The challenge;

to organise and execute an FBTG Away Weekend watching Football in a city far away enough to require travel and a stay overnight without spending more than 100€.

Last week we deliberately refrained from sharing the destination and corresponding Football fixture with you. Now that the final whistle has blown about 48 hours ago, we can reveal that it was a La Segunda B (the Spanish third tier) match in which Club Deportivo Badajoz hosted Cádiz B at El Nuevo Vivero, hardly a mouthwatering fixture, but one that fulfilled the criteria of the match being at professional level and in another state (or comunidad in Spain). The match kicked off at 5pm local time on Sunday, and the plan gave us the opportunity to discover and explore a new city in Spain, a country we certainly love to write about.

But the crux of this post is no where, or who, but how. Did we succeed in staying in budget? And if yes, how?

I started by researching transport options. Cadiz itself and Almeria were other initial options from my starting point in Seville, but Badajoz is situated in a separate state, rather than just in a different province of Andalusia. I quickly found a cheap bus ticket (12.46€) early the Saturday morning to Badajoz, and a car-share back after the fixture on Sunday evening (19.72€). A quick look online suggested the basic price for a ticket would cost somewhere in the region of 15€, so I had some initial info to work with;

Travel to: 12.46€

Ticket: 15.00€

Travel from: 19.72€

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Subtotal: 47.18€

I quickly made the reservations and then turned to the next matter; accommodation. Unfortunately a quick browse for dirty hostels in this small city of only 150K inhabitants yielded no results, placing me on the back foot. Plan B was a stay in a available room in a shared flat for one night, and this time I got lucky; 11€ for the night in a small room in an apartment in the outskirts, quite a walk from the stadium but well within budget. Once the reservation had been confirmed, I took a trip to the supermarket to purchase some basic food stuffs to make a couple sandwiches that would sustain me during the Saturday;

Travel to: 12.46€

Ticket: 15.00€

Travel from: 19.72€

Accommodation: 11.00€

Supermarket 1:   5.04€

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Subtotal: 63.22€

By the time Friday night had arrived, the next step was to withdraw cash that I could use to get my way around Badajoz. I tentatively withdrew a round 60€ in the full knowledge that this took me over the limit for the time being. This being Friday night, I rewarded myself with a couple cold boys and put my head down on the pillow. My wake-up time on Saturday was 6:30 in order to get my bus at 8:30, but a late start obligated an urgent taxi in order to get to Plaza de Armas bus station on time. By the time I set foot in Badajoz at 11am that day, my expenditures looked like this;

Travel to: 12.46€

Ticket: 15.00€

Travel from: 19.72€

Accommodation: 11.00€

Supermarket 1:   5.04€

Cash (excluding ticket): 45.00€

Taxi:   6.41€

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Subtotal (provisional before spending the cash): 114.63€

Not looking good, but Saturday threw me a curve ball. Queuing for two solid hours at the ticket office inside the stadium may look like a bad investment of time, but it allowed me to enjoy paying less than I had anticipated on my match ticket. 10€ for any professional Football match is not to be sniffed at. Furthermore the people I had the pleasure of staying with that weekend were totally sympathetic of the challenge I was conducting. Thus, back at the flat that evening, we stocked up on giant bottles of inexpensive lager and enjoyed a music-sharing session and language exchange before crawling around their recommended dive-bars and clubs that don’t charge entry. I woke up Sunday morning with 20€ remaining in my wallet, and recalculated my outgoings;

Travel to: 12.46€

Ticket: 15.00€ 10.00€

Travel from: 19.72€

Accommodation: 11.00€

Supermarket 1:   5.04€

Taxi:   6.41€

Supermarket 2:   7.95€

Night out: 22.00€

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Subtotal: 90.96€

I did indeed had 20€ in my pocket, I could only spend 9.04€ of it. Thankful that I had had the foresight to purchase more food in the supermarket the evening before that I could shove into my hungover face that Sunday morning, I came to terms with the fact that my only necessary purchase that day would be beer before the game.

In a startling moment, my planned car share cancelled on me, forcing me to hastily search online for another offer for a similar price (the money I had paid was reimbursed), or admit defeat in my challenge and be forced to stay for one more night in Badajoz. Once again however, this proved to be a blessing in disguise. For a cheaper price of 11€, one gentleman sold me the passenger seat in his aging Golf for 115 miles from 9pm onwards that evening – two hours earlier than my originally planned car share was due to depart. Accounting for the couple pre-match beers I had, the shite hot dog I ate at the stadium and the snack and drink I enjoyed in Badajoz bus station while waiting for my car share to arrive at 9pm, my total outgoings for the Football away weekend break down as follows;

Travel to: 12.46€

Ticket: 15.00€ 10.00€

Travel from: 19.72€ 11.00€

Accommodation: 11.00€

Supermarket 1:   5.04€

Taxi:   6.41€

Supermarket 2:   7.95€

Night out: 22.00€

Pre-match beers:   2.80€

Hot dog & snacks:   7.10€

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Subtotal: 92.14€

As easy as that fellas. We fulfilled all weekend criteria we had originally identified and enjoyed watching professional Football together with the fascinating locals of an entirely new city for us. A more detailed post about the city and club itself will follow shortly. For now, we are trying to work out what should be done with the final 7.86€ of our budget. We would love to make a charitable donation with it – drop us any recommendations in comments.

Looking once again to the future, anybody out there interested in doing a Round 2 with us?

fbtg