ACB Marseille and AEK athens explained.

[MotorJohn]

GRAMMAR NAZIS CAN GO PISS OFF BECAUSE I'M A TRADESMEN FOR A REASON! haha

I'M BORED PREPARING FOR SHIT AND HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO ENJOY!!

WE DON'T WANT TO BE MARSEILLE C.U. 84 OR AEK R21 WE ARE L.A. A.C.B THEY KNOW IT... WE JUST HAPPENED TO MAKE GOOD FRIENDS, WHICH BENEFITS ANY MEMBER WANTING TO GO TO A MATCH,PARTY, AND HANG OUT WITH GREAT PEOPLE IN THESE CITIES. (they don't do much site tour guiding haha)

Some of you know that Vanessa and myself travel to go see games whenever we go travelling. I'm going to explain a special trip that has turned into a very nice friendship with two groups in Europe that are well known and the now know ACB and call us friends(even though they don't know all of us, they would still treat you like they did us when we first met them)


Two years ago we went on a little trip to different countries in Europe, Our first country was the south of France in a city named Marseille.

Some of you know OM or Olmpique de Marseille and know I love the city now, WHY because of the awesome people that we have met in the Commando ultras 84 that have done nothing but good for us everytime we go. Back to the trip.. We went to Marseille just to catch a match and see the city, well we befriended a Columbian member of CU84 that now lives and works in Marseille at a pub called O'malleys. We got to talking and asking him what we can do around the city blah blah in the end we saw a match, were there for a few days, and were getting ready to leave...


well that was'nt happening because the trains were on strike!! so we got stuck in Marseille for longer than we expected, a whole week instead of the short 3 days we were supposed to stay. We ended up catching another match... well half of it and in the pouring rain, got scalped tickets that our taxi driver helped us get... GOODTIMES.


We get back to Pub O'malleys that night and we ended up making friends with the manager of the pub and member of CU84 and he asked "do you want to party??" "uh.... ok" haha is what we said and the drink started pouring, we tried to pay for our drink, but he insisted that he had us, so we drank together with other awesome dudes till the next morning(would post pictures but I dont want to put to many face on here) A few days later we had to leave.

We decided to go back again to visit our new friends in Marseille, but this time it was much better since our relationship had grown a bit more with them. This time we had free tickets in the virage sur and in the madness of the CU84 section

We met even more members, leaders, new friends and were as good to us as the rest. After the match they opened the doors to their local club house to us, they were nice enough to give us a ride in the back of their U-haul lol

we went in the local and were rather amazed at the size of the place(most european ultras have a local club)it had three big rooms one with a few couches another with stage lights for bands and bar


and one storage/banner room it was a nice place to throw parties and paint banners. Once again we ended up at Pub Omalleys, but before I left I had to take this photo of us and their sweet banner haha

Again we were treated like family and they hung up L.A. and A.C.B scarfs at the pub in vieux port for ALL tourist to see muahahah



We went again this year though I don't have photos uploaded yet and this time Tubby and lindsay came along, guess what, they too got treated like family and we hung out partied and watched a match... they're in protest so not really much atmosphere. The best part about all this is it happened on accident with no intent to even meet anyone and well it just so happenes that we became good friends and they now know A.C.B and would treat any one of our members the same if you ever happen to go to Marseille, because we obviously don't need to go in a mass group over there, but if any member happens to be caught up in Marseille you can bet they'll look after you! They also know more than just Becks now haha, some even follow L.A. and know the stats, guess what they said about L.A. this year LOL! "L.A. like Marseille this year"

This was a real compressed version of our story, but basically I wanted to share why I love this city and the Ultras in Marseille, not because we are trying to be them, not because we want LA to be Marseille, just because being nice to people can go along way just like ACB does things.. Keep calm we are L.A. A.C.B


to be continued...

[Edgar1979]

Thanks for the pics cool, makes me want to go to france now

[MDM]

Good form and thanks for taking the time to post this. Where to next?

[MotorJohn]

I will be takin you to a place were the gods came from, a place called Athina were a club was created from Turkish settlers and their logo is the double headed war bird that looks to the east and the west, with a group of crazies that call themselves original 21 who are known in Athina for having displayed the first skull logo in the city and country... OooooooOoO haha

[Rob]

Sooooooooooo jealous! haha...
Nice to see where ACB has gone and will continue to go!

