Told by Jason Marriner
In his own words · @marrinerj8
The Great Escape
28 February 1995, Olympiastadion, Bruges. Cup Winners' Cup quarter-final, our first proper European run in 23 years. We lost 1-0 on the night, and the football was the easy part. It's in my book, Kicking the Habit, in a chapter I called The Great Escape. What you see on this shirt is how it was. Back at the Bridge, Stein and Furlong turned it round: 2-0, and we were through.
I missed my flight the next day.
Chelsea had Bruges in the European Cup, yeah. And I mean, it ain't being funny, it's down the road, innit? Belgium and England, it's down the road. So you can imagine. The ground was like a matchbox, and we're taking thousands. That's what we done.
We had a load of snide tickets done, but it didn't matter if you had a real ticket, because they was just nicking anyone and everyone. The snatch squads were just jumping out, whacking you, nicking you and taking you.
What they kept doing is taking us to a warehouse. In the warehouse there was fences and barbed wire all around, and a water cannon up the other end. We're all handcuffed in plastic handcuffs. As a matter of fact, we've got a picture of it: me and Nathan and Daniel, the two half-caste twins. People had knives and lighters and this, that and everything. Plastic, so we got them off. We got them off anyway.
We're in there for hours and they're bringing more and more in. I swear there must have been five, six hundred. The warehouse was massive. They're nicking straight members and all.
They nicked so many of us they didn't think of us outnumbering them and turning on them. So we've just turned on the old bill. They let the water cannon off, but don't forget it's so big we could get under the thing where the water comes out, and we've just smashed it. I'll never forget me mate Stuart: he pressed the button up the other end and the shutter come up. Everyone's gone. We've run up there and got out.
Lots of people got caught. Some even tried to jump in the river. Everyone split up. We finished up in a bar in Blankenberge drinking all night, got lagging drunk. I missed my flight the next day.
What a great day.
Jason