Dublin Hammers Trip 2008 - Aston Villa - Sunday 11th May 2008

West Ham 2 vs Aston Villa 2.

Well, another great trip full of laughs and incident. It all started innocently enough with club members gathering in the airport bar for the customary pre-flight drinks. A play-off game being shown on the screen showed the London weather to be hot and sunny... bring it on!

As members were queing to board the flight out our club sectretary walked back from the counter. It wasn’t until we had taken off that word spread that he wasn’t on the flight and had been refused boarding due to a discrepancy on his ‘online’ check-in document? So no club secretary?

We arrived in the UK to mediteranean weather conditions, and were soon mini-bused to the travel lodge in Barking, by now a familiar sight. Once booked in, members headed off to enjoy the sights and sounds of London town.

The sunday morning started slowly with members appearing for breakfast with various grades of hangovers, these were not helped by the latest edition of dublin hammers polo shirts in... ‘shocking’ pink! Proudly wearing his was the club scretary, who had managed to get another flight over, which was handy as he had the match tickets in his pocket! He was the butt of many a ‘craic’ throughout the day, but to be fair he took it well!

Members discussed the previous nights adventures over a leisurely breakfast before making their way up to Barking station, then onto Upton Park. It was another beautiful day and members strolled around the ground visiting the club shop, watching the players arrive and then meeting up at the Wakefield public house for more drinks... it was hot and many members entered the ground early to escape the relentless sunshine! You couldn’t miss us! 30 odd lads in pink!

It was a good game, Solano’s free-kick gave us the perfect start, however Villa came more and more into the game, and scored a couple of goals, and it wasn’t until the last few minutes that Aston scored a sweet equalser, right in front of where we were sitting! To be fair ‘Hammer of the Year’ Robert Green was in inspired form, we could have been on the end of a sound beating! So 4 goals, and an entertaining game!

We all met up at the pub after the game, it was packed and the pavement was crowded. A football appeared and great fun was had as the ball was thrown/kicked/headed around to the cheers of the crowd. A few more drinks were consumed before the mini buses picked us up and we were soon at Stanstead. Once checked in, members made their way to the bar... surprise, surprise... then onto the other bar next to the boarding gate for more pre-flight drinks. This turned into another session as the flight was delayed! We arrived back in Dublin with pink sunburnt faces and pink shirts... another great trip!.