‘Strange, sombre feeling’ on leaving Gdynia

It wasn’t quite the last chopper out of Saigon but there was a strange feeling of sombreness as I left the media centre at Ireland’s training base in Gdynia, alone, and for the last time.

By that point, long after Ireland had done their last press conference there earlier in the morning, most of my colleagues had already made their way to Poznan or decided to finish in the hotel. I decided to work there and, in an odd way, it did make the fact Ireland are the first team out of Euro 2012 sink in a little more.

The stoic Polish man at the sports centre’s reception desk, who had absolutely no English but did a mean job constantly organising taxis for us (“Sopot? Yes?”), simply nodded as I left the empty room behind me.