Braehead Clan

A few weeks ago we were invited to go along to the Braehead Arena to watch the Braehead Clan ice-hockey team take on the mighty Dundee Stars.

None of us had been to a hockey match before and so were not sure what to expect but I've got to say we throughly enjoyed all of it.

I think what first struck us first was just how professional the whole set up is. For some reason I'd imagined a really basic ammature side watch by a hundred people, but the whole event was really slickly put together. As we stepped out the car park lift we were greeted by hundreds of people milling around, purchasing beer (you can drink at ice hockey matches), bags of sweets and hotdogs or buying offical glossy programmes or other "Clan" related merchandise. In fact it was pretty impressive how many people were wearing the team colours, sweatshirts and hockey shirts. Given that this is a realatively new team they seen to have quite quickly gather a loyal following.

We collected out tickets, purchased a few bags of tangy haribo and took our seats looking through the thickglass which surrounds the rink and trying to work out what all the markings on the ice mean and why the goals were so small.

I'm a football fan and I think I was being a bit snobish at the start about this "North American" sport. When the funny music started up at the beginning and the four small cheerleaders started doing their moves high at the back of one of the stands I thought oh boy here we go. I've always imagined american sports basketball, baseball, american football - more about the things going on around the game rather than about the game itself but then the teams were on the pitch and the action started and I quickly forgot everything I'd just said.

American Sports seem to fall into two catergories - "the slow" (with repeated stoppages) ie baseball and american football, which seem to last several weeks and "the crazy fast" (with repeated stoppages) ie basketball. Icehockey falls firmly into this second categoery and within seconds of the start we'd been to both ends of the rink, there'd been a shot on goal and a guy had been tripped, with the puck moving so fast you could easily loose track if you blinked for too long.

The Dundee Stars quickly put the local lads underpressure and from the chants around about us I realised that the small group of people on the other side of the aisle from us were the Dundee fans. It really is a family atmosphere, there were hundreds of children chanting and dancing at their seats and no real annomosity between the two different groups of fans even after the Dundee Stars took an early lead and their fans started banging a big drum.

We will have to read up on our rules before next time as it took us a while to work out what was going on but with some pretty impressive skating and some even more impressive shooting Braehead started their comeback. The first period ended 1 all and we went out to buy some more sweets and discovered lots of staff wandering around with giant beer and cider dispensing machines on their backs like alcoholic Ghostbusters. was quite impressive and made me wander what other events could benefit from their attendance.

In the second period the "Clan" took the lead and in the third they gave the Dundee Stars a going over with the score ending an impressive 6 - 1 to the home side. Second in excitement to the attempts on the goals were the attempts by the players on their opponents lives with cheeky little trips, blatent whacks and the occaisonal punchup breaking up the play and seeing the culprits stuck in the sin bin for two minutes. These repeated breaks mean that the game is actually on for a lot longer than the adveertised lengther of the three periods combined but they add a strange cathartic fun to the proceedings and possibly are the reason the fans all get on so well.

All in all I'd say we had a really good night out, the game was fast, infectious and fun. The event itself was slickly professional with lots of Scottish tweaks on American traditions. The fans were all in good spirit, singing and bouncing around, all dressed up in the team colours. It was all a lot of fun and I'd highly reccomend to give it a try especially those with kids who will probably really enjoy the fast paced action.

"Come on the Clan."

Visit here for more info on the team and their upcoming games. http://www.braeheadclan.com/.

Hampden Roar

With the big matches coming up for Scotland on Saturday and Wednesday I thought it would be a timely to post about our recent visit to the Hampden Sports museum.

Housed in the bowels of the stadium the museum does kind of feel like its been squeezed into space left over rather than having been purposely designed and the layout is a bit strange without a coherent story or thread to guide you through.

When we arrived there was a young guy on the desk and we were walking up to pay when I spotted a flyer and advert stand over to the left hand side. Amongst the leaflets etc there I spotted one which I'd read before which gives discounts on various tourist venues and buses. I wandered over picked one up and discovered inside that there was a voucher for two for one entry to the both the football museum and tour. We ripped the vouchers out and gave them to the guy on the desk. Not sure if it was his first day on the job but he initially charged us £25 with the vouchers which was actually more than it would have been without the vouchers. We explained that he must have made a wee mistake and despite looking very confused he tried it again and this time told us the total cost was £9 - which was pretty good value for 3 adults and 1 child.

