An opportunity arose the other day to give spiritual aid to Sunderland’s visit to the Emirates, home of Arsenal FC, by cheering on their arch North London rivals – Tottenham Hotspur. I was to gauge the ‘Cockney’ attitude towards the notion of terrace charm and banter, whilst observing general anti-Arsenal vocabulary, in order to use the following Sunday, when pitting their wits against the Red and Whites.

In truth, it was a random event I could attend with ease, something not lightly done when one lives in the football nomadic land of Cyprus. On this occasion, Anorthsis Famagusta were entertaining Spurs in the second leg of the First round of the UEFA Cup. The tie was to be played at Larnaca, a good hour and a half away from my RAF base in Akrotiri, however the window of chance of some decent live football was too good to miss, even if it was to watch Martin Jol’s Lillywhites – a club which I saw as a mirror image of the barcodes up the road... expecting their name on a trophy, without putting the graft in to claim the item of silverware. A birthright to glory, so to speak.

It just so happened the away tie (in which was a culmination to Spurs’ 6-1 home victory two weeks previous) coincided with the visit of my old man – Jim. Dragging him reluctantly along, as the old codger commented – “I wouldn’t pay 20 quid to watch Sunderland, never mind Spurs.”

Driving to the game meant no drinking at any stage, a new challenge one had to face. Previously there has lain transport of every ilk, to safely aid the passage of one’s drunken souls. Here in Cyprus, there are no rail networks and a coach transportation system which is virtually non-exsistent. It was a case of bum a lift and have a drink, get a taxi, conspiring to have your eyes taken out, or simply take it on the chin and drive, thus dodging varying degrees of automobile skills, mainly the poorer scale of road safety.

It was to be a simple journey. We would engage in the laborious trail of winding country roads, then strolling onto the straight line of the motorways ( although it isn’t a motorway, more dual carriageway and then minus any traffic). It is akin to driving in an endless dream, in which one scours the streets searching for any kind of civilisation, but to no avail. A weird existence, to be enjoyed, ever more so by the pending threat of a return home and a return to bumper to bumper wedges of vehicles. For now the enigma of Cypriot traffic is to be enjoyed like a soft tipple of exiquisite Remy Martin.

We had not visited the town of Larnaca before to attend a football match and so the idea of aiming for a set of floodlights seemed favourable. We’d acquired our tickets the day before from the Spurs Supporters Association (Cyprus Branch) and there our contact Alex had suggested we travel in the direction of the local cinema complex, where we could not go wrong... fatal words indeed.

On arrival on the outskirts of the town, we ventured further inwards,to behold a complex, just as our guide predicted. To our right, standing proud and bolt upright were a complete set of stadia floodlights, instantly attracting the attention of travelling fans. We could not believe our luck and proceeded in the direction of our vertical pinnacles of salvation. There were still over two hours until kick off, but this vast stereotypical European ground was alarmingly quiet. This seemed to be a sporting club, complete with swimming pool to boot and so there were still an abundance of people loitering around the vicinity. Eventually the groundsmen were sought to reveal this was in fact AEK Larnaca’s home stadium, Famagusta was further down the way.

Half an hour later we were now lost, driving without conviction towards the sea front and mainly tourist area. Bugger. The whole place was a concrete maze, lacking in landmarks which would advance our party to pastures new.

Alas, the old timer (not me Dad) at the ground previous stated in his wise old pidgin English that we were to look for the signs of Debenhams and close by would lie our treasure in the form of the ever elusive Famagusta ground. Debenhams was duly passed moments later, as we found ourselves on approach to a new unfamiliar set of floodlights, numbered two this time. These were not of the same pedigree as last time, these were the remnants of our holy grail... wrong.

Once again, the perimeters of the stadium were somewhat empty. I understood the Anorthsis ground was downtrodden to say the least, but this particular arena was nothing short of basic. Furthermore the colours on display in the closed club shop were of scarlet red and not Famagusta blue. We were once more in trouble.

The main stand doubled as a carpet warehouse, merchandise store and back street cafe, in which it transpired this was a second division club, overshadowed by its neighbour – Famagusta. Considering we travelled on the assumption of there being surely only one stadium in Larnaca, so we could not go wrong, we had now found two right wrong’ens and were no further in our pursuit of the sound of ‘Cockerneys’ giving it large.

Finally our search prooved fruitful after another wrong turning, where lay the Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium – the home of Anorthsis Famagusta and named after that Greek bloke married to Sharon out of Birds of a Feather.

We were still considerably early, yet I was just relieved to have arrived and in one piece. I sampled the delights of black coffee, due to the lack of milk and tried to digest a selection of chocolate croissants. Give me a pint of Lambtons and a Fulwell End frozen mince pie anyday. Outside the ground we mixed in with a mixture of local and travelling Spurs’ fans, nearly appearing on Channel 5 cameras, as the presenter looked on for an answer to Spurs’ miserable start to the season. Imagine the scene if muggins were thrust into the limelight of the camera lens.

Channel 5 Bloke: ‘You’ve come a long way, how do you interperate Tottenham’s start to the campaign?’

Me: ‘Aye canny like. I thought Chopra scored a beauty in the first game, whilst we did well to pass off that Ben Alnwick to them, even if Fulop’s a bit dodgy. Still like these Choccy buns are cracking.’

The match itself was worse than a five-a-side encounter between two lagered up teams from Silky and Seaburn. Yet the mere fact I was there with me Fatha was testament to the lure of the game. I love football me, although sometimes the experiences outside of that particular one single game can compensate for a lifetime of public house stories and memories to match.

The one thing I will take back with me though was the thought that one day this could be my team sat here, with all the likely lads stood on the terraces, proud to wear their colours on the continent. Now there is a thought to bolster the vision of Messrs Quinn and Keane. At least if Sunderland do make it into Europe, I’ll be sure to advise on the potentially hazardous trip should we face Famagusta any time soon.