My support for Ukraine starts here..
A reduced number of Man City fans have made it to the Ukraine following UEFA's stadium ban u-turn - and the Blues owe them a good time.
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
I'm in the first pic and maybe some of you may know the other guys too. Then a few years later we were in Kharkiv to watch us against Shakhtar. Not once was there any mither, everyone was sound as you like. Like many I've been intrigued by the Soviet history and the brutalist architecture etc, so visiting was always on the list, but City made it a reality.
Then my work asked if I would move to Poland in 2020 and I said yeah for sure, I'd been before for work, excellent summers and skiing in the winter happy days. Then Covid hit, I had sorted a place out, and flown back to the UK to get my essentials, but flights then stopped, and I missed the pre brexit window to still enjoy the same liberties.
Skip forward to 2 years rent paid on a place I'd spent 2 days in, I had to apply for residency, which was not an easy task, everything in a new language, so I went what essentially was a citizens advice bureau and was offered a lawyer free of charge, and a translator who helped me with the paperwork etc. It was only as I was leaving they asked me to sign some paperwork for statistics. Turns out it was a Ukrainian charity who sorted me out, despite being set up for Ukrainians. That residency process should've taken 3 months.
But then Vlad did his thing, 2 years later and only today have I finally got residency, as Ukrainians were rightly given priority. I've not been home for ages. Now I can, and hopefully I can get to a game after giving my season ticket up to move, and also see some friends I haven't seen in a long time.
It's hard to describe what Poland did as russia invaded. The main train station after a day had a massive tent village set up to help refugees. I was on my way to work, there were collection points all over, whilst also we were planning at work to move people as needed if it escalated. Pre war Ukrainian staff had gone home to work from home during covid and were now stuck. Thankfully so far all are ok. We all stocked up on essentials on that first day as we didn't know that the Ukrainians would be absolute legends those first few hours.
The next day though, that area by the train station was busy, and for a few days you would see people with their life on their backs walking around, kids in hand. I live in a tiny one bed and offered a space but it wasn't taken up.
Skip forward, slowly but surely it seems good is winning, I went to the Usyk fight the other week and the England game v Ukraine this weekend. They appreciate our help, and as it seems, consider Harry Maguire a meme, they were ripping him a new one all game. Good times.
Anyway, sorry for a tipsy post.
TL;DR
Slava Ukraini
Also got a class scarf from the footy...