Genk Not Ghent

[piggynose]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/50166371

[Sqad]

LOL....

[Ken4155]

Would you admit to being so stupid? I certainly wouldn't. And i wonder where they bought their tickets? I mean, if i was the guy selling the train and match ticket, i would have asked them, "Are you sure you don't mean Genk? That's where everyone else is going."

[Buenchico]

With two languages in use, it's easy to get confused in Belgium. For example, if you actually want to travel to Ghent by train, the platform monitors might show that lovely city with either the Flemish name 'Gent' or the French name 'Gand'. (It can also appear as 'Gint').

I met some American tourists at a train station who were distressed to find that there were no trains for Antwerp shown on the screens. I pointed out to them that they were in the French-speaking part of Belgium so, instead of the destination being shown as the Flemish 'Antwerpen', it was being shown as the French 'Anvers'.

[chelle7272]

Oops lol! They bought their tickets before they left the UK though so not a language thing..
Ken I imagine they booked online so no one to correct them!

[Lie-in King]

Ah, they made a decent evening of it with nice people, with another to come in January :-))

[chelle7272]

Yes at least it wasn't a complete disaster, bless them.

[Ken4155]

Expect you're right, Chelle. I would have kept shtum about the mix up, though, and have pretended i'd actually attended the correct match.

[jno]

very true, Chris, I once drove round and round Trieste looking for road signs to Rijeka. It eventually dawned on me that Italians still call it Fiume. (They both mean river.)

[piggynose]

This isn't the 1st time its happened.
Ive post another link soon.

[piggynose]

https://m.novinite.com/articles/139289/Bucharest+Massively+Mistaken+for+Budapest+at+Europa+League+Final

[Buenchico]

I used to live on the main road between Sheffield and Barnsley. The guy who ran our local convenience store got fed up of explaining to travelling golf fans that the Wentworth they knew they were near to (Wentworth Woodhouse) wasn't the Wentworth that they'd paid megabucks to get into to watch a golf tournament. They looked at him open-mouthed when, in response to their question of "How far are we from Wentworth?", he replied "About 170 miles" ;-)

[Buenchico]

We weren't far from Wales (Rotherham) either. That's been known to cause confusion too ;-)
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/12/belgium-fans-trust-satnav-end-up-in-wrong-wales

[Buenchico]

. . . and there's Frankfurt too ;-)
https://talksport.com/football/529808/benfica-fan-wrong-frankfurt-europa-league/

[Buenchico]

Right name, wrong continent ;-)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39459471

[Buenchico]

When I ran a railway station, I was often asked, "Which train must I catch for Liverpool?" I was always tempted to provide the completely accurate answer of "Catch the Peterborough train and change there" but a bit of lateral thinking invariably made me ask, "Do you mean Liverpool Street in London?" They always did!

[douglas9401]

Lucky you did I suppose otherwise they'd have been King Cross.

[ichkeria]

Two seasons ago our club captain at Coleraine in the Irish League travelled to Carrick Rangers for our game by car.
Only problem: we were at home :-)

[retrocop]

Give some credit to Liverpool supporters. They were in the correct country!

[piggynose]

And theres more.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.al.com/news/birmingham/2016/08/british_couple_who_booked_flig.html%3foutputType=amp