The Official Website of the British No.1 and Triple European Champion
|
TRAVEL NIGHTMARE FOR DRINKHALL 22 Jan 2010 Paul Drinkhall's team, Plüderhausen, beat Grenzau 3-1 on Sunday, but it was quite an achievement for Paul to actually get there! Everything was sorted, Paul was meeting his family and girlfriend for a birthday meal just outside Leeds airport before his flight at 5.00pm. The meal was great, then it all went downhill from there! Paul got checked in without any problems however there was a delay. Then there was another delay, and another. This went on until after 8.00pm when the flight was finally cnacelled. Apparently the luggage cart that takes the bags to the plane had banged into the plane but although it was thought to be okay there was no engineer to confirm this hence the cancelled flight. Paul phoned the club manager to see if they had another player but unfortunatley they did not. If Paul did not get there on time he would have been in for a £5000 fine. He was meant to be flying to Stuttgart, to meet with the team to travel a further three hours to Frankfurt for the match. By the time Paul had talked to the people in airport it was 9.00pm and the only flight on the Sunday had just a 20 minute stop-over, but they would not let him take that. His family were frantically checking flights from other airports and Paul was checking with his club. There was a flight from Manchester but Paul was at Leeds with no car and the train which did not leave until after 10.00pm was a three hour journey. This would not have been good preparation. Eventually Paul found a flight at Manchester where he would fly to Frankfurt at 9.15am the next morning. The only way to get there was by taxi however he needed a hotel so while he was trekking down the motorway his family were booking the flights and finding him a hotel. Finally he found found a hotel on the actual airport which meant he would get a bit of sleep. All Sorted! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL! The problems weren't over because the flight was 45 minutes late. The Plüderhausen team manager had dropped the rest of the team off and driven back to collect Paul. He arrived just in time for the match but unfortunately he had no practice time. The team were pleased he had got there and even though he did lose his match to Patrick Baum he played well. After all the hassle to get there at least the team won and he did not recieve a cash fine. Plüderhausen play Frickenhausen on 26th January . |
|
