New York - Day 4

We got up early ago and got on the tube to Nevada Smiths in time for 10am. Smith's is a bar that shows all of the Premiership games so attracts loads of ex-pats plus lots of American 'soccer' fans. Paul had arranged to meet up with some of the New York Villans who watch all of the Villa games in the bar. After being in there for a little while an American Villa fan came up an introduced himself to Paul. Paul thought that he looked like Robert Downey Junior!

The games that we watched were quite uneventful - first we saw the Blues lose 1-0 to West Ham then the Villa drew 0-0 with Newcastle. There were loads of Newcastle fans in there and they had drums so made a lot of noise - there were about 8 Villa fans so it didn't turn into much of a singing competition even though Paul had a little go.
We then got speaking another Villa fan. His name was Paul who was originally from Birmingham (He has lived in the States for 9 years but just moved to NY a couple of months ago) he had an iPhone which was really cool and was showing us loads of little things that you can do with them (apart from making a phone call which seemed to be the thing it was used least for!).Paul offered to give us a lift to the NY Red Bulls - LA Galaxy game that evening that we were going to as him and his wife Helen had tickets too. We said yes and arranged to meet him later on that afternoon.We stayed at Nevada Smiths for a while after the Villa game and had a couple of drinks with Terri who was a Villa fan from London. She was really nice and offered to give us a place to stay the next time we go back to New York.

We then got the ferry to New Jersey where Paul and his wife picked us up - it was a funny journey across the river as anyone who has been drinking for hours then steps out in the sun can testify! When we got to Giants stadium we parked up and Paul and Paul started playing football with a few Red Bulls fans - They were both far too drunk to be able to show them any of their silky skills!

The game itself was a 5-4 thriller - Juan Pablo Angel scored the winner for the Red Bulls in the last minute (his second of the game) - Paul (Me!) got a big gash on his leg from the seats after he was jumping up and down celebrating the goal. Beckham set up a few goals and wowed the crowd when he took his shirt off at the end of the game (this was Cath's favourite part of the game!) Paul and Paul tried to get a few chants going and I think that one about Juan might take off. An American woman sitting in front of Paul didn't really like the 'You can stick your David Beckham up your @rse' chant very much! Angel hadn't changed and was offside loads and was helped by some schoolboy goalkeeping to get both of his goals.The Paul's were both having some banter with 5 locals - at this point we had been drinking for 11 hours and Paul was slurring his words and generally being all over the shop - but he was entertaining the crowds! There were 66,000 there which is slightly more than the 15,000 they usual get - Beckham fever hits the Big Apple!

We then went for something to eat in the Meatpacking district back in Manhattan with Paul and Helen (via a quick change of clothes back at our hotel). Helen had a rapid BMW sportscar and was whipping us round the streets of the Big Apple which was really ace. We had a lovely Italian meal washed down with a bottle of red! After that Paul and Helen decided to do the sensible thing at 1.30 and go back home (although Paul nearly convinced them to stay for 1 more drink). We, on the other hand, did what all good Woodfords do and carried on the drinking! We went to a cool bar which is known as the inside/outside bar because even though you walk through a door to get into it it is actually outside.After 1 drink in there we went to the terrace bar above a hotel where we saw Ryan from the OC last time - there was a massive queue to get in but Paul used his charm and got us straight in without having to wait outside. When we got in we went back to where we saw Ryan, but this time, he wasn't there :-(
We started speaking to a girl from Burnley who was really funny. After we had a few more drinks we decided to get a taxi home - when we got out of the cab Cath did a little bit of sick! She was ever so proud of herself - take a look at the photos!

You can see our photos at - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/paulwoodford