NewsAberdeen in Dnipropetrovsk by Ian McDonald My story starts way back in May 2007.Aberdeen had just qualified for Europe, for the first time in 5 years, after beating Rangers at our home stadium, Pittodrie. As was normal with me, I was listening to the game through the internet in my house in Muscat, Oman. I have lived out in the Middle East now for nearly 7 years but I have yet to get used to missing my beloved Dons at the weekend. The internet makes it almost bearable but it is obviously not the same as being there. On that day, I made a vow that whoever we drew in the Uefa Cup, I would be going to the away leg, no questions asked. The draw for the first round was on the 31st August. I waited patiently as the teams were being drawn out of the complicated bowls, watching it all live through the Internet. Aberdeen came out, first leg at home, versus.....FC DNIPRO!!! My first thought was, who the hell are FC Dnipro, and where the hell do they play? After a little bit of Internet digging, I discovered that they had actually played Hibs just two years previously at the same stage of the competition. Hibs unfortunately decided to play their under 12 team for the away leg and took a bit of a hammering. OK, I thought, I promised myself I was going to go, so that is exactly what is going to happen. I called round the rest of the guys in the Middle East, who had all promised to join me, to discover that nobody else was going. I was devastated. I desperately wanted to go and now faced a solo trek to an unknown country I knew little about. Things picked up though as I checked on the flights from Dubai and discovered it didn’t seem to be that hard to get to. A week or so after the draw, there was a breakthrough. The Aberdeen Mad football site, that I frequent, had a post from some guy in Dubai that was going to the Ukraine with his mates. They were flying to Dnipro via Istanbul so I decided that was it, I was going to jump on the same flight with them. I booked my flights and breathed a sigh of relief. Over the next few days a poster with the username “DniproKids” (I later found out that this was Steven Carr) started coming onto the Aberdeen Mad site. He told us about a charity that had been set up when the Hibees went across two years previous. It all sounded very interesting so I visited the web site to see exactly what was going on. It seemed like a worthwhile venture so I made up my mind that I would try and help out a little when I was across, even if it was just to take some kids clothes out with me. I talked to some friends in Muscat who collected up some kids clothes. They also took a trip to the local Mothercare and bought up as many baby grows as was possible (Muscat doesn’t have a great selection). After collecting it all together I discovered I had 48 kgs of clothes for the orphanages, as well as a few items of clothing in the hand luggage for me.  I flew from Muscat to Dubai and sat at the check in desk waiting to meet with the guys I had discovered on the internet. It was a couple of hours wait before five lads, one wearing an Aberdeen top, eventual headed my direction. I met up with Kev, Sye, Ryan, Karl and Gogs and they all had bags of clothes with them too, but thankfully when we all checked in together we didn’t exceed our baggage allowance. We headed off on the long trek to Istanbul, then the shorter hop across to Dnipro. When we eventually landed in Dnipropetrovsk we discovered it was quite sunny, which came as a bit of a surprise. No need for the gloves and jacket that I had packed then. I was through first and stood outside in the sunshine waiting for the others to make their way through immigration. I switched on my phone and tried to get a signal, but found that I was picking up nothing. The mobile phone network Omantel can be funny like that in some countries. As I was fumbling about, a woman approached me with a curious look on her face. “Are you Ian?” she asked. It was Ira. She had come to the airport with her daughter Natalie to collect me. The rest of my group arrived but I told them to just head off to the hotel and I would meet up with them after I had dropped the kids clothes off at Ira’s apartment. They headed off while I left Ira and Natalie to bargain with a taxi driver for the short journey to Ira’s apartment. Dnipropetrovsk was very green. One of the things I tend to notice, whenever I leave the Middle East, is how much I enjoy seeing the trees and the fields. It makes a pleasant change from sand. Anyway, after the introductions, Ira went on to explain a little bit of what she was hoping to over the next couple of days. She explained that tomorrow (Wednesday 3rd October) was going to be the main visit to the kids at the Predniprovsk TB centre. We went to Ira’s apartment and managed to drop off the huge rig bag and case that we had been lumping around with us. We left it there as it would need emptied out and sorted so that they knew which clothes were for the babies and which ones were for the older kids. We jumped back in the taxi and we headed off to my hotel.  I had agreed to meet up with them both again later that night so that we could go out for a meal and discuss the plans for the next couple of days. We headed for a Mexican restaurant, near the hotel (Steven knows the place well I hear!), and had supper. We discussed the plans for the next day and I also listened to some of the stories from Ira about how the Hibees had started the charity up following their visit a couple of years earlier. We eventually parted company later that evening with the promise that Ira and Natalie would be at the hotel 10 am the next morning. As promised, at 10am sharp, Ira and Natalie were standing in reception area of the Dnipro Hotel. A few other Dandies arrived with bags filled with kids clothes and these were loaded into the bus. Aberdeen Football Club had also organized a couple of guys to come along and they had a bus arriving at the hotel. Amongst those in the Aberdeen Football Club bus were, Dave MacDermid and Chris Gavin as well as an STV TV crew on board hoping to shoot some footage of the visit. We headed off to the TB centre with the AFC bus following.  As we arrived we could see a few of the kids scampering around and then heading down to the main building. We started to offload the boxes out of the back of the van, only to be told by Ira to put them back in the van. We put them back in the van and were then told we had to put them on the benches. We started putting them on the benches only for Ira to tell us we now had to take the boxes down to the main door!! I’ve since been informed that this is Ira just being Ira!! There were a couple of the guys on the AFC bus giving a few murmurings, but all in all it was in good fun.  