I want to post my experience of that weekend. What a trip. LETS GO AGAIN CITY!
I still can't get over that weekend. I wasn't sure about going. I'd just moved house and celebrated my son's first birthday. I'd been on a stag do the week earlier, before heading to Wembley. So the excessive costs involved were off-putting. Egged on by my friends, who insisted that it was a chance to witness history, I thought, 'fuck it' and booked my flights.
I went with my brother-in-law and planned to meet up with the bigger group on Nevizade Street on Friday night. It was a party I'd helped organise through 1894, and I knew it would be lively. The hype on social media in the week leading up to the final got everyone excited - especially after brutally beating the rags at Wembley the weekend prior.
We landed, taxied our way through the crazy traffic to Taksim and checked into our 2-star hotel. Walked half a kilometre down the road and followed the music until we reached the most mental City-related event I'd ever witnessed. Flares, flags, glass everywhere, blues on tables, hanging from balconies. Angry-looking Galatasaray fans stormed through the crowd, seemingly looking for trouble, before getting involved and drinking as much as any blue on that strip. They are great fans and know how to have a good time. I was planning on meeting 4 mates but ended up seeing half of the South Stand and Blues from school and the area where I live.
We returned to the hotel pit/room at around 4 a.m. Unsurprisingly, the traffic was probably worse than when we arrived in the afternoon. Stand still, gridlocked traffic everywhere. Horns beeping. Mopeds whizzing around the stationary cars (even up the curb and onto the pavement at points). There were barber shops open with queues that early in the morning, too. It's a 24-hour city.
Saturday morning. Game day. I was hungover in a smelly, horrible room. Nervous as fuck, and the ropey kebab I had at 3 am was definitely a bad choice. We decided to walk into Taksim Square and grab a coffee. Inter fans took over the cafe, but to be fair to them, they were sound. No animosity or trouble. They just wanted to enjoy a big day out themselves.
We headed back to Nevizade and got some food. It was certainly quieter than it had been 8 hours earlier. Everywhere had been cleaned, and you'd have never known the scenes that occurred earlier. Our good friend bumped into us and decided to join us. Then, another mate and their friend. Then, a few more. Before 2 p.m., a group of 10 of us slowly lost our hold on the 'not drinking too much on game day' ideals we'd set. It was returning back to party mode on Nevizade Street.
We knew the journey to the stadium was supposedly terrible. So we got the metro at around 3 pm. By then, rumours were spreading that the buses were a nightmare and the queue was hours long. We played it safe. Heading to the Olympic Stadium stop. Bursting for a pee, we exited the station to find no stadium. We were in the wrong place. Back on the metro, with the help of a lovely local lady who took pity on us, we headed in the right direction. We had to change trains a few times, and one of the trip's highlights was our friend borrowing the platform announcer's megaphone to start 'Bernardooooo'... Despite the travel chaos, we were in high spirits having a great time.
I say travel chaos. It really was poorly planned. It took us nearly 3 hours to get from Taksim to the stadium. When we arrived the mood of the authorities was clearly more hostile. We had four proper pat-down searches. We were flying home after the game, so we had our bags. They took water/deodorant/vapes/phone chargers from our group. This wasn't on entry to the stadium - this was leaving the metro!
Around the stadium, locals with shopping trolleys were selling cans, flares, and crisps. You name it, they had it. We got a few cans and smuggled them into the fan zone and probably drank 3 or 4 pints within an hour. Met Alfie Haaland. Bumped into even more people we knew. It was actually alright in there despite the club cringe.
Walked back to the stadium. Got in fairly easy. We found our seats in the upper tier. We were drunk, overwhelmed, pretty knackered from standing on a train for 3 hours, etc. It was a surreal experience. The game seemed to fly by. City fans were excellent on the whole (despite being quite nervous). Inter's ultras were brilliant. They'd arrived very early and sang throughout the game. But when our lot got going we were much louder.
City won. I hugged dozens of strangers. It didn't sink in for me and my BIL. We just sat in our seats and watched the celebrations go on and on. We were almost the last to leave the stadium as we sat there and soaked up the occasion.
Walking to the buses, there were flares and the trolley salesmen everywhere. We had just spent about £15 on two little pots of water, so we decided to wash them down with more affordable beer cans. We waited in the bus queue for around an hour. Then, all of a sudden, a stampede ensued. Every man for himself. We crammed onto a bus (expecting it to jet off). We had moved 5 yards in an hour. It was boiling. The pints had left us dying for a piss again. It was genuinely a shambles. Thank god we won; otherwise, there would have been a lot of trouble. Not to sound spoilt, but it did dampen the mood significantly.
We eventually got back to the airport. Got about 10 minutes of sleep before an early flight back. Arrived home in Manchester, where my wife picked me up on our way to a 2-year-old's birthday party. It was rough. But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Istanbul is a crazy place. Let's hope we get to make some more memories at Wembley next year.
