Watching my team is like the engine in a motorbike
NAME: Marek Mizera COUNTRY: P...
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Unirea v Rangers Champions League in Bucharest
17 November 2010
Getting actual possession of accessible match tickets for Rangers European away games has become an absolute nightmare with days spent travelling all round cities trying to obtain them whilst everybody else seems to get theirs direct from the club. In Bucharest myself and my travelling companions travelled up to the club's hotel to pick up my tickets only to be told they weren't actually in Rangers possession but they were trying to locate them .Eventually I was informed to be at the ground early and I would get them there. Now gaining entry to the Stadium surroundings was extremely difficult due to the fact that myself and my companion were not in possession of match tickets so therefore the security people would not let us in! Eventually after being out in the open for an hour in the pouring rain without any shelter we managed to track down a representative of Thomas Cook Travel ( who Rangers travel agents) who managed to gain us access to inside the stadium perimeter. Whilst going right round the ground to reach the location where the tickets were located the Thomas Cook representative admitted that what was happening with the wheelchair tickets was not good enough. She would try and ensure it was raised at the security meetings that Rangers held with the host teams, I was a bit taken aback by that remark because that was supposed to be how it was supposed to happen already along with an inspection of the relevant wheelchair facilities. Anyway I managed to obtain the tickets approximately half an hour before kick off which I suppose was not too bad because when we played away in Lyon I obtained the correct tickets three minutes prior to kick off.
When I finally gained access to the space I had been given it was in the other stand from the Rangers support, now this is quite normal in Europe (and not unheard of in Scotland). About five minutes before kick off a couple of UEFA officials came to where I was located and took a couple photos from beside where I was although they never actually spoke to me I was pleasantly surprised they seemed to be taking an interest in the situation. Although I was behind a wire meshed fence my position was slightly elevated which as I'm sure you are aware makes an enormous difference to the view for a wheelchair user. However just prior to kick off a steward appeared and stood right in front of me where he stayed for the entire game, no amount of reasoning or requests to see his supervisor or someone in authority could make him budge one inch.
William Paterson