From our own correspondent in a corner of London that is forever Paraguay. A little later than expected, Rob Hutchison describes his part of the Ha’way Paraguay evening organised by a fellow subscriber to the Black Cats list, Clive Stevenson …
Nueva Costa Dorada, Monday night . . .
Met up with Clive and his missus in the restaurant along with Ian Mole who was writing an article for A Love Supreme* on the proceedings.
Cracking table secured near the big screen, the bar was mostly occupied by Paraguay fans, many of whom were decked out in their colours.
You could order tapas by the metre (I kid you not) so we called for two metres between the five of us and they were brought out on what looked like a long toilet door covered with a dozen splendid dishes.
San Miguel washed it down nicely and by the time the game kicked off there was a grand atmosphere. Footballing wise it was very much like watching Sunderland . . . . a goal against the run of play and the place went up, although what the locals made of our shouts of “f**king ha’way lads”, I not quite sure.
Da Silva looked solid throughout although the Italian equaliser surprised no one, even if the cross would have been “an easy one for Norman”.
Riveros looked to have gone awol all night and appeared to hardly get a kick apart from a crunching challenge on some rolly-about Italian early doors. Draw was probably a fair result and everyone seemed happy at close of play.
Like watching Sunderland the expectation was there, only for defeat to be almost snatched from the jaws of victory.
A film crew were filming in the bar and collared us wondering what the hell were doing there, so after we explained they decided as they were from the UK 2018 Back the Bid Team, it would be an excellent idea to interview each of us on camera so be warned our ugly mugs may pop up in very unexpected places any time soon.
We all managed to get a flavour of anti Mag commentary into our 90 second slot, with Clive dominating his clip praising Sir Niall and the Sunderland bid to the rafters, and I chipped in with an explanation of how wonderful the World Cup would be if played in the UK – provided they stayed away from the land of the great unwashed.
A blogger blogging the World Cup (what else would he do?) was also there anhere . . . d he too picked up our angle. We fed him a few titbits for his article – complete with the gruesome pic you can see here.
A great night all round, the locals made us all feel very welcome and Paraguay are defo our preferred second team for 2010.
See also:
* Paraguay – Sunderland lads make their mark (A Love Supreme)
* South Africa 2010 viewed from London bars: My World Cup Overfloweth