Dublin Hammers Trip 2005 - Middlesbrough - Sunday 23rd October 2005

West Ham 2 vs Middlesbrough 1

What a trip... another blinder... and before we get down to the "nitty gritty", I'd like to say thanks to Brian! Well done from all the crew!

So lets start at the beginning... an early start saw the 21 dublin hammers gather 'bleary eyed' at the airport, and before long we landed at Stanstead! All abroad the bus (are we there yet?) and off to Romford. We slung all the bags into one room and headed off to the underground via the No.66 bus. You can imagine the faces of the 2 old boys and a dog already on the bus when we all climbed aboard!

Everyone split to do what ever took their fancy for the rest of Saturday.

Sunday morning saw most of the dublin hammers moving somewhat slower than the day before, and over a 'full english' the stories unfolded from the day/night before!

Top stories came from the group who ended up at the 'Circus' in Purfleet. An establishment on 3 floors... top floor was all girls watching the lads poledance... middlefloor was the boys watching the 'sunday mirror' girls poledance... bottom floor... at 10.30pm the doors were opened and the big mingle began. (Although it was pointed out that after watching the 'sunday mirror' girls, what arrived down from upstairs was somewhat disappointing!). Best momment arrived as one club member took to the dance floor, thus reducing 2 black guys already dancing to tears!

And so at 11am on Sunday 2 mini-buses arrived and ferried us off to Upton Park. It was a fine sunny day with members sporting the new black club polo shirts. Straight into the club shop, after watching a couple of the players arriving in their expensive motors, and then off to the 'Wakefield' and the drinking began again in earnest!

Kick-off arrived and members were in a bouyant mood after Gerry's 'hot tip' came home winning £2,000 for all those club members who had chipped into the bet!

And so to the match... we should have mullered 'em... we made 3-4 good chances in the first half but failed to take them. Zamora being the biggest culprit, missing after being put clean through?

Second half carried on the same way... missing chance after chance... then Sheringham came on and within 30 seconds he stuck the ball into the back of the net! A dodgy decision awarded us another goal, but on seeing the replay the ball didn't actually cross the line. So 2-0 up, and another 'bet' was looking good. Middlesboro got one back and we hung on for the 4 minutes extra time!

Highlight of the match was watching Yossi Benayoun, what a class act!

Back to the pub for a last beer before we were picked up by the mini-bus and taken to Stanstead. A party of very weary dublin hammers ariived back into dublin, 10pm sunday evening!

My second trip, and every bit as good as the first. Constant laughs along the way... my favourite... a club member telling the story of his first true love, and how he had spent half hour trying to undo her bra.. then she told him the clip was at the front... a few lads nearly fell off there seats at that one... roll on the spurs trip.

The only sour note to the weekend was the attitude of a certain Teddy Sheringham upon being given his 'Dublin Hammer of the Year' trophy by the two youngest members of our party. He didn't even say hello to them? twat!

No photos from this trip!