After the initial excitement of draw day had died down, the hunt for flights began! In this time of financial constraint our initial joy at the draw was dampened by the cost of travel to both Serbia and the Ukraine, but nevertheless we spent ages trying to find the cheapest route to these new places on Arsenals grand European tour 2010\11.

We did manage a cheap flight to Porto for the Braga game from Gatwick, which means a free visit to the 1 lounge to sample more free beer! Gotta love it. Well it was before the Bolton game in the pub with no beer where I listened to Phil and Winno discussing there impending trip to Belgrade when my green envy button was pressed and so after crossing the Clock End bridge the flyer from Sport First advertising a cheap trip to Belgrade was thrust into my pocket and not thrown on the floor with so many others.

At half time we tried to google the company but got nowhere, so we decided to email them asking for details. The reply was almost instant with flight details on Swiss Air and a 3 star hotel on the outskirts of Belgrade all for the rather cheap price of £200 pounds. Now normally I go along with the adage that if it’s too cheap it’s a con but I thought I'd enquire if any fellow Gooners had heard of sport first, so posted my first thread onto the onlinegooner forum, and by general consensus it was agreed it was a con and even the club was quoted as investigating Sport First. Maybe this has something to do with Thomas Cook being the preferred travel agent of the club!

That was that I thought, no European tour for me till November, but suddenly I got a pm from a guy called Christy claiming to be the director of Sports First asking me to read his post on my original thread. He was offering to prove he wasn't a con by offering five people a trip to Belgrade, with no money changing hands un till the return to the UK and then only if satisfied! I thought this was an offer that was to good to pass up and contacted him by phone straight away.

After several emails the booking was made and I awaited my confirmations. With only days to go to the trip we contacted the ticket office at the club and explained to them our time constraints and they arranged for us to pick our match tickets up from the box office before the disaster against West Brom. Fair play to the ticket office for sorting this out with little fuss. Monday came and there was still no confirmation from the sports first and was beginning to feel that Christy had been blowing smoke the whole time, but after a phone call and a few emails, my confirmations for the next day’s travel were in my hand.

So we set off early Tuesday and headed for airport, where we managed to blag our way into a business lounge and kicked back with a few Bloody Marys and a bit of a munch. The flights were uneventful but the standard of service knocked Ryanair into a cocked hat. We arrived in Belgrade on a balmy afternoon and settled to the task of finding our hotel. The Elegance hotel lived up to its name and was everything you would expect from a modern hotel, the one problem though that it was a 600 dinar taxi ride from the city centre, so I would suggest that sport first look at the positioning of accommodation in regards to location of stadium etc, but nevertheless I couldn't really fault the standard of accommodation picked by for us. However there was no booking for us at the Elegance even though I had my confirmation. But after a few phone calls and emails the situation was put right and we where checked in.

We had a few beers at the hotel then headed off in a taxi to meet Phill and Wino. Our taxi was driven or should I say thrown through the streets of Belgrade by an ex-professional footballer from the former Yugoslavian lower leagues, a big Partizan fan. In between pointing out the sights, he sang at the top of his voice the Partizan football songs, a taste of things to come for the night. The noise and jumping about of the home fans led by a bloke on a microphone was amazing and even at 3-1 down was a sight to behold. In fact this carried on for 20 minutes after the final whistle, and the Belgrade team even came back out for a lap of honour. They must feel proud playing for a team with supporters like that!

Arsenal where pretty much on top from the start and the game should have been sewn up long before it was, but we did witness our keeper making a couple of good saves including a penalty! Maybe he has turned a corner and we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but maybe he would then drop that! The Arsenal support was great as usual with a large contingent of the Bulgarian Supporters Club a welcome addition to the same faces who I regularly see on European nights. We did try to out sing the home support, but microphone man made sure we were barely heard!

The match passed with no crowd trouble that we saw despite warnings from the club and we retired for some post-match refreshments in the city centre before heading back via another taxi to the hotel! After a quick tour of Belgrade on Wednesday we arrived at the airport to be told our booking had been cancelled and we had to pay £50 each to re-book. Sport First claim no knowledge of this cancellation and have agreed to compensate any expense incurred. All in all I have no real complaints about my first organised football trip, but I don't think the organised trip is for me as I like to be more in control of events and spend time exploring the places we visit. However Sport First did nearly deliver all they promised and for that I must thank Christy and his team. But this supporter will continue to fly solo!