Unfortunately the day we went the tours were not running as there a Queens Park match on. Apparently the rules changed this year and now if a match or concert is on then no tours are on that day. So its prob worth while phoning first as the tours look good.

The lack of tour was disappointing but we soldiered on. The museum is pretty packed with memorabilia and was quite interesting but it wasn't really managing to entertain Ann's 10 years old nephew. Everything is presented very dryly. We had guessed that the football museum would be more like a science centre for sport but in reality its a display case filled history museum. The adverts we've seen had sold us on getting to feel like a professional player, get a taste of the Hampden roar and play sporting games like testing the speed of your shots. In fact we kept our young guest entertained by the promise of the test your shot game coming up. Sadly for us - we discovered at the end that this, along with several other items, is part of the stadium tour and not the museum.

If a history tour is what you are after then you'll definitely love it and if you are doing football history research then you'll find a great resource - but if you are just after a bit of touristy fun for all the family then you might be a bit disappointed. Mostly the museum is made up of display cabinets showing medals, newspapers cuttings, old jerseys and trophies. Mixed in amongst these are some nice statues and some old bits of stands etc but with the odd layout and the really dull old fashioned lighting it all feels a bit lacking and a little bit cheap.

Definitely a missed opportunity - our imagination of what the museum would contain turned out to be a heck of a lot better than the actuality. Where were all the interaction and fun? Where was any actual contact with a football? For example the classic Archie Gemmel goal - one of Scotland's proudest moments is presented as a diorama of still statues meant to give you a feel of being there but it doesn't really work.

I guess the SFA don't really have the budget to do it properly with an all singing and all dancing museum but its a real shame. Football is supposedly our national sport and with a bit of money and a lot more imagination they could really have created a top tourist attraction here. As it is I'm not too sure how entertained tourists feel they've got for their pennies - especially if they didn't have the 2 for 1 vouchers we used. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to any visitors though I do think the tour is probably the best part so we will go back another time and check it out.

In summary - its worth a quick visit if you get the vouchers but don't expect the kids to be too entertained. Our favourite bits were the old stands where you could watch old recordings of football matches and the press booths where you picked up a phone and were played an excert from a random selection of radio clips.

Ann's football crazy nephew on the other hand was a bit bored with it all - in fact his favourite thing was the three free Foosball tables we could play on (all were slightly broken) and the six PS3 systems set up with Fifa2009.

New balls please

Have you still got the Wimbildon bug? With Mr Murray about to come back on court in the third round of the Montreal Masters in five minutes I thought it was a good time to mention the family tennis weekend taking place on the 29 and 30 August.

We also thought it worth a reminder that the lawn bowling, tennis and pitch and putt in the park are all free and are open all day until 9pm seven days a week in August. (Closing time will change to 8pm in September.)

If you fancy having a go, and we highly recomend it, give them a call first to double check they are open and to book a space in the highly popular tennis courts.

The telephone number is 07827305385

Bowling Tennis and Pitch and Putt Open

For me the sign that summer has arrived, is when the bowling opens in Queens Park. While walking through the park yesterday, we took a quick wander down to see when the bowling was due to open.....to our delight the bowling was already open, in fact it was the first day of the summer season...this was possibly the reason why the greens were empty apart from a Magpie which was happily hopping about.

The greens, tennis and pitch and putt will be open from 10am till 6pm 7 days a week. For anyone that doesn't know the council greens and equipment hire is free.

So I am already planning on a trip to the park next weekend to perfect my bowling technique...looking forward to many summer afternoons of triumph...

* There's also free bowling in Bellahouston Park

Legends of the Oche

We have another one of those grey area posts but it is such an exciting occurrence we felt we had to let people know about it.

The reason for the grey area is should our scope include Rutherglen? It is south of the Clyde but it is a little in the far east - not quite land of the rising sun but close to the horizon. The Northern boundary is easy but how far East, West and indeed South should we be going? What do people think?

Anyway the reason we raise this discussion is because we picked up a flyer for upcoming events at Rutherglen Town hall and amongst a range of different events including Dr Bunheads crash test jelly babies, a Patsy Cline concert and a festival for people who are "young at heart" we discovered a night entitled "Legends of the Oche".

"Bobby George, John Lowe and Eric Bristow take to the stage at Rutherglen Town Hall for an evening of darts like never before!

