24 hours in Amsterdam with Aston Villa

Where do you even start?

I didn't intend on going to this one; I took a shot at Warsaw, and scored a lucky ticket - but this was a different ballgame entirely. An allocation of 950 realistically offers around 50% of those who went to Warsaw a ticket. That's tight. It was only really the day of sale when I decided to have a igo. After 35 minutes of my heart beating out of my chest (I questioned this anxiety afterwards. I was so-so before the sale, and during the sale I was shaking. I somehow got a ticket. You've got to take the shot, is my only learning.

Two flights were hastily booked despite a mountain of a price gouge (it's that or the coach. Forget it), but not a hotel, the budget didn't stretch that far. Thank you, dynamic pricing.

8:20 to AMS, 7:00 back to BHX. There and back again like Bilbo Bastard Baggins.

Up at 5 on matchday (!) and the city is as bleary-eyed as me, with construction lights fading into foggy morning skies. BHX is a dream and a promise is on the cards: Near enough 24 hours with Aston Villa in the Netherlands to see them take on AZ Alkmaar.

Or it would've been. Fog on the ground delayed all flights - ours set back 2 hours, others were further delayed. Two hours on the tarmac was the deposit for 45 minutes in the air, and a thankfulness that I would still make the fanzone and ticket collection window with good time. Others weren't as lucky.

A double-decker intercity train whisks me towards Alkmaar, rolling through flat scenery with buildings - that if you squint - look almost like home. Almost.

Getting into Alkmaar is slightly surreal, it's a smaller city - 20x smaller in population than Warsaw - and the flood of Villa fans that definitely outweigh the 950 going to the match rocks up to an entire percent of the city's total population. That density is directed to a plaza - Paardenmarkt - where a tent is set-up with a bar and grill to host Villa fans until shuttles arrive.

There's a DJ, he's playing Never Too Much and there's very much a 'family member's 70th birthday in a function room' vibe until the Villa find their voice.

And when they do, they don't stop. It's the earworm 'he's our right-back' ode to Matty Cash in the tune of Spirit in the Sky for what seems like a decade, then it's Diaby's Voulez-Vous, and Bailey's Waka Waka back-to-back. The tent floor is bouncing, I'm high on second-hand enjoyment mixing with my own. It's too good. I'm singing the same song again, and again, and again, and it doesn't seem to get old. The DJ cuts the track, because the singing is too loud. He is booed when he comes back to play Spirit in the Sky (I don't think many Villa fans had cottoned on to the fact that it was the tune Villa were singing the Matty Cash song to at the time).

Bus-after-bus arrives and we're lined up adjacent to apartment blocks. The locals sip wine and peoplewatch like a free zoo. The women on their balconies are cheered, and when lads turn up on theirs to see what the fuss is about, they are booed. It's one of those good-natured moments where you - alone - are praying that someone doesn't do something stupid, but nobody does. The buses ferry fans straight to AFAS Stadion, where you're pinched in and filed through a solitary turnstile before an - to be quite honest - friendly search takes place.

I wasn't expecting that. The police to be so welcoming, the locals to be so interested, the opposition fans to be so sound. When you've seen what happened when West Ham or Legia Warsaw came to town, you go in with notions of what might occur. It wasn’t like that here. Not this time.

The AFAS Stadion then - probably one of the best looking EuroBowl stadiums, rounded off, arch over, with away fans perspexed into a corner with a brilliant behind-the-goal view. The facilities? Let's not describe the toilet situation too much - just think of an open shower block - nor the itemised 'special snack' which was just shy of a fiver for a ham bap. All I'd say is don't sell something called a 'special snack' to a bunch of pissed-up football fans if you don't want questions on what a 'special snack is'.

The match itself was a grand encore to the entire day - or days if you were like many fans who were based in Amsterdam for a long-long weekend. The singing carried on from Paardenmarkt and only increased when Leon Bailey scored, and after Youri Tielemans, Ollie Watkins and John McGinn followed.

It was a heaving, throbbing away end that felt bigger than the one at Warsaw, despite being almost half the size. It felt louder. It felt like we had power.

4-1 and Villa steamroll the best team in the Netherlands on autopilot - away from home. It's almost unthinkable, especially when I go back to how I felt post-Legia, or even post Mostar. This was arguably the toughest game, and it's a true credit to the Villa that it seemed like a preseason breeze.

