Tuesday daytime at work, Tuesday evening in Barca. Well that was the plan. Unfortunately "Go" put a spanner in the works with that one, as a near 3 hour delay meant it was nearly midnight by the time we got through Barca airport. This meant we barely had time for a stroll along the Ramblas, populated mainly by pissed Leeds fans, before heading for our sea view accommodation, though the local youths did try to squeeze a bag snatching and a drugs sale into our schedule. Both failed.

Next day a whistlestop through the sights for those of our group who hadn't visited Barca before. Reassuringly all the attractions were in the same places as previously and the Sagrada Familia is no nearer completion, though very few Leeds fans seem to have managed travel beyond the Ramblas. Just time to demolish a mountain of Paella and a few beers and then off in the general direction of the ground.

The University area we started in seemed devoid of bars, so we gravitated towards the ground and found a bar opposite a hotel which later turned out to be where the Leeds team were ensconced at the time. So we had a chance to cheer them off as they drove the few hundred yards to the ground. Headed off and found a fair amount of friendly chaos outside as everyone seemed to be allowed in the same entrance.

We eventually found our turnstiles and then climbed and climbed and climbed, before eventually coming out somewhere on the upper slopes of the Pyrennes (probably). Though when you eventually got there and saw the near full ground and the pitch way below it was dead impressive. The stadium tour I'd been on before doesn't really give you any impression of how high you do get.

It was a strange decision to have the Leeds fans in bunches around the stadium - 2 large groups right at the top behind either goal plus at least one smallish group in the bottom corner. Although splitting us up made it more difficult to generate too much noise, at least at half-time for the 1st time ever we could actually see what a WATC-COE looks like. Dead impressive it was.

Unfortunately as is usual on European trips the seat numbers meant nothing and it was sit where you like, but this time our end was full and it was nearly impossible to find seats - the one I eventually found had some moron behind proclaiming "I've been here 2 days",at the top of his voice, every few minutes. Evidence that we were still on the same planet as the rest of the city was that Gary Kelly managed to respond to the singing of his name prior to the game (he must have dog-like hearing). But as the teams were flashed onto the screen the enormity of the task facing the team dawned on us.

From the height we were watching from the players were little more than ants in the distance, but it soon became clear the Red ants were a class above the white ants. And even though the Smith ant removed the Rivaldo ant from the pitch for a spell early on, our elevated position meant we had an excellent view of the way Barca moved around to create space and found each other with pinpoint passes. The first goal being a perfect illustration. A second soon followed as everyone waited for Rivaldo to take a free-kick and De Boer crashed one in. In between Barca had also missed what looked like a sitter as the ball was scooped over the bar.

It soon became clear that moving Harte forward into midfield wasn't really working . We never really managed to maintain possession far enough forward for him to get a shooting chance - and he looked lost as Barca zipped the ball around in midfield.

We occasionally worked the ball forward into decent positions and had 3 on 3's etc and Barca's defence looked far from impregnable but Smith and Bridges never really seemed to be on the same wavelength to find the right pass or have the speed to go alone. A fit Kewell may have given us the chance to score a couple of goals, though you suspect if we'd scored 2 they'd have scored 6.

Along with the movement it was noticeable just how comfortable the Barca players were on the ball and how the defenders were happy to play the ball around until the attacking players had isolated themselves one-on-one versus defenders, quite often given the size of the pitch, before playing the ball forwards. The score stayed at 2-0 at half-time and we got to enjoy ourselves by WATC-COEing from either side of the ground.

A couple of decent chances at the start of the 2nd half, Harte hitting the keeper with a close range shot before another shot went narrowly wide. Though from the angle we were at it could have been 20 yards over for all I know. Barca continued to largely control the match without being too bothered about pushing forward too much, and as our midfield tired, McPhail especially though not surprisingly, another couple of goals went in.

To be honest most of us weren't that bothered, as we'd long since resigned ourselves to picking up no points and the main concern was when Lucas went down, after being headbutted by Duberry, as we later found out. Our concern was magnified as this gave the Barca fans more time to pelt us with coins / golf balls and lighters - not sure why they started to do this at 4-0 up. I didn't think the chants of Adios Figo had bothered them that much but it wasn't in keeping with the friendly atmosphere that had surrounded most of the game.

We were kept in for about 20 minutes at the end - and it was bizarre to see that the entire Nou Camp emptied quicker than the Kop normally does - but as we left via a few souvenir stalls the streets were pretty empty. The chant of time to go wasn't enough to persuade the police to release us from the ground.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped in a bar, to find oh joy they were showing the game again, but the locals were less interested in the game than us and only perked up when the Juventus game appeared. Not much time the next morning for anything but getting back to the airport, and the flight back was enlivened by the stewardess auctioning a seat next to the captain for landing, though judging by the way we bounced into Stansted the winner may well have landed the plane himself.

A pretty good trip. The team were outclassed, but that was somewhat inevitable with all the injuries. It's just such a shame that we'll probably be back in the UEFA Cup at best by the time we are near full strength again and can show what we are really capable of. Difficult to give too much summary of the players performance, I forgot my binoculars, but Bowyer at times Dacourt and Radebe were about the only ones who looked close to being in the same class as Barca.

Apart from the fotball (joke) match we enjoyed three superb days with out mates, drinking singing sunning and most of all laughing, it was fantastic. Some of you guys who use the message board should try to see a live game instead of spouting about it from your armchairs. My last points are this...how can we be a major European force with the likes of Duberry, Harte, Mills all in the same team at the same time, millions to spend, the players we have bought not being available for this vital part of the European assault. It's time for DOL to realise the honeymoon is over. "He's crap and should kwow he's crap".

Reporter: Graham Thirkill and MKG