Don't miss your chance to play one of the legends and enjoy the competition when they go head to head. Two hours of great entertainment, hear their true stories, ask them questions, and witness their incredible dart skills live on stage."

I know, how exciting is that, brings back memories of the mid 80's and old episodes of Bullseye - Everything about Darts as a sport is funny, from the brilliant commentators, the speedboats on Bullseye, the crazy WAGS dressed in a ton of Argos gold chains right down to the central concept of very large men throwing very small sharp objects, accurately at a tiny target. Should be a very original and fun night out.

I only have one word for it.

"Magic darts"

EDIT: We just found out that the show has been delayed until the 15th of July - boo I was looking forward to going to that this weekend.

Lengends of the Oche (7:30pm Tickets £10)
Mon 27 April (Now on Wed 15 July)

Rutherglen Town Hall
139 Main Street
Rutherglen G73 2JJ

0141 613 5700

Its a Dogs Life

It was one of my mates birthdays during the week and he chose to celebrate it with a trip to the dog racing at Shawfield - I'd never been before and despite looking forward to going, I had some reservations as to how much fun it would be. I feared that it might actually be a bit rubbish.
I'd driven past the Shawfield stadium many times and had always thought it looked a right odd place. When I eventually arrived last night, I discovered that it is indeed an odd place with a fair variety of the kind of odd characters you'd expect - wee old east end glasgow men, young guys in tracksuits and mad women debating with themselves (and anyone within ear shot) over where their betting system was going wrong. Its a very Glasweigan night out and its grand.


For a birthday/ special occasion it is a lot of fun. Its £5 each to get in, but then you can bet as small as £1 on each of the ten races so for another £10 you can have a stake riding all night. I tried betting £5 on my first race and when that quickly disapeared I switched to £1 bets for the remainder and to be honest you get as much excitement with the small bets so I'd stick to that. I'm not maybe the person to be getting advice from however as my chosen dog came last in the first 5 races. doh

Inside is actually pretty big - theres a main stand which houses four different bars, the main terracing and a resturant. All are pretty decent and you can see why folk go along there as the start to a night out, though it was pretty cold out in the stand last night. The races are every 15 mins or so - the trainers bring the dogs out and give them a wee parade and all the punters watch in earnest to see if any one them looks lively or does the toilet. (apparently its very significant - maybe makes them lighter?) Then the dogs are loaded into the traps - a wee buzzer sounds and the electronic rabbit comes flying past, the traps open and the dogs go zooming.
I'm guessing that greyhounds are not that smart - cause if they really are trying to catch the weird looking yellow rabbit then surely after a few races they'd work out that it was a fix and give it up.

Here's my mate Emma with one of the biggest single wins of the night* - £14.51. Sensibly she quit while she was ahead and didn't follow my advice to put it all on the next race.

Finally towards the end of the evening my luck began to improve when I changed my "system" from betting on the dog I thought would actually win to betting on the dog which I thought would come last. This turned out pretty well as not only did I choose three winners in a row, the dogs were also on really good odds and I won about £15 in total. Wooohoo which meant that even taking off the £5 I paid to get in, the bets I lost and my drinks I only actually spent £2 for the 2 hours entertainment.

All in all I recommened giving it a go. Don't worry about being a novice or that you'll do the wrong thing - the staff and the regular punters are pretty friendly and happy to explain the rules and there's not much chance of you sticking out like a sore thumb. We stuck with betting on one winner but there's lots of other combinations you can try as well. Race nights are on four times a week and start at 7pm - the bars etc stay open until midnight. Grab a group of friends and have a go.

We were not quite sure where to place this post as it falls into the greyish area of exactly how far the Southside demarcation Stretches. Technically I think Shawfield falls outside of the Glasgow City boundary but we felt it was too close to really be given the tag "Deep South" so Shawfield has been taken under the broad wings of the term "Southside" instead.

Links
Shawfield Stadium

Wiki-pedia page

Historic images


*biggest in our group that is - we were only betting £1 a go remember. There were folks betting with £100 bets and they probably won more than £14.

New Years Resolution

It's at this time of the year when we promise ourselves we'll be fitter, healthier, tidier, skinnier and then after a few weeks we can be found with our feet up eating a chocolate biscuit.

