SM Top 100 co-owner Stephen Beddows (Frank being David Gold and Gordon being Karen Brady) this weekend went on a football adventure to arguably one of the uglier cities of Northern Italy, Turin to watch some top-flight football and here follows an account of his experiences.
It was Sunday 10th April, the day after my daughters birthday and mid-way through our mini-break to Italy and I decided that I’d had enough of my in-laws: hearing my mother in-law complain about everything and everyone apart from herself and her making excuses to ‘go out’ and ‘be selfish’ putting herself first as always and never actually realising how she portrays herself to other people such as myself…
Back to topic with my daughter dropped off and arriving at the train station in Alba, a pretty little town in Northern Italy I had my first challenge to surmount, the train. I always surmount challenges with great enthusiasm many girls have told me and this one was no different my first ride on an Italian train for 12 months… and a trip to that ugly city of Turin to watch the least ugly of its two sides, Torino… its a good job Juventus hadn’t have been at home otherwise I’d have stayed with the mother in-law.
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| An Italian Train |
The Italian trains (I had to change) were late getting me into Torino Porta Nuova 30 minutes late which was highly annoying at it was now 2pm with kick off scheduled for 3pm local time. I had of course done all of my pre-match research and was particularly keen to see AC Milan superstar (On SM) turn out for Torino and I was also interested to watch Sportiello play in goal for Atalanta as he has been touted as a decent future prospect but I hadn’t really planned or read up on the Turin public transport strike of Sunday which was to take place at 5.30pm… 
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| I generally pay 2x as much to watch Burton Albion in League 1 |
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| Olympic Stadium Torino |
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| Paolo was delighted |
Early in the 2nd half Torino scored again to make it 2-0, within a minute of the restart with Bruno Peres this time turning provider for Maxi Lopez to make it two.
Atalanta then played some Louis Van Gaal style football, side to side, backwards and then side to side again and eventually after doing this for 10 mintues they won a free kick and scored directly from it. (I have the video coverage but it is so boring I decided to not upload it.)
Torino won 2-1 and many Toro fans were delighted as they were apparently now mathemtically safe and not going to get relegated.
After the game with the transport strike in mind Paolo offered to drive me directly to the English Pub near to the station to watch the World’s greatest team Manchester United, he agreed to drop me off and join me after he’d nipped to a local record fair that was going on nearby, he is a fan of vinyls and records apparently.
Obviously Man Utd were terrible… losing emphatically! And to drown my sorrows after that I went to Mcdonalds before taking the train back to see the Mother in Law!
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| Beer at Mcdonalds One of Europe’s best assets |
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