirteen goals in three games.
After taking the train back to Brussels we walked back across the Grand Place to our hotel.
The next morning we were up early again for the first Eurostar back to London. As my annual leave was fast diminshing, I went straight into work. Back to reality.
We tried a couple of things for the 'VFL' ...
... before settling on this:
Boo.
The Germans arrived at Pete's at 7am (!) so we went down to the ground for a few photos. 
L-R are Sven, Bjorn, Alex, Daniel, Marcus, Pete (not German) 
Then it was down to the Queen's for a couple of pints. We tried to explain the concept of warm English beer but they didn't 'get' it.
Moving onto the Pav, Village had found this chap, a Parisian journalist working for L'Equipe. He was writing a feature on Barnet.
Inside the ground:
Cool flag!
Unfortunately we lost the game 2-0, though we weren't too dispirited. We simply retired to the Pav to weigh up the evenings entertainment options.
And onto the pub for some food. 
We capped off the night by heading into town, though we came back again not long after as our visitors were, frankly, exhausted. Not surprising. All in all a great day though. We meet again in February.
'You'll never walk alone'
