Women's World Cup: Scotland fans mix up Reims & Rennes
- Published
The Scotland supporters feared they would miss seeing the World Cup match against Japan
Women's World Cup: Scotland v Argentina |
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Venue: Parc des Princes, Paris Date: Wednesday, 19 June Kick-off: 20:00 BST |
Coverage: Watch on BBC Four & BBC ALBA; listen on BBC Radio Scotland; live text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app. |
"We were going to Reims, not Rennes..."
Three Scotland fans were left wishing they had paid more attention to school French lessons after heading to Reims instead of Rennes to watch their team.
The Ailsa Craig Tartan Army trio were travelling from Brussels, having watched Steve Clarke's men's national team lose to Belgium.
They reached Rennes in time for the Women's World Cup match against Japan - but only after a near 500km trip in the wrong direction.
"We had to change for the Rennes train in Paris," said David Irving, who was travelling with his brother Martin, and a friend.
"Walking down the platform and my pal Tony said to me: 'platform six' and I said: 'Are you sure? That doesn't look like the right spelling'.
"He said it was the French spelling. So we thought, no problem."
'We're going in the wrong direction'
The group could only get first class tickets, having not booked in advance, and so settled in for a comfortable journey and a nap.
"My brother was further up the carriage and myself and Tony were sitting together," David said. "I woke up about 15 minutes from our destination and my brother had sent me a text message saying: 'We're going in the wrong direction'.
"True enough we were going east from Paris, not west. We were going to Reims, not Rennes."
The Ailsa Craig Tartan Army trio almost paid the price for their mistake
Cue a "nightmare" scramble to book more tickets and get back to Paris, from where the trio finally boarded a train to Brittany.
"That took a long time," David added. "And eventually when we did get to Rennes at half 11 it took us another hour to get a taxi to go to our digs. So that was us 12 hours on the go, a fair sprint."
'I wasn't very good at French at school'
Scotland lost 2-1 to Japan in Rennes and unfortunately for the Ailsa Craig group, their travel misadventures were not quite over as they headed home.
"Worst thing is our pal Tony booked tickets for us to come back on Sunday and, before we'd even left, a couple came up and said we were sitting in their seats - we thought they'd double booked our seats," David said.
"This polite Frenchman looked at our tickets and said: 'that says Lundi - that is for Monday' - we'd booked the wrong tickets which ended up costing us more money again.
"But we've had a good laugh. Don't get me wrong at the time it wasn't funny especially on Sunday coming back when we once again didn't have a seat and had to stand for two hours coming back from Rennes to go to Paris.
"I wasn't very good at French in school but now I know Lundi is Monday, definitely learned the hard way."
Scotland face Argentina on Wednesday evening in their final group match at the Women's World Cup, searching for their first victory following losses to England and Japan.
Should Shelley Kerr's side win, they will have to wait to see if they qualify as one of the best third-placed sides.