Good day to you all,
Just a note for you all to let you know why I have become a member of your excellent site.
In June of this year I, like many others, went to Germany to celebrate the 2006 World Cup Finals, I went with a good friend of mine called Mick and we were there supporting England, I have to say it was the best experience of my life to date and to my total amazement the Germans were awesome hosts, I did actually expect some hostility towards us but I witnessed quite the opposite.
Whilst I was there I met some fantastic people and the atmosphere was one that is hard to put into words unless you were there to experience it.
One person I met was a certain Triny called "Bally", my friend and I had gone for a walk and bumped into Bally who then stayed with us for the whole day and what a day that was. We found a bar where we sat for some drinks then we had some more drinks and guess what ------ we had even more drinks Lol
Bally, Myself and Mick laughed so much and attracted lots of interest at our table at the bar - maybe because we were very loud ( we laughter of course ), we had so many people joining us we virtually took over the bar with our new found friends, one person we did meet was possibly the most amazing guy I have ever met, his name was Russell Walker, he was a Navy Seal who was sitting at a table close by, he joined us at our request and immediately made us laugh by saying -
"hey guys I was just passing through Frankfurt and I didn't even know this shit was going on"
the 3 of us fell about laughing ( i guessed you have realised we laughed alto), I wanted to mention Russell because even to this day he did and said something to me that will stay with me for the rest of my life and this was it, after a few hours of drinking and, yes, laughing Russell asked me if I wanted to trade something with him, with that he handed me $1, I handed him £5, he then said hey thats worth too much and pushed $5 into my hand, it wasn't about the value I said to him but he told me he wanted me to keep it, after about another hour Russell said "hey Steve do you want my watch" I said I didn't have anything to give back to him but he insisted he wanted to give it to me, I took a look at Bally and his head was in his hands and he was shaking his head, i asked Bally what was wrong and he told me the watch was very very expensive, with this information I attempted to hand the watch back to Russell only to be confronted with these words - "don't f---Ing insult me I gave you the watch for you and want you to keep it safe, I may not be alive this time next week" - I was gobsmacked and gave him my hand and we shook.
Russell had to leave at about 7pm as he was on his way to Iraq - he shouldn't have done so but actually showed us his military card and flight tickets so he was totally genuine.
Bally came back after showing Russell to the tube and pointing him in the right direction and then told me the value of the watch, the watch is made by MOVED and is worth $5000.
It is something that will stay as part of me for the rest of my life and Russell Walker and Bally will be forever in my thoughts.
I just wanted to share this experience with you as Bally is actually a member of your site and had invited me to join you because I support a team that has 2 of your international players in it - Stern John and Chris Birchall
I would like to take this opportunity in thanking Bally for the invite and looking forward to being a memberÂ
PS I have some pictures and will be making a website about my time I will post the site name for you all to see when I have finished it
Regards
Steve