[MotorJohn]

Got tired.. ill post the stuff from AEK later. Although there are only a few people that have gone, we do not claim to be all ACB and others don't exist past us, nor do we claim to be "heads" when we go to marseille, nor will we ever call ourselves that anywhere(we are all equal, besides that both groups know we are a group of 500 to 800 on a good day and the we have a council not head leaders) it's good to have friends around the world where any member of ACB would be able to catch a game and have some fun.

[MDM]

^ so true

[fredym80]

Nice! Thanks for posting the photos and the great write up.

[California Pete]

This is awesome! Thank you so much for being such great ACB ambassadors. And I now have a club in Ligue 1 to follow.

I'm also beginning to think that I need to get back to Genova soon, or at least before MotorJohn's travels take him that way again. I don't know what I'd do if he struck up a partnership with Sampdoria ultras before I'm able to do the same with my beloved Genoa.

[Pox]

John needs to get his ass back home and in front of the computer so I can read about the R21 come up.

[Gate11]

great story. dont know much about marssellie, but aek fans are Amazing, last summer before the game against panathanikos they helped us alot getting flares, and after the game getting our banners back after pao fans stole from us

[MotorJohn]

Actually Pete... Haha not to late, but Marseille are rather friendly with Sampdoria(rude boys), same attitude as far as them being anti-racist and all that jazz.

[MotorJohn]

Athens. Great place, even better when you get to know the locals!!!

Meeting the members of Original 21 wasn't an accident like in Marseille. We knew CU84 had a nice long friendship with AEK and their supporters so we hit up our buddies and asked what is there to do around the city, they put us in contact with a female member of R21(through facebook of course) we kept in contact with her for about a month before actually leaving to Athens. Just like the guys and gals from CU84 the R21 guys and gals are very friendly and make you feel like you are family. Our new friend waited for us at the train station, got our taxi, and helped us book a good hotel for cheap(turned out the owner of the hotel is AEK haha)

As soon as we got settled we had some drinks and walked around the neighborhood of Exarchia. This place is where our hotel was located and an AEK territory with very punk/metal/anachist feel like St. Pauli. You could tell it's AEK territory by all the Graf art on the walls and all the black and yellow worn by people. The best thing about this hood is the cops aren't allowed in and usually will get run out with bottles.. did I mention you can drink on the streets in Greece? well you can and it's awesome.



We ended up going to their main and oldest club house(over 30years old) in the center of the city and actually Panathinaikos territory where over 200+ members were hangin out drinking and waiting for the "Chief" to show up. When the Chief showed up everyone piled into the small club house to listen to what he had to say, Basically what it is to be R21 and to love your team. I ended up putting money in a raffle and won a nice R21 jacket haha I never win anything here ha, at the end of the meeting we were told to get going because we don't want to get caught alone by PAO fans haha. Yeah it's like that in athens 3 major teams with their own territory, so if you look like you're into footy and you're in the wrong hood with the wrong color.. watch out.



Place was packed with people spilling out.



We sadly were not able to catch a game because the FA moved the schedule up a whole damn week, which would have sucked if it weren't for the partying we did instead haha. They took us to the club house in Exarchia and an actual club that one of their members did security for, again buying us beers and shots (yup they wouldn't let us buy anything and actually would get upset for telling them thank you) through the night..

This is how much they like the police. This is in front of the club house in Exarchia



ACB scarf in the club house, a rare thing in the club house because only Marseille and Livorno are displayed besides all the AEK r21 stuff.



The last day we were in athens we went to The Local pub, thats the name haha where a member of R21 and drummer for the band Boostroke runs, great place and band. had some drinks.. can't remember what happened after all the shots. Sadly the next day we took off to a horrible place called Middlesbrough!! hahaha





Again a short HORRIBLY written story of our trip to AEK hood where we got see the REAL athens and not the tourist areas.(yeah we did that too haha)

[Doughboy]

Great write up, John!! I only hope to partake in one of these excursions with you and Van one day!!

[Pox]

Love it!