HI Every body,  

 

Well its 10.30 on Satruday and I have 6 cup final tickets in my back pocket, I'm a happy man. I went out last night for a few games of pool with Sean and Jiap (a very nice couple I met in an immigration queue a few weeks ago).

 

It was a good laugh, anyway on my way back I was chatting to my football crazy Taxi driver, about buying tickets for the Tiger cup final. I told him I was going at 10.00 and He laughed and said there would be people coming in from out of town and they would be queuing from 6.00am.

 

By pure luck i got up early today, so i jumped  out of bed threw my self under the shower and I was queuing up buy 7.30am. The Crowd / Queue was a mixture of confusion which two policemen were standing by an watching wondering if anyone would come along and sort it out.

 

Well after waiting two hours and chatting to some people in the crowd we all knew who had been there a long time and who was pushing in. By the time I was close to the teller we all knew who was who, but there was alot of confusion about who was buying what. There were 6 tellers on one side, 4 tellers the other other side selling 300 baht, of the front 6 tellers half were selling 200 baht Tickets only, the other half  100 baht only.

 

Suddenly there was a new queue for people buying 300 baht tickets (in the middle with roof) and nobody at the 100 baht (each end of the stadium area) ticket. Most of us wanted 200 Baht Tickets (in the middle but no roof cover). As I stood  uming erring about stacking it and getting 100 tickets for the ease of buying um, suddenly, one guy got the 100 baht tellers to start selling 200 baht tickets confused ? me too!

 

Anway one of the guys queuing who was trying his best to keep the queue in order   saw this and ushered all the people who had been waiting ages forward me among them, sound guy. So after 2 hours an a final squeeze to the the teller I was there. Success its a strange adrenaline rush the success of buying a ticket odd feeling of elation but only having gained an opportunity to do something else. As i walked away one guy in the queue who I haddn't seen before asked who I was cheering for Thailand or Singapore?

 

Seeing as i was The only western face to be seen there I was I little worried about wether I was gonna get hastle about wether I was really supporting Thailand, or maybe I was perhaps a Singaporean interloper. Fortunately I came out with a bit of Thai and we were smiles all round. This was also one of the reasons I was chatting in Thai in the queue.

 

This must be explained I have never seen any tension towards away fans  at any of the 3 Thai matches  I've been to. But the Tiger Cup is played on a home and away basis . In the first leg in singapore The score was 1-1 in the closing minutes and the referee awarded a  very very doubful penalty, It could have been just a very  bad decision, but South East asia  has seen a few  ref. bribing scandals. The Thai players walked off the pitch the Coach shouted at the referee accusing him of taking a bribe.  

 

After 15 mintes the players came back restarted the game and under a cloud of tension and anger the penatly was taken. Singapore scored  and they won the first leg 2-1. The Thai coach lodged an official compliant, Hundreds of thai workers currently in singapore went on strike, but the score stands. (There has also been political tension  recently over the the sale of a large part of the Thai telephone network to a Singaporean comppany buy the Ex prime minister.)

 

So relations are not good, on the front page of todays bangkok post there is an article entiled "Thais urged to stay calm for return match" talking about extra security around for the match. Things should be fine, but I really hope for some goals today, the worst result  today would be  0-0 this would mean the contraverstial goal would be the decider. This + celebrating Singapore Fans could be a receipe for trouble.

 

But I will keep My eyes open and steer anyway for anything dodgy.

 

Tonight I'm out aswell some of the 3rd year students are having an end of year party and they have invited the teachers + after this I will head out ot whitness the english rugby teams latest attemp at play, I go in hope  of a win not in expectation.

 

All the best

 

 love dom