Glasgow's Women's Jogging Network course's start in early February. So if you fancy completing a 5km or the woman's 10km run, this could be the course for you. One of the course's is the 10km crash course, you meet up with a group of women, all beginner runners, many have never ran in their life's and there's a mix of ages from 18 to 70. The class meets twice a week for 12 weeks. In the first class you may run one minute and then walk for two or three, but by the end of the twelve weeks you will be able to run and complete the Women's 10km in May.

The feeling of setting a goal and achieving it is a fantastic feeling and completing the 10km is great and happens to be alot of fun.

The course is £53.50 for the 12 weeks and you can pick up a brochure in any Glasgow sport centre or you can telephone 0141 287 5079

Jingle Bell Run - Bellahouston Park

Everyone's getting into the Christmas spirit, even the Woman's Jogging Network. There hosting their annual Jingle Bell Fun Run on Saturday the 15th of December at 2pm.
I think it's a 5km [it doesn't say on the flyer] but there is a good 5km route through Bellahouston Park. Fancy dress is welcome, but it's not mandatory, so if you don't want to run round the park in a giant snowman outfit, that's quite understandable.
After the run there will be some festive themed food at the Palace of Art.

I've been really lazy lately and haven't been out running properly...so I may just go along and cheer you all on.

To book a place call the network on 0141 287 4450 it's £8 for members and £9 for non members.

Hampden Roar

I avoided making any posts about the football last week, fearing any mention of the game may well jinx us. (After all I did make a brief post just shortly before the ill fated Georgia game.) Sadly this little bit of superstitious nonsense didn't do us any good and despite some superb play - we are out.

It was however a joy to be in the Southside on Saturday afternoon. With all the streets adorned with Saltaires, Lion Rampants and some Italian flags you would have thought we'd already qualified.

Even after the game, when everyone wandered out bleary eyed into the wet dark night there was still a good bit of humour and banter in the air. Everyone celebrating in the Scottish tradition of a glorious defeat with random strangers standing around in the streets chatting and singing.

We tried to watch the game in the Granary, but it was already full by the time we got there at 2pm!! Ended up watching it in JAM which is a reasonably big bar with a couple of big screens but somehow lacked the atmosphere that I had been looking for.

Given the 2010 campaign will be kicking off soon - anyone got any suggestions for good southside pubs to watch the games in.

Glasgow Commonwealth Games

Glasgow has just won the 2014 Commenwealth games which should mean a huge investment in building and infrastructure in Glasgow especially for the East End. The plans however will hopefully be a benefit to the whole city and with three of the main venues located in the Southside (including Hampden where the closing ceremony will take place) it looks like we'll be seeing quite a bit of the action as well.

I know there is still quite a bit of debate about whether or not Glasgow can actually afford to host the games or what the long term benefits actually will be - but I like to be optimistic and look on the games as an opportunity to make some great changes to the city.

To read all about the bid visit the Glasgow 2014 site or the ever useful BBC.

Southside Venues

Scotland’s National Stadium, Hampden Park - Track and field

Ibrox Stadium - Rugby 7s
Strathclyde Park -Triathlon

A ladies game

This coming Saturday is a great time to visit the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park. Not just because of the football fever that Scotland's recent brilliant results have brought to the city but also because it coincides with the opening of a new exhibition dedicated to woman's football. Following the Woman's World Cup in Japan last month, which got a lot of attention for the wrong reasons - (some dodgy goal keeping and some quite bizarre refereeing in a few of the high profile games didn't help) - there appears to be an increasing interest in woman's football and a few members of the Scottish Woman's team will be there to sign autographs.

There is also the extra incentive that entry to the museum has been reduced from £5.50 to £2 for adults and from £2.75 to £1 for children. Stadium tours will also be reduced from £6 to £2 for adults and from £5 to £1 for children.

So why not get along, go on the tour and walk on the hallowed turf where hopefully this time next month, regardless of what happens tonight, we'll beat Italy and find way into Euro 2008.

(Doh - I think I jinxed the Georgia game by putting on this post before the match.)

Raving Cyclepath

While walking down Minard Road this morning I noticed that there are signs up warning about road closures on September the 15th/ 16th when the Cycle Tour of Britain completes in Glasgow Green after a seven day race from London.

We'll try and find out more info about the route the bikes will take.

