Just when I thought Everton might progress to the latter stages of a European competition, we travelled to Kyiv in the round of 16, lost 5-2 and tumbled out of the Europa League.
It had been a great run up to that point, taking in trips to Russia, France, Germany and Switzerland. I had a strong feeling we'd beat Dynamo Kyiv over two legs - particularly after we'd won the first game at Goodison, albeit conceding an away goal in the process.
But after Romelu Lukaku's brilliant long-range equaliser, and the equally brilliant celebrations in our away end, the Ukranians ran riot. Yarmolenko, in particular, tore into us and the brittle nature of Roberto Martinez's defensive tactics (assuming there were some) were exposed.
I'm writing this several years later and can vaguely remember Antolin Alcaraz putting on a display at centre-back that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Sunday park pitch.
The rest of the trip was a good one. I'd visited Kyiv twice previously, once on the way to and from Kharkiv to watch Everton in 2007 and once to watch England v Italy in the quarter-final of Euro 2012.
This time had a distinctly different vibe, coming as it did not long after the revolution/uprising that saw so much blood shed on the streets of the capital.
We stayed in the Hotel Ukraine, a grand edifice looking down on the main Shevchenko Street from its hilltop position. On the walk down from the hotel into town there were floral tributes laid out on the pavements, honouring the fallen victims of the violence.
It had been a great run up to that point, taking in trips to Russia, France, Germany and Switzerland. I had a strong feeling we'd beat Dynamo Kyiv over two legs - particularly after we'd won the first game at Goodison, albeit conceding an away goal in the process.
But after Romelu Lukaku's brilliant long-range equaliser, and the equally brilliant celebrations in our away end, the Ukranians ran riot. Yarmolenko, in particular, tore into us and the brittle nature of Roberto Martinez's defensive tactics (assuming there were some) were exposed.
I'm writing this several years later and can vaguely remember Antolin Alcaraz putting on a display at centre-back that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Sunday park pitch.
The rest of the trip was a good one. I'd visited Kyiv twice previously, once on the way to and from Kharkiv to watch Everton in 2007 and once to watch England v Italy in the quarter-final of Euro 2012.
This time had a distinctly different vibe, coming as it did not long after the revolution/uprising that saw so much blood shed on the streets of the capital.
We stayed in the Hotel Ukraine, a grand edifice looking down on the main Shevchenko Street from its hilltop position. On the walk down from the hotel into town there were floral tributes laid out on the pavements, honouring the fallen victims of the violence.
During the afternoon of matchday a few of us - Jan and Malc, Liz, Preston Jim, Colin, Terry - found a spot for a few beers underneath the People's Friendship Arch.
At one point, a journalist and photographer from the Liverpool Echo got a few voxpops from some of our gang for their live blog.
Here are a few more pics from the trip:
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| Commemorative T-shirts were given to us by Everton from a random office down a side street |
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| Terry |
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| Fixture listed outside Dynamo's original stadium |
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| Statues under the friendship arch |
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| Me and Jim pre-match |
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| Pre-match, full of hope of reaching a European quarter-final |
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| Post-match blues |