My original plan was to have an English breakfast in the bar,watch the Leyton Orient v Man City cup game over a couple of pints then try to see if I could hi tail it over to Poissy to watch Racing CFF in action later on.Eight hours later I left the pub so as you can see my original idea bit the dust in spectacularly bad fashion…
The bar was The Bombardier,which is right next to The Pantheon so pretty easy to find…first off they do a bang up full English breakfast.Absolutely spot on and pretty damn big,I didn’t need anything else all day and the beer was fine too…
The Sri Lanka v Australia cricket was on so watched a bit of that and then they put the Orient game on which turned out to be a damn sight closer and more entertaining than anyone had anticipated.It was only when City were forced to bring on their big hitters that the tide turned in their favour and even then it was no easy ride.All my O’s mates are justifiably proud of their team and so they should be…the bar was filling up with rugby fans by this stage.The Italy v Wales game was just about to start and I was about to leave when I received a message from a mate that his nephew was making his full debut for Wales ( Freddie Thomas.Also a Wolves fan) so what could I do? I had to stay to show support didn’t it? Also being half Welsh counted for something…he did ok I thought,was pretty much in the middle of all the action…I am not a big rugby fan but I know a bad team when I see it and this is probably the worst Welsh team I can ever remember.If my old mum was alive she’d die of embarrassment…
By this stage the bar was packed,mostly with young Parisians waiting to watch England v France.I was also a good few pints down the road and chatting to an English fella who worked for the EU in Brussels and had lived here for 27 years.Said his only luxury was going back to the UK every two weeks to watch Chelsea but as he demolished three bottles of wine at €25 a pop I doubt that was his only luxury…the English barmaid had told me earlier she was very happy it was not the English playing in France.I get the feeling she’d experienced that before…
Anyway I felt the French were the better team and if they’d been able to hold on to the ball would have won with ease but they didn’t and lost to basically the last kick of the game…it’s a weird thing that even though the young crowd( maybe 125/150 people) were voracious in their support nobody seemed unduly upset at losing how they did to the old enemy…incidentally England are everyone’s old enemy whatever the sport.It’s a fact of life…
After spending an age queuing up for the toilet it was time to go…French bars seem to just have two toilets,I don’t mean Ladies & Gents,I mean just two actual toilets for everyone to fight over.On days like this it’s a free for all sometimes…
So today I might look for somewhere different that’s showing Blackburn v Wolves but doubt it’s box office enough so will probably end up watching on my phone via BBC iPlayer…
On that note au revoir…
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