Fore he's a jolly good fellow

On Saturday I had the enjoyable experience of playing golf. This is not something I thought I would say as I remember playing twice before when i was a kid and I hadn't really enjoyed it all that much. From memory all it involved was walking about fields looking for lost golf balls with an enormous mass of metal sticks strapped to your back.

But as it was my cousins stag do, I was willing to make a fool of myself.

I was a little nervous, stepping up to the first tea, with the rest of our group, all semi-regular players, watching on.

I set myself, swung the borrowed club and instead of the swish of empty air I had expected, I was pleasantly surprised to see the ball zoom off into the distance. Success, I had hit the ball, the others were quite surprised but not as much as me. Sadly, my next shot sent it into a nearby field, but never mind.
The course that I proceeded to hack round was the Mearns Castle Golf Academy in Newton Mearns, which is a lot closer that I thought, though its maze of streets are a bit confusing to the uninitiated, but that might have been due to Google maps directions being wrong.

Despite being very enjoyable the course did seem to be a little on the difficult side as we lost a ton of golf balls into the trees, bushes and fields.

Its only nine holes, but I think that's probably enough for beginners - though its still a long walk and I'd recommend paying £1.50 and getting a trolley for the clubs. A round costs £9 weekdays for adults and £7 for kiddies but everyone pays £10 on weekends. They are open every day from 9am til 10pm but they advise phoning and booking just in case.
The club house was very nice, housing a golf shop, gym, tuition centre, (With driving range and classes in chipping, putting etc. See their website for beginners or kids classes) and a nice bar/ restaurant run by Mr. Singhs Indian restaurant from Charring Cross to stuff your face with once you are done. Thankfully, the course is open to non members and does not insist you wear silly long socks, badly coloured jumpers or daft wee hats and you can get away with jeans. (My cousin even got away playing the last hole in a leotard - it was his stag do after all.)

All in all I was pleasantly surprised and think I might go back for another game sometime soon and try and improve on my score. Is +27 any good?


Here's a list of other Southside courses for those that fancy a game. Be warned that we haven't investigated these and therefore some are probably private courses where you need to go through some kind of rigorous membership initiation involving black socks, chickens and balancing on one leg.

Queens Park, pitch and putt - free
Pollok Park Golf Club

The Great Scottish Run

Glasgow's Great Scottish Run, sponsored by Fresh 'n' Low, takes place on Sunday the 2nd of September and starts in George Square and finishes in Glasgow green, but the majority of the run is through the southside of the city. You have the option of running either the 10 km run or the half marathon. There is still time to sign up.

It's a great route taking you over Kingston Bridge, down Paisley Road West, through Bellahouston and Pollok park, then up through Shawlands and right down Pollokshaws road before turning into the Gorbals and across the river.

If your not up for taking part, get out on the street and give them a cheer.

The boys are back in town

Drew getting the better of Wolfgang in the final battle

Speak of the devil and he shall appear - we'll not the devil exactly but Wolfgang, Bubblegum and the rest of the odd assortment of wrestlers that we briefly mentioned in our post about Langside Halls in Queens Park. Just a day after putting up that post we walked round the corner and we confronted by a startling poster - the pbw wrestling is back in town.

Okay it may well be fake, the wrestlers garish costumes may look homemade, their hammy good guy/ bad guy acting and polarised story arcs may be on the naff side but that surely is 90% of the fun. Its that kind of ridiculousness that keeps it enjoyable not to mention the stunts and kicks these guys carry out are very impressive and often it was hard to believe that they weren't really fighting each other. For example when one of them picked up his combatant and threw him in some chairs amongst the audience. They might just have been pretending - but that still must have hurt.

All in all - cheap, cheerful, cheesy entertainment and a good night out with a bunch of mates where you part laugh with, part laugh at the show. Kids will also love it but parental guidance is advised by the organisers. Its on in Langside Halls, Queens Park - Sunday the 4th August at 7.30pm. Tickets are £8 and are available from tickets Scotland.

22 little fat men

For my Dad's birthday I took him to see Rangers 9-in-row 10th anniversary game at Ibrox. It was good fun - with lots of portly ex-rangers players waddling around against lots of other portly ex-spl players. Star of the match and the only player still able to play was Brian Laudrup - when he got subbed the game kind of went to sleep and was only sparked up by a Penalty by Frank McAvenny much to the home fans disgust.