And Alkmaar's lot? They didn't stop going for it. The noise was 10x louder at Legia, but I can't name many teams who have a section of fans who remain bouncing and jubilant despite being down 4-1. It probably wouldn't happen at Villa, and these lot have one eye on a title, let alone 5th/6th place.

The noise continues until a whistle cuts it. We burst out of the Stadion like a popped zit after a 15 minute (if that) hold back. One little door was opened and we packed through it onto buses. The minor shock of chaos (yet again being swept away in a crowd) led to texts. 

“Where are you? What bus are you on?”

The one that was bouncing, mate. The noise still doesn't stop. The bus rattles and bangs with new songs. Oh, what a night. It only pauses as the intercity chugs back to Amsterdam and then it belts back through the tunnels of Centraal station to herald a return.

It was a return as well. Amsterdam was home to thousands upon thousands of Villa fans. They were in every bar, on every street. Every cobble in the city felt the touch of a Villa shoe. Those who didn't go to the game where trying to stand upright. Those who went wanted more after a few dry hours. For me there was one goal; staying up until 7am and avoiding trouble.

Cramming into bars overlooking the canal, with the song of Brummie accents in the air, it felt like a mirror of home in a way, but in that everyone seemed so much happier. Was it the win? The booze? The weed? Probably a few of those things, but for many, it was freedom. They could do anything, and Amsterdam offered everything. 

There's people looking for things. Being offered all sorts. At the start it's the cheap drinks and the promise of a table amid a dense crowd, then it's the coffeeshops. Then perhaps, the windows of the Red Light District pulling in lads who simply cannot escape the gravity of what they are being offered. After, it's the transaction offered on corners for baggies of god-knows-what that would make someone think that if they sprint hard enough, they might be able to run across the water of the canal. It's a vortex that people will jump headfirst into.

It's jovial enough initially. The first-timers that visit the coffeeshops stop outside for minutes staring at their phones, probably googling 'how to roll a weed' or 'what weed is the relaxing weed', the boozers like Suzie's Saloon on the canalside, the pancakes and chocolate confectionary scents.... 

What catches you out is the turn, and how quick it happens. Stand still at 2am and the prying eyes walking past wonder what you're doing, and if you're alone, or if you want to go somewhere. The party vibes toxically singe like burning plastic into open debauchery, there's an edge I'm simply not cut out for and there are hours between me and the airport. Walking from place to place, asking for coffee and water, seeing more and more people failing to escape the drain they are circling, drifting around like flies to honey. If you've got no impulse control here, you're fucked.

We hitch up in a bar for what seems like an hour but it is really a few minutes. A woman dances in a window opposite, and flirts with a tourist.

A regular comes along, butts in and enters the window because he clearly wants to transact - not waste time - and the curtain closes. Just like that. I think of that interaction now, and how disappointed the tourist was after 'losing' the girl. What did he think was going to happen? There's a lot more of that - romantic souls getting the 'pfft, novices' treatment by regular punters. It feels a little grim.

Money talks. I think of the amount of beer, narcotics and bodies consumed on this night alone. It's a viking raid via Mastercard. Villa songs still ring out, and it's 3am. A friend offers a place in a twin room to grab an hour of sleep, but it's really just an hour of staring at the ceiling, listening to a soundtrack of chants, snoozing and people enjoying themselves loudly in each room surrounding. It's a city of consumption and these rooms, tiles, cobblestones and windows have seen it all.

A 4:46 am train beckons, a 7am flight is calling. On the plane I notice my jeans are stuck to my shin via way of a bloody scab that carved it's way into my body at the stadium using the back of a seat.

There's levels of tiredness, isn't there? At this point - 7:20 and up in the air, I'm head-bobbing and at 'is this a heart attack?' level of tiredness. I think back, or try to, to a day that felt like a week. I struggled to process it and keep it down, not really certain on how I’ve made it this far, and how I’ve done it without any sleep. My body feels out of sync and I drop off just as landing gear screeches against tarmac, awaking to our arrival.

I arrive home as my girlfriend leaves for work. It's early back in Birmingham and the city is as bleary-eyed as me.