Liverpool Fans Forced To Abandon Coach Taking Them To Paris For £1

Liverpool fans were forced to abandon the 'cheapest coach in the UK' while en route to the Champions League final.

YouTuber Simon Wilson had put on the budget bus to take a crowd of scousers to see their team face off against Real Madrid in Paris tonight (28 May).

However, due to the age of the vehicle, passengers had to get off just minutes into their journey.

Speaking to the Liverpool Echo ahead of the trip, Simon, 22, said: "I bought the cheapest coach in the UK that I could find. I was just Googling 'cheap coaches' and I came across this one.

"We’ve wrapped the coach and put stickers on it, for perspective, the stickers have cost more than the coach.

"The guy we bought it off just seemed to be a very nice, helpful guy, so that sort of gave us a bit of confidence, but we’ll let you know if the coach is any decent if we get there."

Liverpool Echo

But after setting off, Simon quickly realised just what he had got himself into.

He explained: "The coach was a bit ropey, it was like a sauna in there. There was no air conditioning, we were sweating just going from Anfield to Melwood and once we started we were like 'this is going to be a long journey' in a coach with 50 people where you can’t open the windows."

Simon explained that he was still dealing with problems to do with insuring the coach after they had picked everyone up.

So after stopping off at Liverpool's old training ground for a quick tour, he said they decided to wait a bit to see what the craic was.

And that's when they realised that this particular coach would not be going to the final.

Liverpool Echo

Simon said: "When we stopped for a tour of Melwood, we just thought let’s just wait here until we get a green light, anyway turns out there is a lot more to it, there is a low emission zone in Paris.

"The coach was over 22 years old, so it doesn’t meet any emissions standards in place in Paris.

"I made the decision that we're going to have to have a Plan B. So I made some calls, but bearing in mind I’m not a coach expert, I’ve never learnt so much about coaches in the last week than in my entire lifetime.

"We managed to find another coach that hit the criteria for Paris, so I mini-bussed everyone from Melwood to Lymm services, then the driver went to pick up another coach, came back to the services and we’ve all gone south from there."

Liverpool Echo

Now, you'd think it would be plain sailing after this little hiccup, but no.

Due to the palaver, the group missed their ferry from Dover.

Simon said: "I rang the ferry company up to be told there was a cancellation on a ferry a bit later, so they just moved our booking to the later one.

"We just got there and we just managed to get on the ferry and we arrived at this little hotel in the middle of nowhere in France at 4am."

Despite the difficulties, though, Simon has stuck by his word and still only charged the fans £1 for the trip.

He joked: "I’m in the process of declaring myself bankrupt after this trip, but every credit to everyone on the bus. They've all been buzzing and even at 3.40am they were still singing Liverpool songs.

"And at the end of the day, the captain goes down with the ship so I won’t abandon the coach that we're on now, even though I wish we were on the other one."

At least you got there, lads.