A weekend of football in Bangkok

So here I am after almost 4 days, still with jet lag and a few tasty insect bites and we have done quite a lot since I last blogged including having a cribs style look around Bryan’s Penthouse as well as experiencing my first Saturday night out in Bangkok and no we haven’t been to Patpong…. not yet anyway.

Our night consisted of watching a lot of football all viewed on big screens from the comfort of the official Manchester United bar & restaurant which is definitely more of a classy dining experience than your usual Saturday night down the local.

For Bryan this was the first of what will most certainly be many nights spent here in a private room with plasma screens of any game you could possibly want at your fingertips. This is a country that’s very proud of its national dishes but following on the theme of a true Manchester bar everything is typically English from the menu of burgers & chips (Bryan’s choice) to traditional Old Trafford fish & chips. We even met a good few Mancs enjoying the win over Bolton with torrential rain pouring down outside….just like home.

We woke on Sunday morning and decided to do something relaxing before another days filming began, a traditional Thai massage was the order of the day and it was pretty brutal, my cameraman Ash has bruises and I have a lovely Chinese burn on my wrist so naturally had to go for a swim & Jacuzzi after that.

I’ve been collecting the local papers every day and on the back pages since Bryan’s arrival he’s featured in them all and there’s always news of Manchester United. In the Bangkok Post on Sunday there were six different articles on the back page all reporting on the win over Bolton, absolutely fanatical! Everywhere we’ve been we have seen United shirts, Liverpool seem to be pretty popular too as do Arsenal who’s academy has strong links with Beco Tero Sasana, a team in the Thai Premier League. When we mention we are from Manchester the Thai people only know one team, surprising considering their former prime minister owned City.

After a spot of lunch with Bryan where he was briefed about the national players by Steve Darby his assistant for the national side we headed out for the day to watch more football, this time the Manchester United of Thailand, Muang Thong, who were playing Beco, the Arsenal of the Thai Premier League. Unsurprisingly both sides included Thai national players, it was the last game of the season so Bryan was keen to see some of his players in action before taking them on a training camp to Phuket next week. I mentioned that Muang Thong bore remarkable similarities to Manchester United, this is an understatement! They call themselves MU UTD, their match day programme is also called United Review & has the very same layout, they play in red although the majority of the shirts in the stadium were United ones, they’re the only team to have a club shop (like a mini megastore) and they too are Premier League champions, there was a sell out crowd ( ok15,000 not 75,000 but nearly record breaking for a Thai league game) & the fans never once stopped singing; Glory Glory Man United was translated into Thai & all the chants were mostly Manchester United ones, very surreal.

There are some thing however that couldn’t be further from the Premier League and not just in distance. There’s no such thing as a reserve team, youth team or academy, the reality is that some players simply never get a game, they are just happy to be associated with the team, kick-off takes places just as soon as each side is ready and tickets are the equivalent of £1, at half time refreshments were cakes in little paper boxes with cold flannels to wipe yourself down, not from the cake but the sweat which was literally pouring from us all, lovely!



This was all enjoyed in Muang Thongs stadium the Thunderdome Sport complex which was the biggest difference, the ground is more Macclesfield than Manchester United (No offence to the Moss Rose), there’s no groundsman & the pitch is also the surface that the team train on. The match would most certainly have been called off back home but the players simply got on with the job in hand with the Muang Thong players covered head to toe in mud celebrating at the end a 2-0 win and trophy lift after which there were no signs of flash cars, one of the star players simply strolled out of the ground grabbed a drink from a stall & rode off on his bike! I am not quite sure it was quite what Bryan expected but we (MUTV) got his every reaction to a very different match day experience indeed.

My first 2 days in bangkok

So I’m here in Bangkok, shattered & up at 2am blogging but have had a crazy couple of days in this amazing city already so prepare yourselves for my first & probably longest blog. If you read my first blog you may know that MUTV are making a behind the scenes documentary following Bryan Robson's every move in his first couple of weeks of his new role as head coach of the Thailand national football team. You probably think staying in Thailand for 2 weeks is almost like being on holiday…well after seeing the itinerary & experiencing the treacherous weather this is certainly no vacation. I am currently enjoying a cuppa from the comfort of my hotel room as the rain lashes down outside, I'm accompanied only by some very dramatic thunder & lightening I’m afraid and already my favourite shoes are ruined and the hair…don’t even ask about that!

Both me & my cameraman Ash arrived in Bangkok in the early hours of Thursday and decided (god knows why) to stay up throughout the day despite missing a night’s sleep in order to acclimatise & to film Bryan’s arrival at the airport later that day, which he did in true David Beckham style, greeted by a swarm of photographers & cameramen.

