The Gaffers' views

Mick O'Shaughnessy sent me an email offering his thoughts on the tour:

"I'd just like to say, what a thoroughly enjoyable tour it was. Our hosts were absolutely fantastic. Making us feel really welcome and putting themselves out to make our trip to Helsinki as enjoyable and hassle free as possible. Brilliant people.

I hope the rest of the squad enjoyed themselves as much as I did. Helsinki itself, was an easy city to get around with plenty to do. The various squad members seemed to keep themselves occupied with little trips they organised for themselves, and then we came together for a beer or two most evenings. And the squad seemed to be very relaxed and mixing well among themselves and the locals. A big thanks to Ms.Taylor for organising us a lovely meal on the evening before the match. And on a personnel note, a big thanks to Mr.Dooley for organising the people carrier back to the airport on the Monday morning. What with the tired and aching minds and bodies of a few of us, it was a hassle free and very comfortable trip.

As for the supporters football match, it was, as I think most of us expected, a game played in the right spirit. Great fun, and all of our squad got a good run out. The rain expected during the match turned up on the Friday night, and as seems to becoming a bit of a habit with us on our summer tours, the sun came out and baked us. Not a problem when you are young and fairly fit, but a killer for most of us old lags. But we made a good match of it, and as per usual, the squad didn't give up, even thought we were under the cosh for most of the second half. It didn't help that the Finns had such a large squad, they were able to bring on two subs at a time, at about 10min intervals (or so it seemed) who were younger, fitter, faster, than the two replaced. (again so it seemed). But they were good enough to give us a player called Max, who scored our goal, a cracker, but who had to then go and play for his proper team. If we could have had him, for say, another 60mins, we might have won. As it was, we lost 2-1, but as I've said we never gave up, and nearly nicked an equaliser near the end. I thought it was a great effort all round.

The Finns have said that they hope to travel over to us at some stage this season, and if they do, we will have to make their trip to London as enjoyable as possible. It would be great if as many of them as possible come over to us, and we will have our work cut out to make their trip as pleasant as they made ours. We'll see what the future brings."

While Mark Hutton sent me the following:

"I've not much to say on the tour apart from it being very enjoyable and went like clockwork.

Thank to Shaun for arranging the people carrier of the way to the airport, and also thank you to Dawn for arranging the Hungarian meal on the Friday evening.

I enjoyed the local HJK lads taking us out to a bar on the thursday night after the European game where we bumped into the 'local beer bore' who went on about a drk brown beer which was the favourite of Michael Jackson when he was in Finland.

Having tasted it I was very doubtful, but having since checked in 'Michael Jackson's Top beers of the World' it comes highly reccomended.

I also had the pleasure of having a long chat with one of the HJK lads who was the organiser of the Youth Wing of the Finnish Green Party, & he was extremely knowledgable on the Trotsyists, communisted and had even heard of Ernest Mandel!

These two chaps made me realise that perhaps there are other versions of Hutty that exist all over Europe, which is-perhaps-a little worrying!"

Thanks to them both to responding to my request for tour comments.