The impressive Heroes' Square is the largest square in Budapest and was built to mark the thousandth anniversary of Hungary in 1896.
My mate Mickey Loveder was built in 1968 and is himself a most impressive monument to cheeky rascality . He flew out especially to join me for a few days and it was brilliant to have my old mate’s company after travelling alone for a while.
We headed up to Heroes Square in the morning, our bright white Lancashire legs cutting through the rainy day like fog lights . It didn’t take us long to get a game going . A family from Belgium joined us ( the first Belgians to play on the whole trip so far ) They were Riet Scheurweghs and Mattias de Winter, both teachers from Antwerp , who were travelling the world with their children Jack (3) and Josephine (4) .
Me and young Mickey took on the adults whilst their kids cycled and ran about the square . We should have played the kids instead .We were hopeless . 3-1 down before you could say Brussel Sprouts, Mattias placing one through my legs for the third ....on purpose . 20 years younger and I would have had to have words with him about that.
They were fit as fiddles whilst Mickey and I creaked like old furniture . Somehow we got it back to 3-3 but then Riet scored a rocket from her own half . It was first to 5 and we tried to step it up a bit but to no avail . Riet scored another better from distance and it was game over.
We chatted throughout this really enjoyable game and what lovely folk they were. There’s more to be included in the book as always .. but we did then spend some time hopping on and off the hop on hop off bus round the city and got away with eventually hopping off without paying . No idea how. Maybe it was our translucent legs scaring folk away 👍❤️⚽️