Whilst Bryan quite rightly travelled in style on a direct flight, MUTV's journey was an emotional one with my butch camaraman & 2 week companion shedding more than a tear at the in-fight movie ‘My Sisters Keeper’, he blamed it on the spicy complimentary nuts! He had already shed tears at forking out a small fortune for excess baggage, he blamed that on my make up bag! not the ridiculous amounts of equipment we need in order to make a programme like this.



Well, after an exhausting journey I was VERY pleased to be greeted at Bangkok airport by a bright pink taxi & the cab ride certainly kept us awake as Mr Anan our driver, Thailand’s answer to Jenson Button both entertained & nearly killed us on the way, he was also very reluctant to actually take us to our hotel & tried his hardest to sell a visit to a tiger temple.

It suddenly dawned on me as we entered the city that although we were mere visitors, Bryan was actually giving up life in England to move to Thailands capital, which although is one of the most interesting places I have been lucky enough to visit, it's certainly not the prettiest. So, our first day ended with 3 taxis, 2 flights, an evening river boat ride and tuk-tuk and yes we were still arguing about the excess baggage.



The following day/today we woke to thunderstorms, flooding and almost unbearable humidity and despite being slightly jet lagged had our first big job to shoot. It was less than 24 hours after Bryan’s arrival when was thrown into his busy schedule starting with his introduction at a press conference. We were the first to arrive (which makes a change) but at least got all the good food first (god knows what it was though) & met with Bryan for a brief chat whilst he had lunch with the chairman of the Thailand FA & what looked to be other important people. I was informed by one that a match we are going to attend with Bryan had changed dates for apparently the third time, which by the way is no ordinary game, it’s the FA cup final! due to take place in less than a week, hopefully. It then became very apparent that although the Thai people are the most friendly and polite I have ever met they do not adhere to time keeping or organisation as a steady stream of journalist, photographers & cameramen came trickling in for the 1 hour press conference with mobiles going off throughout (Glory Glory Man United was one of the journalists ring tones). I penned just half a page of notes as the whole conference was in Thai, apart from Bryans words of course.

There were 2 British journalists present & it wouldn’t be a press conference would it without someone asking a completely irrelevant question which by the way was about Fabio Capello, his tactics & an apparent lack in strength & depth of the England squad. Bryan of course put him right, after all didn’t fringe man Crouch get a brace in the win against Belarus midweek?!

Also during the press conference to everyones excitement there was a live conference call with Sir Alex which gained an outburst of giggles when a polite Thai lady’s voice came ringing through the speakers. When the right number was dialled Sir Alex wished Bryan all the best of luck in his new job & told how he was by far the best captain of United he’d ever had & how he was a powerful influence in the dressing room. This is however one of the things which Bryan will have to hold back on as after meetings with Peter Reid (the previous Thailand national manager) he explained that the Thai players were less than happy when they were given a dressing down in front of colleagues so Bryan is going to have to hold back on all he learnt from Sir Alex Ferguson & his infamous hair dryer treatment.

I failed to mention yet a big problem we encountered on arrival, a piece of our equipment had become damaged on route & an important piece at that so we found ourselves traipsing round Bangkok looking for a radio-mic with just the words please & thank you to do so. Luckily we were handed the contact details of an extremely helpful man called Mark from Asian Works who very kindly lent us one. It was almost fate as we met him in a building which housed Bangkok’s BBC, ITN Channel 4 & ABC correspondents amongst others, so met a lot of really lovely people & 1 not so lovely grumpy fat old man to see how they are reporting Bryan’s arrival. Mark also introduced us to the Penthouse Bar, also known as the Foreign Correspondents Club (think more Manchester’s Press Club than Panacea) this is where we met the fat grumpy old man. Our day ended with a high rise coffee, some unrecognisable, inedible ‘soup’ & a chaotic journey back to the hotel with a brief stop at a shrine/sanjao, around 90% of Thai people are Buddhist so visit temples or places of worship, which are a real calm amongst the traffic noise, street vendors, constant construction & general mayhem of the city. People were praying so I joined in…there is a match tomorrow after all, 2 for me in fact as United take on Bolton & my home town team Boro face Watford.

In the conference call to Sir Alex, Bryan wished him luck for tomorrow’s game against Bolton where we will next be meeting him to enjoy the match and I will report back on our experiences of watching the home tie from a Manchester United bar in Bangkok in the middle of the night. We all know Robbo likes a drink & I’m a McQueen so it should be a fun evening in his new local.

Two weeks in Thailand

On Wednesday I will be venturing to Thailand for two weeks to follow Bryan Robson in his new role as manager of the Thailand national football team and also covering his work as an ambassador for Manchester United. My journey to Thailand and as a blogger starts here with regular updates and pictures from my travels following Captain Marvel on his Thai adventure.