Barcelona
| In late
September, 2005 the girls who won the Coca-Cola Tournament earlier in the
year received their reward - and what a reward it was! Along with
the winning boys side from Wishaw, they were flown to Barcelona for a
visit based around the legendary Nou Camp Stadium. This page is
simply a taster of what should hopefully become a major feature next term,
when the girls themselves will tell the story of an unforgettable trip.
As a sample of what is in
store, a few more images - as ever they are in thumbnail format.
Click on any image to view a larger version and use the back arrow in your
browser (or the backspace key) to return to this page.
Again, to give you an idea of what we hope will follow shortly - an outline of the trip provided by the Principal Teacher of P.E. To be fair, please realise that these are only briefing notes sent to the webteam for information and are not the polished article which would be prepared with a view to publication.
"The trip was brilliant,
leaving Tuesday 20th from school to Glasgow airport by minibus. We met
up with the Coca Cola reps and the boys team there, and the journey was
very uneventful. We were met in Barcelona by wonderful heat and two
Spanish guys - Ricardo from the Spanish Coca Cola rep and Christian our
translator (he was a Henrik Larson lookalike!) then taken by coach into
town to our hotel. After checking in we went out to explore the area
before dinner then a night coach tour of the city. It was spectacular at
night with the lights - we saw the Olympic village and stadia, the
marina, the Gaudi cathedrals and buildings and got enough of a look to
want to go back to see it all again in our own time.
Wednesday was an early
start with 3 hours of coaching from the coaches of the Barcelona FC
youth academy - I'm probably biased but the girls were brilliant! Back
to the hotel for lunch then two hours of games and more coaching - all
the coaching was on the training pitch for the reserve team who were
training next to us and we got to watch. After dinner we were taken to
watch Barcelona v Valencia at the Nou Camp - what an amazing experience.
Nearly 100 thousand spectators and we had VIP seats near the front. The
girls chanced it and sat in the front row and no one moved them. In fact
they sat just in front of the Sky sports team and all got pictures
sitting with Jamie Rednap at half time. The whole day was phenomenal and
an experience never to forget (especially 10 boys from Wishaw all
blowing air horns at the same time!)
Thursday was the formal
tour of the Nou Camp and a visit to the club's museum - the girls got to
sit in the changing room, the home team dugout, the pressbox, the
presidents seat, the press room and the television commentary box.....
in fact every where! At the end of the tour we were told we had been
given a special pass to go round to the 1st teams training pitch to
watch them and hopefully meet them. You would think the girls had won
the lottery! We watched the training session and many of the players
came over to sign autographs - Henrik Larsen was everyone's favourite
and he stayed to sign every thing and stand to have his photo taken with
them all. It was a stunning way to finish the trip and I think I can
safely say it is a wonderful memory for all of the the girls to keep
forever."
|
