MAX, the one-armed Armenian outdoor snooker supremo, was busy honing his skills as we strolled through Yerevan’s Victory Park.

Aged about 45, dressed in a blue shell suit and sporting three days’ bristle on his chin, he was the custodian of a tatty building with rotting timbers. Two pool tables stood on the grimy verandah.

This was Yerevan’s fabled outdoor snooker centre – a shanty town shack that looked ready to fall down.

A hundred yards away on top of a hill overlooking the city, a 100-foot high steel statue of Mother Armenia, surrounded by a tank, missile launcher and other armoured vehicles, stood sentinel over the capital.

But we were irresistibly drawn to the sound of clicking balls. All 16 were the same colour – white. How did you play this bizarre game, exposed to the elements, and not a bar in sight?

It wasn’t until we had taken off our jackets and teamed up (me and Max v Phil from Aber and Stu from Wrexham) that we noticed our host’s singular style.

He had no right arm and, standing ramrod straight, with a violent stabbing jerk of his left arm, imparted a vicious sidespin to the cue ball. Armenia’s answer to Ray Reardon.

We spent the half hour ostensibly playing a hybrid of pool and billiards (the rules are too dull to go into, but if you really want to know, email and you’ll get a graphic account of an epic encounter. Dennis Taylor would’ve had a heart attack).

But we were secretly marvelling at melancholy Max. We’d just met another poverty-stricken, resilient, friendly and dignified Yerevan citizen who’d made this trip one of the best ever.

Getting whupped by a one-armed snooker whizz was another succulent, surprising slice of the surreal. Only on a Wales trip…

After seeing the lives of so many downtrodden people – one concierge at our hotel whose husband died in the 1988 earthquake was a qualified doctor unable to get work and who earned $28 a month for working ten 24-hour shifts – it would be churlish to bemoan our luck on the field.

And what a nail-biting game it was. The stadium is situated in the middle of a shanty town and
by day, the main approach road was full of chickens. There was no street lighting and I nearly jarred my back stepping in a pothole about a foot deep.

In a rare lapse of courtesy, the Armenians had swiped our seats so we pitched camp behind the goal for another great showing by the World’s Greatest Fans.

Armed with drums bought in a flea market and dressed in dirt-cheap Armenian football shirts and shorts, Cardiff’s Boore brothers – Alun, Gwilym and Rhys – and pals had the game of their lives.

Looking like the clap-happy troupe tra-la-laing down your local street they banged out, to the tune of Hare Krishna: “Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary (that’s seven Garys) Speed.”

They didn’t sing that’s seven Garys, I’m just totting them up for you.

Maybe you had to be there but we thought it a cracker. Well worth it just to see a prospective Parliamentary candidate for Plaid Cymru jigging along to it.

The other No1 hit was dreamt up by eggphobic Rhys who improved hugely on arch rugger bugger M** B****’s “Ah so, Ah so Yogishi” with:

“Johnny Hartson, he very big man;
None like him in Yerevan.”

Good to see Cardiff boys coining a song celebrating a son of Swansea.

Anne Robinson deservedly got a good spanking but printing the song on a family website would be naughty. Think Posh Spice, West Ham etc.

The first goal was a classic example of why the team should have played a friendly in February instead of topping up their tans in La Manga. Ych a fi – I swear I saw rust spilling out of our defenders’ ears.

Hartson’s equaliser was a smasher and his second goal cued the usual Jingle Bell chants about winning away. But, as against Norway, we seemed frightened by the prospect of winning and it was no surprise to see Armenia come back.

I blinked hard but it wasn’t Roberto Carlos, though it might have been. Liked the newspaper observation that Movsesyan, who played for Saturn, scored a goal from a different planet.

Leggy then nearly had a late throw knocked in by their Alexei Sayle-lookalike keeper late on and an even later mix-up between Page and Paul Jones was pube-stiffeningly scary.

On the whistle, only John Robinson ventured near our end to acknowledge another tremendous effort by us – in the rain too as the roof had yet to fixed onto the already constructed gantry.
What a bloody great, humble player this man is.

He’s got more juice in his legs than a pack of hyenas chasing down a wildebeest. At one point, he closed down three Armenians at the same time. Cheers Robbo, such efforts are noted and cherished.

Needless to say we’d just witnessed a game we’d have won if Ryan Giggs had played. That would’ve been the icing on the cake of a marvellous six days.

Like Belarus, the friendliness, the resilience of the locals and the glimpses of beauty amid the squalor – Mount Ararat, visible on a clear day, from Yerevan, is an awesome site that reduces you to silence.

And me and Max won the snooker 2-1!

Highlight

A fantastic World War Three-esque snowball fight by 20 or so middle-aged men on the shores of Lake Sevan after visiting a monastery (we do culcher too, like).

While taking a leak, Keith from Wrexham was ambushed by a blizzard of boms that, if launched at Turkey, would have won back Mount Ararat for Armenia. He swears every one thrown by his cognac-quaffing assailants missed.

Lowlight

About 30 fans at Hotel Erebuni, massing for departure, were refused access to the seventh floor lift. The reason? Despicable crime of the vilest nature! Someone had pinched something from one of the rooms.

One fan was accused. It was like one of Stalin show trials (Ok maybe not). He unpacked his entire wardrobe and had to hand back a coathanger. The fans were then allowed to come back to Britain.

Best player

JOHN Hartson has finally exorcised the ghost of Bobby Ghoul. Full marks to Mark Pembridge for putting his well-being on the line, but ending up out for a month. Top effort and get well soon.

Villain

The unspeakable Alex Ferguson. If you are Welsh and a Man U fan search your soul. Here, in the cradle of Christianity, you were betrayed by a man you consider to be a God.
Just remember that we would have two more points in our table and a better chance of reaching Japan 2002.

Celebrity bust-up

Did Kendall and Rhys Weston etc deserve their punishment (disciplined for venturing out one night to walk around town).

We walked past them late at night on the evening in question and they were definitely not tanked up, though they could only manage to grunt when I said: “All right, boys.”

They’d just left a bar in which one of our number, Newport’s Mr Prickett, was later approached by a local who swanked in self-importantly for a late-night snifter.

Seeing Mr Prickett, who has a very visible Newport County Skinheads tattoo on his forearm, he decided to go straight up to him (ignoring the other three of us), extended his right arm, puffed out his chest and introduced himself: “Hello, I am Armenian mafioso.”

What do you say to that? Mr Prickett, ever the diplomat (arf, arf), said hello demurely.

Mr Mafioso didn’t appreciate being laughed at by the rest of us – plus he might have had a gun behind the bar – so we hurriedly settled our bill before scrambling outside.

Fans of the week

First: The Boore brothers. Another humungous effort from the crack Cardiff combo and their mates who include someone who could be an MP by the time of the next game (he won’t win). That the received unwanted attention from some locals afterwards was very unfortunate.

Second: Richey from Newtown. Married on March 17. Went to Armenia on March 20. You still married?

I’m indebted to Iwan Pryce for several pictures featured here. Diolch!