Thursday 23rd November 2000

Martin R: "I could tell this was going to be an eventful one when Justin phoned me on Tuesday evening to tell me that Ryanair had phoned him to say that his flight on Friday evening had been cancelled. Fortunately, they were rebooking him on the first flight on Saturday morning, so he would still be there for the tournament, but it wasn't a good start.

I phoned Ryanair first thing on Wednesday and found out that there was a pilots' strike on Friday, so that everyone flying on the Friday - Ben, Carol, Christina, Marieke, Michelle and I, as well as Justin - would need to be rebooked onto alternative flights. With Marieke and me working in tandem and after an hour and a half with a phone in each ear - one to Ryanair, and one to each of the affected players in turn - we had me flying out on Thursday evening instead of Friday morning, Carol flying out from Glasgow on Thursday evening instead of from Manchester on Friday evening, and Ben, Christina, Marieke and Michelle flying out on Saturday morning.

Thursday itself I spent tying up loose ends, although there's never enough time to get everything done, and I had to leave some minor items unfinished in order to catch my bus to the airport. I had established the night before that there was a National Express bus that ran from Old Amersham direct to Luton Airport in about forty-five minutes that got me to the airport in plenty of time for my flight, so that was that sorted. Or so I thought.

I got to the bus stop ten minutes early, but by the time I had waited twenty-five minutes I was starting to fret. Eventually, twenty minutes after it was due, the bus finally turned up. However, this was only the start of the nightmare.

Through Chorleywood and onto the M25 and things took another turn for the worse as we hit lane closures due to roadworks, and at rush hour this did not make for a pretty sight. The tailbacks went on for ever . . .

Finally we were through the roadworks and sped towards the M1, where the scenario was repeated with a vengeance. No sooner were we on the slip-road at junction 6A than everything ground to a halt. A real halt. Now everyone was on the phone to the airport, including a mother and daughter - Maxine and Rachel - sitting just in front of me. We quickly ascertained that we were on the same flight, and were all told that if we could be at the airport by twenty minutes before the flight was due to go, they would let us on the plane.

Twenty-two minutes before departure, Maxine, Rachel and I burst into the departures hall to find the flight closed and no one at the check-in desks. In desperation, we turned to the Servisair desk, but to the dyed-blonde nasty behind the desk this was just the opportunity for which she had been waiting. "No, nothing I can do", she said, and might as well have said "more than my job's worth to try to help you", because it was only barely left unsaid. Maxine phoned through to some of her colleagues who were on the same flight, and they reported that the departure gate had not yet even opened and that everyone was just sitting around waiting.

Despite this and our pleading, the Jobsworth was having nothing of it, and refused to do anything to help us to get onto the plane, although she did say that she had five seats left on the Friday 7am flight and could book us onto that. The fact that this was my original flight that I had been told only the previous day had been cancelled really seemed to put the lid on the whole episode."

Carol: "Thursday really started on Tuesday with the rescheduled flight arrangements, due to the Ryanair strike. This resulted in an impromptu dash to Prestwick Airport in Glasgow on Thursday, instead of the more sedate trip to Manchester Airport on Friday. Amidst some of the worst traffic snarl-ups I've ever experienced, I fully expected to miss my flight. However my flight was delayed by an hour, enabling me to make mine, while Martin missed his flight from London."

Martin R: "There was obviously nothing more that I and my fellow passengers could do that night, so I phoned Michelle and hoped she would take pity on my plight and come and fetch me from the airport. I obviously sounded pathetic enough because she said she would, and would be with me in about three quarters of an hour, after she had had her supper.

I then phoned Carol to say I had missed my flight and gave her descriptions of Eryl and Helen, who had said that they would meet first me and then her at the airport, and then finally phoned through to Dublin airport to leave a message for Eryl to say that I would not be arriving tonight but to please meet Carol who would be coming in on the Glasgow flight.

Maxine, Rachel and I then sat in the coffee bar and talked mobile phones and reggae music - particularly an excellent Bob Marley tribute band that would be playing in Dublin the following night - and generally put the world to rights. Or at least we put to rights travel people with bad attitudes."

Michelle: "Well, there I was at home after a hard day's labour, looking forward to food and relaxing when the phone rings...."Meeesh...can you pick me up from the airport...." Well I can't remember the exact words but I'm sure it was something just as woeful! Yes, in true Reed tradition of being on time, another flight was missed. This time partly due to unforeseeable circumstances of evil traffic on the M1 to Luton airport, and an equally evil check-in woman who refused the morose and late passengers boarding, even though the plane had not yet left.

So hence began the first of my three visits up the M1 to Luton in as many days to pick up a forlorn Martin and deposit him back to his house for an early start and 7:00am flight the next morning. I think I could hear his liver heaving a sigh of relief as it realized it was being let off an evening of abuse..."

Carol: "Flight duly caught, I found myself on a plane headed to Dublin, a city I've never been to, without a single map, tour handbook, or even the faintest clue who I was being met by. Martin's description of Helen and Eryl, was "He's not too tall, short-cropped brown hair and Helen's very quiet". Sound like anyone you know? That's right . . . anyone!!! Luckily they showed brilliant initiative and had made a couple of signs, displaying my name and "Underwater Hockey". Eryl later confided that they were looking out for the huge kit bag, until they realised that I was borrowing all my kit and would not have a tell-tale kitbag with me."

Martin R: "The only saving grace about having missed my flight was that I could at least finish off all the things I'd had to abandon in order to catch the flight in the first place. Head down and focussed, I managed to check quite a few things off my to-do list before finally turning in at 1:30am. The only bad point was that the alarm clock was set for 04:30. Three hours sleep, uuurgghhhhh . . ."

Carol: "As the taxis were on strike, we jumped on a bus into the centre of town, dumped my bags at the hostel and made our way into Temple Bar. Here we managed to finish a few Kilkennys - we'd decided to save the Guinness until the rest of the team arrived - before deciding that we'd better leave for a few hours shut-eye, as Helen was battling to stay awake. Getting back to the hostel, we decided that as it was 3am we'd better ring Martin and make sure that he didn't miss the next flight."

Martin R: "Three hours of sleep would have been a luxury compared to what I actually got. Barely an hour and a half had passed when the phone rang, and I answered it to find Carol, Eryl and Helen on the other end saying gleefully "We're in Dublin, it's 3am, we've just come out of a bar and we're having a really great time". Double urrghhhh!

By this point there was absolutely no point in trying to get back to sleep for one hour, so I decided to stay up and get on with things until my alarm clock went off, and it was time to swing into action. Needless to say, it was a fairly slow-motion swing . . ."