After the absolute disaster that was our trip to Munich , myself and Paul had been waiting for the new season to make amends in terms of following Celtic abroad. Paul was the more experienced European away match-goer and said that the qualifiers often spring up good trips, so we decided to wait and see what the draw brought.
Celtic had beaten Rosenborg at home in first leg of the second qualifying round, at which point the draw was made for the next stage. Then it was time for the draw. I sat in work with a live stream on my phone. That night we looked at travel plans and hotels. I had seen on social media that a lot of fans had already taken the chance and booked cheap flights to Greece, before our second leg with Rosenborg had been played.
Fortunately, Paul spotted an opportunity to reserve flights for 24 hours on the Air France website. Half time in Norway, Rosenborg Celtic.
This prompted many others to book up before the inevitable price hike at full time. The scoreline stayed that way so I immediately confirmed our booking at the end of the match and we could look forward to a trip to Greece. All we had to do now was book a train from Poole to Bristol, sort transport from the centre of Bristol to the Airport and make sure we caught our flight to Paris and then our connection to Athens.
Celtic had dominated the first leg against AEK Athens at home. We took the lead through Callum McGregor in the first half, but the visitors equalised against the run of play. A week later, I met Paul at a pub round the corner from Poole train station. I had all the paperwork and packed the essentials down to a two pin plug adapter, to ensure there was no room for error.
