I recently attended the European Championships in Madrid. I have been fortunate to visit Madrid before for umpiring reasons – in 2005.
As you will be aware, Manchester Airport seems to have been particularly badly hit by disruption, and indeed my flight to Heathrow was cancelled with a week’s notice. Fortunately (!) I was staying overnight in a hotel at Heathrow, so the delay just meant arriving much later. Despite the news coverage, I had no delays getting through security, other than there were so many bags being picked up those that were clear couldn’t get through the backlog!
Unfortunately my suitcase didn’t arrive in Madrid when I did, and by the time I had sorted this out, my scheduled transport had gone, and the organisers were trying to get a car to take me direct to the Hall for the briefing. This never materialised, so they ended up putting me in a taxi, which took me to the Hall. Unfortunately by this time I had missed the briefing, and play was due to start in about 20 minutes. As I had my black trousers and shoes in hand luggage (always advisable when checking in luggage) and we were getting new shirts for the event, so I was able to umpire that evening. Another umpire had the same problem with luggage, but didn’t have their umpiring stuff with them! Luggage was at the hotel when we got back on Tuesday evening, so that was good.
There were only a handful of matches Monday night, the main days were Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfortunately we “lost” 2 umpires on Tuesday, which meant we were 14 for 4 courts, so quite busy. Wednesday night saw a trip to a tapas bar in town, which specialised in snails – I declined that particular delicacy!
On Friday morning the organisers had organised a walking tour of Madrid for the TOs. This was much appreciated – apparently we walked approx. 7.5km in the Madrid heat. Friday evening was semi-finals. As those BEC Accredited umpires on appraisal had finished on Thursday evening, we were now reduced to 10 umpires. I was very happy to umpire the WS with Carolina on the TV court, and the feedback from the Referee was extremely positive.
Saturday was Finals day – and I was extremely pleased to umpire the WD final between Germany and Bulgaria. Felt rather like “after the Lord Mayor’s show”, as it followed the WS final involving Carolina, but nevertheless I was pleased to be given this. Many colleagues will be surprised to know that it was the shortest match of the day, and one of the shortest of the whole tournament!
Flight back was much smoother – direct to Manchester. It did arrive at a different terminal to the schedule one, but that was not a problem as the car park bus did a circular route. It was good to meet old friends and make new ones, and the BUAofE coins were very well received by other umpires that I gave them to.