{"id":394848,"date":"2025-09-03T15:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394848\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T15:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:23:10","slug":"17-trains-11-buses-and-a-stag-do-one-wales-fans-five-week-venture-for-kazakhstan-qualifier-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/394848\/","title":{"rendered":"17 trains, 11 buses and a stag do: one Wales fan\u2019s five-week venture for Kazakhstan qualifier | Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Wales<\/a>, Thursday\u2019s World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan presents challenges aplenty. In between preparing to play on an artificial surface at the Astana Arena, there is a balance between maximising precious time on the pitches and prioritising recovery. Wales took an eight-hour direct flight from Cardiff to Astana, avoiding Ukrainian airspace, and their only real training session as a full squad will be24 hours before kick-off. Player body clocks will be programmed to a two-hour \u2013 not four-hour \u2013 time difference.<\/p>\n

One Wales supporter, John McAllister, spied a challenge in the fixture. His odyssey, inspired by the BBC\u2019s Race Across the World, began five weeks ago when he left home in Barry, south Wales. Since 29 July he has been travelling from Cymru to Kazakhstan, the world\u2019s ninth-largest country by land area and the largest to be landlocked, documenting his journey in a series of YouTube videos. The 26-year-old has covered about 5,000km. More than 1,100 Wales fans will be at the game but only one, understandably, has been directly referenced by Craig Bellamy. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to see him, because it means so much to us,\u201d the Wales manager said.<\/p>\n

McAllister, who regularly follows Wales away, admits this is about as far-flung as it gets. Thursday\u2019s match will be his 12th of the trip. He highlights Fenerbahce\u2019s Champions League date with Feyenoord in Istanbul as his favourite owing to the supercharged atmosphere. He paid a fixer to source a ticket and soon found himself immersed with the locals in a park over the road from the stadium. \u201cThree hours before kick-off, there\u2019s crazy pyrotechnics going off,\u201d he says. Belgrade brought three appetising games, while the \u00a31.35 entry to a second-tier game in Almaty, close to the Chinese border and farther east than Islamabad and Mumbai, also warrants a mention. \u201cI\u2019ll watch anything \u2026 my bread and butter is going to Barry Town in the Cymru Premier League.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAllister ticked off France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands \u2013 and England \u2013 on his first day. Then he travelled across the Balkans and signed up to a 36-hour train across Turkey into Georgia. Wearing a Cymru T-shirt in a Tbilisi bar, shortly after photographing the Mother of Georgia monument, he felt an air of familiarity. \u201cA fella taps me on the shoulder and says: \u2018Shwmae, are you from Wales?\u2019\u201d McAllister says, recalling how he was suddenly talking to a man from Rhoose, a village located few miles from Barry. \u201cIt was crazy. He said: \u2018I live out here and I\u2019m going out on a stag do tonight. Do you fancy joining us, if you\u2019re on your own?\u2019 So I went on this Irish fella\u2019s stag with 30 strangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

John McAllister covered about 5,000km before reaching Kazakhstan. Photograph: Courtesy of John McAllister<\/p>\n

Chacha, a Georgian brandy, went down a treat, and things went so swimmingly McAllister bagged an invitation to the wedding \u2013 only it was the same day he was flying to Atyrau, northwest Kazakhstan. \u201cThrough gritted teeth and a lack of alternatives,\u201d he says, given, ideally, he wanted to avoid air travel unless absolutely necessary. But the options were limited with Russia in effect out of bounds and travel through Iran requiring a government-approved guide at all times. The land border into Azerbaijan is closed, so crossing the Caspian Sea via Baku was also regarded off-menu. \u201cGetting the passport stamp, actually realising I was in Kazakhstan, was pretty cool,\u201d McAllister says.<\/p>\n

For Wales, second in Group J at the halfway stage of qualifying, Kazakhstan represents their sole competitive match this window; Wales host Canada in Swansea for a friendly next Tuesday. Last week Bellamy highlighted how \u201cathletic and stubborn\u201d Kazakhstan, 83 places below his side in the Fifa rankings, possess more players in the Champions League clubs than in his squad, owing to Kairat Almaty\u2019s progress against Celtic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McAllister attended the second leg in Almaty. \u201cWe\u2019re in a kind of can\u2019t-drop-points situation because we\u2019re going to have to go toe-to-toe with Belgium to qualify automatically. But we really seem to have moved forward with our style of play \u2013 the near-miss comeback against Belgium<\/a> proved how far we\u2019ve come. Things have been very promising under Bellamy.\u201d<\/p>\n

John McAllister with a Kazakhstan flag. \u2018Everyone\u2019s been very supportive\u2019,\u2019 he says. Photograph: Courtesy of John McAllister<\/p>\n

Now after traversing east, taking in 17 trains, 11 buses, four time zones and plenty of beer, the rest of the Red Wall is on the horizon. \u201cThey are all flooding into the city,\u201d says McAllister, who has seen Christmas trees in the main square in Erzurum, a Turkish city close to the Armenian border covered in snow for six months of the year, experienced an impromptu heavy-metal night on arrival in Kazakhstan and explored Vukovar, a Croatian city \u201con those dark tourism lists\u201d after it was sieged by Yugoslavia in 1991.<\/p>\n

Those sceptical of his master plan at the outset are now in awe. \u201cI think the unanimous answer at the beginning was: you\u2019re crazy,\u201d McAllister says. \u201cBut since I said this was what I was doing and I\u2019ve posted updates along the way, people have been fantastic. Everyone\u2019s been very supportive and sent lots of encouragement. It\u2019s been very good fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Wales, Thursday\u2019s World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan presents challenges aplenty. In between preparing to play on an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-394848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115141057171352171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}