Nea Bafra

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I've made a promise to one of my cousins who in his younger days used to be a gate 4 psycho that if and when PAOK make it to he champions league group stages I will fly over for a fortnight and take in a home and an away game and take him with me.

she's six now, she tells me she wants to play for PAOK when she grows up. Unfortunately for her that might be easier than breaking into her local club's womens team.

Thanks Pana, unfortunately Dad had had a succession of strokes from about 2003 up until 2010 with about 4 major ones up until he had that one in Greece. Up until that one they had only left a minor loss of peripheral eyesight after he had rehab, however the one he had in Greece left him blind and mentally affected. Once we got him home he had a couple more big ones and passed away in 2012. As sad as it is, from what the neurologists have since told us, the condition he has that caused it, meant that he probably had in excess of 30 strokes/bleeds in the brain over the decade, some obviously though would have been too minor to notice. By the end it was in part a relief as well as a loss.

my story is not a short one, but here goes anyway. in early 2010 my wife and I thought we'd take our 16 month old daughter to Greece to see my Yiayia. Thought, may as well get a holiday in and booked 4 weeks with some time on an island and in Athens as well as a stop in Paris to see my best friend who lives in London now. My folks said 'how about we come at the same time' while not ideal from a cramping our style point of view, there was a bit of on hand babysitting that could be done. Dad went over 3 months earlier being retired to see his mum, and my mum would fly over with us. A fortnight before we were supposed to fly out my Theia calls and says your dad has had a stroke and he's in the hospital in Drama. Mum and I fly out within 48 hours and spend the next week doing the nurses job for them in the hospital [never, ever get sick in Greece EVER the hospital in Drama looked like something out of an old school Eastern Bloc cold war era time]. Eventually we get Dad moved to the Diabalkaniko hospital in Thessaloniki and the place and doctors there are amazing. They put Dad in an induced coma and into the ICU for 2 weeks. During that time we can only see him for 30 minutes twice a day at very specific times. The hospital happens to be next to the Hotel Nikopolis so we stayed there so we could walk back and forth. I think I've mentioned this previously but this is where the players and coaches would spend the 24 hours previous to any home game or departure for any away game having meetings and other stuff. This was also during the playoffs at the end of the 2009/2010 season and there had been a Wednesday game at home to Olympiakos postponed for the general strike [the day some psychokhunt threw a molotov at a bank and killed people inside]. They rearranged it for a Sunday and so there were plenty of tickets available. I jump in the car and head to Toumba to buy a ticket. The guy asks me what kind of ticket I want. My answer a pair of the most expensive ones you've got as long as they guarantee me a seat. There was no way I was talking my wife to a game and going in Gate 4. So the day comes around and we jump in a cab to the ground and go in. The wall of sound is immense, we walk to our allocated seats and they're taken. Not being used to not being able to see anyone remotely looking like a steward/marshall/usher anywhere in site, I say to the guy, I think these are our seats. He laughs and says, listen mate I don't know what your ticket says but we always have these seats. Now I'm no hero especially with my wife there so I look further up the stand and there are plenty of free seats so we go a few rows further back and relax waiting for the teams to head out. My wife starts pissing herself laughing when the PAOK players come out to the strains of ACDC's Thunderstruck 'haven't they got any metal songs of their own?' The game starts and we are all over them like a rash, Lino was especially strong that day up and back like greyhound. Nikopolidis fluffed a clearance deflected by Filomeno that went to Muslimovic who slotted it. We dominated large swathes of the game but couldn't exactly relax on a one goal lead. However the scores remained unchanged and everyone left very happy [particularly as away supporters were banned during the playoffs] Below are some photos I took from the game and a youtube link to the highlights. I had been to see PAOK a number of times in Serres, but never at Toumba. https://youtu.be/8mpf_wUtJbI Meanwhile back at the hotel we were there for pretty much the entire playoff run so I saw the players around quite a bit. I even sat and had a coffee with Muslimovic [he really is one of the nicest people you could meet] in the bar. One of the girls that worked there gave my daughter a handful of karameles and told her to go and give them to Fernando Santos to see if she could get her to make him smile or laugh [she swore she had not seen him smile once in 2 years] and she got him to crack a smile, but no laugh, she even got a hug from Conceicao. Could you not laugh at this? It was the brightest part of a truly awful and horrific time.

I would assume that had he been bought by another club they would have given him the standard heart test, but as he was a youth player of theirs he wouldn't get one in order to be promoted to the senior team

if only Olsen would stay in Sweden

just damn tragic

is anyone else seeing savvidis patting arnesen on the back and saying 'asto se mena mikre' then turning to Berbatov as he pulls out his wallet 'how much for cash?'

as long as he plays the full season. if he plays 9 games and scores 3 goals not so much

There should be a way to add negative votes, then we would probably see Olsen at -20

I voted for Malezas because if we hadn't picked him up we would be in a world of pain

hahaha greeks, incapable of doing 2 things at once

or the way they are treating Costa

surely though it's less risky to get the players in and then work at reducing costa's wage. it's like telling your wife it's over then asking your girlfriend to move in and she tells you to F*** off.

He's only just been bought outright by Atalanta [one of those stupid co-ownership italian deals], seems weird hey would do that only to sell him

I'm curious, so where in Greece is everyone from? I'll start, Dad was from a little xorio about 30 minutes outside Drama but in Nomos Serres called Nea Bafra and mum is from a town called Polikarpi in Nomos Pell past edessa towards the hot springs at Loutraki.

no tavli?

online? if so where?

i think there is a monthly fee involved, but that might just be to use the app

What would be refreshing is that when we hit a patch of poor results [it will happen eventually] and the players start cracking the sads and causing trouble [Tzavella i'm looking at you m#$%!] that the board says screw you, do what the coach says or get lost, as opposed to our normal response of "ach ta kaimena mora" let's sack the coach. It's embarrassing that since 1970 our longest serving coach is Santos and that was less than 3 years. 12 times in those years we have had 3 coaches in a season and we had 5 coaches in a season once.

It's also got a pretty good iOS app [not sure about android]

the one position you are safe in at PAOK appears to be in the centre of defence. We are so thin in the position it's not funny

i don't know, but at this rate i'll take him on one leg over Olsen.