Not sure which bright spark had the idea to give all the players shirts with the number 9 - it just meant from the stand you didn't have a clue who anyone was.

Strangest thing of the day was the man sitting in the row in front of us who changed his young sons nappy and clothes, redressed him and then hid the old nappy under his chair. Classy.

Running Round Rouken

There's a 10km and a 5km run in Rouken Glen park on Thursday night, I am disappointed I won't be able to go as it seemingly a really nice route, though I've also heard it can be quite hilly in places....
You can register on the night at the park. So if your in need of a free t-shirt and goodie bag go along.

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/leisure/runningfestival/the_event.htm

Running Classes

I went out running with the jogging network on Monday night, I normally go to two classes every week, one at the Gorbals and one at Bellahouston park. On Monday we were running one mile reps.

You can join the jogging network, as long as you can run three miles, if you can’t, you can join one of their beginners classes to get you up to the 3 mile mark.It's really good fun

There are classes on everyday, at different places around the city, here are the southside classes

Monday 6.30pm – Gorbals Sport Centre
Tuesday 6.30pm - Holyrood Sport Centre
Wednesday 6.30pm – Bellahouston Sport Centre

gives us a goal

Newlands Cafe

In the Southside we are well sorted for specialist shops for all occasions and over the coming months we will be pin pointing some of the most useful. If anyone has any suggestions of good shops to visit then let us know - the odder the better.

The shop in question here is not an odd one but with a recent spate of shop closures it is becoming semi unique.

For the past few weeks, I've been playing football with a hole in my right boot which I have been gratefully using as an excuse for my shooting. The problem with this however was that every now and then, when the ball caught my foot at the right angle, I was basically kicking it with a bare foot, which was rather uncomfortable. I decided I'd had enough and set search through Shawlands for some new boots.

There used to be a Sports shop called Morrisons as part of Shawlands Arcade but it has been closed for a while now. But I knew there was a second store down towards Newlands. We wandered down that end only to discover that it was closed and on closer inspection appeared to have closed down. I was just about to give up and resign myself to having to go to one of the larger stores when I spotted a note on the door advising that they had actually moved further up the road to a unit opposite the new Tesco mini mart.

So we crossed over the road, purchased a quarter of Jelly Teddies from the Newlands Cafe's excellent sweetie selection and walked along to John Semples sports shop.

Its a small shop, but it is extremely packed full of every possible sporting item you would care to mention and the bloke that served me was very helpful and gave me a choice of 4 different boots. I decided not to be ruled by the latest fashions and opted out of a red or a white pair (if you turn up in a pair of those then you had better be good or face team ridicule) and I went for a pair of classic black Pumas. They seem comfortable enough and I feel they have many goals in them, I look forward to trying them out on Wednesday night.

We didn't really chat to the owner properly. We're still getting the hang of this investigative business when it comes to gathering info for this blog but we did find out a few interesting facts - 1. the original John Semple sits in a comfy chair by the window, 2. the original John Semple opened the store 27 years ago, 3. the guy who served us is taking part in a professional bowls championship - we shall try to find out where and when and maybe someone can go along and give us a report.

EDIT: There must be something wrong with these new boots as well. No goals and I was completely exhausted after half an hour.

Football and roads

The roads and rails might be a bit busy on your way home from work to the Southside tonight as several thousand Spaniards have descended upon Glasgow for the Uefa Cup Final at Hampden Park. The kick off is at 19:45 and so traffic will be tied up from 17:30 and then busy again around 22:00.

There's a lot of Spanish colour in the city today as the two teams of Espanyol (blue) and Sevilla (red) take part in dancing, singing and mock football matches. They've been in fine voice so far despite the rather depressing weather and its been fun to watch them wandering around, waving their flags and wearing a mixture of sombreros and fake kilts. I always enjoy when these big events come to Glasgow and hopefully we'll see plenty more if we win the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Its a shame that the display of colour and flag waving can't be replicated by our own local teams without it starting a riot.

Tickets for the game have been like gold dust but we have managed to track down a couple of reporters who will be taking photos for us and giving us the inside scoop tomorrow. We'd also like to hear from people from Mount Florida to tell us what its like living beside these kind of events.

Edit: A very enjoyable match - with Sevilla just sneaking it on penalties. Here are the photos from our inside reporters who I believe may have been enjoying a beverage or two with the Spaniards all afternoon.