As we were heading down towards the awaiting kids, we discovered we had a welcoming committee. There were staff and children dressed in their traditional Ukrainian outfits. We were warmly welcomed and presented with gifts of flowers and bread. There was also a picture presented to an Aberdeen fan that was drawn to represent a good Ukrainian family home. The gifts were gratefully accepted by Iain MacLeod, Dave MacDermid, Chris Gavin, Brian McNally, Stephen Conn, and myself, on behalf of the AFC fans. Iain went on to say a huge thanks to everyone for our gifts and for coming out to see us.  We then moved the larger gifts we’d brought, such as the microwave oven, and they were presented to the kids amid scenes of amazing delight. I was gob smacked at the reaction to receiving something that my kids probably wouldn’t even know we had in our house. I was pulled to the side by the STV crew and asked to say a few words for the camera. Being somewhat camera shy I was dead against it but they insisted. I did a short interview for North Tonight and have since found that the offers of movie roles are a never ending nuisance .. well .. never actually started is probably closer to the truth.  After presenting the centre with the gifts, which had been purchased thanks to generous donations from the Aberdeen support, we moved on to handing out sweets to each and every kid there. That was incredible. Hands appeared to be coming from everywhere and I actually felt quite bad that we hadn’t taken at least double what we came with. Once the sweets were handed out, we were given a guided tour around the centre.  The building struck me as being very similar to an old school, with the very high ceilings and stone walls. What also struck me inside the building was that the temperature must have been mid 20’s outside but the interior of the building was still very cold especially in the assembly hall. As I passed each kid in the corridors I was met with a huge smile, I found it was very humbling to be walking through the rooms. The bedroom for the smaller ones particularly hit me. When I looked in I saw a room filled with approximately 24 beds, all in perfect rows. The thought of these kids all sleeping in the same room had never occurred to me and it was quite tough going.  At the end of the tour, we were taken to another room where about 12 kids had been picked to come and open some of the toys that we had taken with us. As we entered the room we could see they were all holding a toy each and wearing a massive grin. A member of staff shouted “go” and the kids tore into the packaging ripping the toys free. There were sword fights going on at the back with the boys and little girls down the front playing with dolls. The kids all looked so happy and it felt like it was like a Christmas at my own home when you see the kids faces light up. The main difference here was that the kids only had a fraction of what I was used to seeing my kids open. But it was obvious to everyone that these kids were no less happy.  The kids were then told gather the toys up and they would be distributed equally, amongst age groups, later on. Without a peep, every boy and every girl, picked up their toy and gently laid it inside the box. I was amazed. I wish my kids behaved that well when they were told to do things. Especially when it involved giving up something they were so obviously excited to receive.  We then left the centre after a lot of goodbyes and plenty of photos.  On the drive back to the hotel I found myself sitting in silence as the magnitude of what I had just seen started to sink in. I had time to go for lunch with Ira, Natalie and bus driver Wes and we discussed what else needed to be done. I was “informed” by Ira what my duties were going to be the next day ... shopping!! The next day came and it was the day of the match. My mates all headed into Lenin Square but I stayed at the hotel and waited for Ira. She arrived and told me that we would be going shopping for nappies and baby food. We were going to be using more of the money donated by the Aberdeen support to purchase essential items for the Crisis Pregnancy Centre. We arrived at Metro, a large cash and carry type supermarket, and proceeded to buy just about every nappy they had on the shelf. The store was a little warm and, not being a born shopper, I was getting more and more agitated. It didn’t stop Natalie clicking away with the camera as I loaded up baby food and accessories. The real truth was probably that I was a little hung over, after trying to prove the night before that drinking straight vodka was actually a good idea...  After the shopping trip we headed back to Ira’s place to collect the baby clothes that had come from the Middle East. They were then loaded up and we proceeded round to the Crisis Pregnancy Centre. I started off loading everything from the van and headed into the elevator with the bags. Little did I know that it was a man eating elevator and once the doors were about to close you had better get out of the way pretty quickly. If you didn’t move fast you were likely to lose a limb. Foolishly expecting a bit of sympathy from Natalie, I informed her that the lift nearly took my arm off. She growled at me and said “make sure you don’t break the lift or you will have to carry everything up the stairs!!!”. Eventually I managed to get everything upstairs without losing a limb or breaking the lift. I was then driven back to my hotel where I started to get ready for the game.  The rest, as they say, is history and Aberdeen held on by the skin of their teeth to record a memorable draw against a decent Dnipro team and progress to the group stages of the UEFA Cup. The next day was the day we were due to leave. We checked out of the hotel and headed in two taxis to the airport. At the airport I was standing waiting to be called in for my flight when I was surprised by Ira and Natalie. They’d turned up to see us off on our flight and it was great to see them again just prior to leaving. All in all, it was an amazing trip for so many reasons. Meeting Ira and Natalie was incredible especially as they do such an amazing job for what seems like very little reward. Meeting the kids was amazing. Seeing how happy a single chocolate bar could make someone was just incredible. I am so glad that I decided to visit the Ukraine and in particular Dnipropetrovsk. I am also very happy that I decided to get involved with the DniproKids charity. I didn’t think I did that much, but I just wanted to help a little while I was there … and hopefully I managed that. Thanks to Ira, Natalie and Steven Carr for giving me the opportunity to get involved. The trip is something I will never ever forget. Ian. |
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