Tuesday 6th December 2022
I woke Kirsty up with, ‘right then, I need to go to work’. My wonderful wife looked slightly confused and retorted, ‘What? Where? When?’
As I have always said, tickets for World Cup and European Championships don’t find you. You have to go and find them. Time had slipped away yesterday, and I had got a little distracted by the incredible Test Match taking place in Rawalpindi between Pakistan and England. I was checking in on the score and talking to loads of India and Pakistan cricket fans out here. It was clear that this was one of the greatest Test Matches ever.
By the time we had eaten we needed to crack on and get to the early kick off Japan vs Croatia game. So Monday was a complete write off ticket wise.
We had been checking the FIFA website pretty much continuously to see if we could get tickets for England’s quarter final game vs France, but there was nothing doing.
So I headed up to The West Bay Area to the DECC which is a big exhibition centre where FIFA have set up their ticketing centre. As I left, I said to Kirsty, ‘I am off to graft for these tickets. I wonder if Ten Stretch is in town?’ Kirsty said to me, ‘please don’t take a chance with that lot.’ I quipped, ‘leave it to me’, smiled and went on my way.
At the DECC I soon found plenty of touts with tickets. A few Russians tried to tap me up but not only did they look dodgy, they were also total blaggers. Eventually I found a local who had two tickets which were not absurdly priced. As I was negotiating with him, this geezer breezed past. I thought ‘that looks like Alfie, but he looks a bit more sun tanned than I remember. Was it just a local doppelgänger?
I caught him up, came alongside and shouted, ‘Alfie is that you?’. It was. It turned out he thought I was under cover Old Bill. He said to me, ‘take your hat and glasses off!’ As soon as I did, he recognised me. The local lad who was hoping to sell me some tickets was following me. Alfie, ever the consumate professional asked me if I was sorted. When I said no, not yet, he politely but firmly told the lad we did not need his services. Three minutes later I’ve got two tickets at face value and a drink for Alfie.
Here’s where the World Cup of coincidences rolled on, again. Alfie used to be Ten Stretch’s partner. Alfie told me that Ten had sadly died a few years ago, which was really sad to hear. Alfie’s been working the F1 stuff in the Gulf as well as still running tickets at Arsenal, Spurs, West Ham and Chelsea. He is one of the original ‘tickets, I’ll buy or sell’ boys from the 80’s and we’ve done loads of business down the years.
Kirsty was back at base, our hotel being converted to our latest ‘World Cup war room’. I had said that I would definitely get tickets for the game, but I am not sure she believed me. We needed to see if we could ask Sarah if she would extend her care cover for Our Joyce. If that was possible, we would need to change our flights and extend our hotel stay. But we needed to do it all as cheap as possible.
I WhatsApp’d Kirsty with the good news that I ‘was holding’ and she could barely contain her excitement. Typical of Kirsty she kicked straight into top gear and got on the with flights and hotels. It was a very frenzied morning and eventually we met up for a very late lunch. We felt emotionally and physically drained but obviously elated!
We couldn’t hang about though. We needed to get off to the early kick off at the Education City Stadium which was happened to be the closest to our Old Town Doha base.
That game between Spain and Morocco promised to be another cracker. What we didn’t know was how much of a treat we would be in for. This game was going to be off the scale!
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