We left friday at 6.00 a.m. for a 800 km trip from our hometown The Hague. After a few stops we arrived at Allershausen to meet up with a few friends who stayed overthere. After a few drinks in the sun we decided to go otherwise we wouldn't have made it to the hotel. We had a hotel in Munich-East. Nothing fancy was alright we only had to sleep there. After a shower we decided to go into the centre. The cab driver who was really friendly as indeed most of the Germans were told us that we had to go to the Hofbrauhaus. We first weren't allowed to get in cause one of us wore a Chelsea jacket but after takin it off we got in. Well never seen anything like this before. Imagine really long tables, people sittin at them drinking liter pints, with bavarian folk music. Not really our kind of thing. After a few drinks in the opposite Hard Rock cafe we decided to go the Killians pub. The atmosfere overthere was great. Loads of Chelsea singing an drinkin till late. The staff was really friendly with even serving outside. We got home around 1 a.m. because we knew there would be a long coming for us.
Saturday we went to the city center to grab some decent food while we almost knew for sure that it would be the last food of the day. When we parked the car in a garage we bumped into a Bayern fan who apparantley was a fan of "Green Street Hooligans" and must have seen it quite a few times while he was singing 'forever blowing bubbles'with a terrible German accent in front of us. After a nice breakfast of schnitzel with fries we went to Killians again. The pub was closed by the police but their neighbours were open so all Chelsea decided to go there. We hung up our flag together with other Chelsea flags and everybody had a great time. People were singing and drinking and the atmosfere was great. From there we had a few walks to the Odeon- and Marienplatz and thru the shopping streets. After returning a strange thing happined as the street was packed with Chelsea fans a German policecar thought it was a good idea to go thru them. They were sittin comfortable with the windows open tryin to get thru the crowd. As the first people step aside to let them pass he was stuck while people didn't know where to stand to let them pass. Even the German police behind us were tellin each other 'what's he doin'? And 'das ist wahnsinn'. Then the first beers went thru the window, someone grabbed a police hat, jumped on the hood then on to the roof. With the police turning the sirens on the guy on the roof decided it made too much noise and kicked them off.
In my opinion it wasn't a smart move of the police wanted to go thru the crowd and it only caused aggro what wasn't necessary at all. After that the riot police gathered up at the end of the street and the atosfere changed a little bit. We decided to go to the stadium well on time. That was one of our best decisions cause after we changed the metro the platforms were shut down by the police. With hardly any taxi's passin by we walked back to get our car. The drive to the ground was easy to do with passin lots of bars and restaurants fully packed with Bayern fans. We told each other how will the atmosfere be after they lose? Not knowin how right we could be...
The car park was free which was a really nice gesture and gettin in the stadium was easy. When we were in front of the gate on the right of us we saw a group of people runnin and the police was comin from the other way. Seemed there were some people gate crashin over there and came in without tickets.
We had tickets for the Chelsea section and was a bit surprised there were so many Bayern fans around us. There were two behind us who we had a friendly chat with but a few seats next two us there were two fans whom were singing and shoutin all the time. Especially after their goal the limit has reached for some people and told them to f**k off. Thankfully it only took five minutes before Drogba scored the equaliser. When they got the penalty and saw Robben takin him I told the Bayern fans behind me that Robben would miss for sure. Said Robben is Dutch and Dutch players are sh*t in takin penaltys. After that miss he told that Bayern was goin to lose this game because of their cracked mentality. Well we all know that he was right...
Celebrating in the stadium we had a chat with the guy in front of us who was an Italian. He told us that he was Di Matteo's cousin and that his dad was sitttin couple of seats on the right. We had to take a picture with of course and congratulated him. Then Cech was walkin to us together with Stamford the Lion and was searchin for somebody. When he started wavin in my direction I thought that it wasn,t for me and looked back and saw an old man in the orange Chelsea goalie shirt. Told my mate that he looked a lot like Cech and asked the guy next to him if he was his dad. Afte his confirmation we shooked his hand a made a picture with him.
After leavin the ground we wanted to go back to the city center. That wasn't a good idea the center was closed down and we decided to go to the Ibis hotel and give our mates a call who watched in a pub somewhere to meet us up in the hotel. That took them for about two hours!
Didn't really matter for us. We had a great time with the other Chelsea fans in the hotelbar and our mates arrived just in time cause they ran out of beer, wodka etc. Our hotel was just outside Munich where we arrived at 5 a.m. We hadn't checked in ofcourse so we rang the guy out of his bed. He wasn't lookin happy but if had to do with the time or the game? We don't know.
Sunday after a nice breakfast we headed home. With a Chelsea flag on the back window and flags left and right of the car. As thursday was a bank holiday in Holland an Germany the motorway was really busy with people heading home after a nice long weekend and Bayern fans from outside Munich. Some of them friendly wavin others lookin sad. The traffic jam and these ugly faces didn't bother us much as someone of us said even if it took us three days to get home. We won the cup!!! When we past Frankfurt we noticed that the people around here don't really support Bayern. More and more people blew their horns and put their thumbs up for us. After some really heavy rain showers we finally got home around 1 a.m. Checked the internet and preparing for a nice monday at work with all those peole suddenly supporting Bayern after their favorite Barca lost. A weekend that I will never forget. Thanks to all of our fellow Chelsea fans for the great time we had in Munich...