Irish soccer supporter travels to wrong Georgia
As Ireland begin their Euro 2016 campaign in Georgia today, a fanatical Irish soccer supporter is rueing not checking the map a bit more closely. Bernard “The Big D” Devine travelled to the wrong Georgia and now finds himself with three days to kill in the USA.
“I’d had Georgia on my mind for months. And now it’s all for nothing. I feel a bit stupid to be honest.”
“I’ve been following the team for years. I never miss an away match. For months people have been telling me Georgia is tough place to get to. I was laughing at them, saying that I had a direct flight booked and it was going to be a doddle. I guess they were right, as it turns out. It is a tougher place to get to than I thought.”
The Sallynoggin man found his hopes of attending the opening Euro 2016 qualifier had gone with the wind as he landed in Atlanta, some 5,000 miles away from Tblisi, where the Irish team play today.
“How the hell was I supposed to know there were two Georgias?” said Devine. “UEFA have been letting in teams from everywhere lately, some of them aren’t even in Europe. It’s their fault that I’ve ended up here, really, isn’t it?”
Devine’s mistake is the biggest Irish sporting disappointment in Atlanta since hot favourite Sonia O’Sullivan infamously pulled out of the Olympic 5,000 metres in 1996.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do now”, he said. “I’ll probably look for an Irish bar to watch it in. But they’ll probably be showing that poxy hurling. Fuckin’ Gah.”