Jonathan Wilson - Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe: Travels in Eastern European Football

It is a little after six when the train pulls into Belgrade. After the overwhelming heat of the previous day, it is refreshingly cool as I stumble out of my compartment. An early-morning mist hangs over the station, mingling with the smoke and fumes of the trains to form a haze that is tinted yellow by the sun as it slants through the iron-girdered roof. A Serbian folk song, piped through the loudspeakers, plays in the background. As I peer up an almost deserted platform, indistinct figures scurry in the distance. The fact of the railway aside, there is nothing by which to date the scene; I could be stepping off the train at any time from about 1920 onwards. It is probably the music that gives the moment a filmic feel, but I almost expect a mysterious figure to appear at my elbow furling an umbrella and commenting meaningfully on the daffodils in Moscow this spring.

As it is, the first person I speak to that morning is a taxi driver. I dont need a taxi Ive already arranged to meet two journalist friends in the station restaurant at nine but I know he will know a backstreet money changer. It turns out hes in that line of business himself, and so, after a brief haggle conducted in the dust on the bonnet of his car, I change my Slovenian tolar into Serbia-Montenegrin dinar at a rate significantly higher than that offered by the station bureau de change, which is closed anyway. I return to the ticket office, and book myself on a train departing for Budapest that evening, then make for the restaurant. It occurs to me as I sit there drinking coffee after coffee and eating small, bitter sausages, killing time until Milena and Ljiljana, my two Serbian friends, turn up, that mornings like this are exactly why I like eastern Europe so much.

Its the question people always ask when I mention that Im heading off to Romania or Ukraine or wherever for a holiday that doubles as a research trip why there? Im not sure there is an easy answer. There are the obvious pragmatic reasons, of course. Its cheap, for one, which is a major bonus for a freelance. There is, at least compared to Africa or Italy or South America, very little competition. And, given the widespread corruption, there are stories in abundance. Plus, there is the fact that when I worked for onefootball.com, I developed a range of contacts across the region. In many cases, they are now friends.