David ‘Dai’ Jones, the 33-year-old Welshman, couldn’t resist the attraction of the biggest Football Festival on the planet. Although he had no intention of watching the World Cup at first, when he saw his friends cheering for football and partying in Doha, Jones decided to fly to Qatar.
“Seeing my friends enjoying the World Cup atmosphere and watching the first two games Wales play makes me uneasy. I just thought I needed to get there. It was Wales’ first World Cup in 64 years, that alone is enough,” Jones said.
David ‘Dai’ Jones on a flight to Doha. Photo: The Sun
Jones’ friends helped him get tickets and visas as soon as he asked to go to Qatar. “My girlfriend thinks I can’t afford a ticket and can’t buy it either. She still thinks that way to this day,” Jones said
Previously, Jones had asked for permission but was not agreed by his girlfriend of 11 years, even issued an “ultimatum” against this action. This girl threatened if he left, they would stop. But Jones replied that if he couldn’t go, he wouldn’t forgive his girlfriend either.
As a result, Jones’ girlfriend was furious when she discovered that this guy had flown to Doha during the night. “I thought she would calm down soon, so I made such a decision. My girlfriend even called my dad, because my phone was off. Dad told her I’d be home in a few days,” Jones told WalesOnline.
David ‘Dai’ Jones had a memorable time in Doha with 2 childhood friends. Photo: The Sun
Jones had a 24-hour journey, traveling by coach and bus before boarding a plane to Turkey and catching the next flight to Doha. Two friends from his childhood supported him during the trip.
“It’s great that Jones is here. We’ve always watched Wales together since we were kids. Jones is ‘crazy’, but he’s so cool,” the two friends shared.
The three of them had a good time when immersing themselves in the passionate football cheering atmosphere in the capital city of Doha. Although Wales lost 3-0 to England, this was still a memorable experience for Jones.
But of course he couldn’t “run away” from reality forever. Jones got on the plane back home at 4 a.m. because his boss announced he would fire Jones if he didn’t work on Thursday. The intention to stay in Doha for a week vanished.
The UK derby attracted more than 8,000 fans of the Three Lions and 6,000 fans of Wales. England have not lost to Wales since 1984 and are unbeaten in the last 6 meetings of the 2 national teams.
Before that, many World Cup fans were also famous for their decisions to show their passionate love of football, a Shanghai girl (China) resigned from 2 companies and was willing to spend more than 300 million dong to go to Qatar to cheer on Lionel Messi, her lifelong idol. Chen Zhenghao from Beijing (China) also spent most of his savings and quit his job to watch the World Cup.
Stories about Jones or two Chinese fans are interesting to the online community. Many people admire their actions, but there are also people who think that giving up everything to watch the World Cup is quite reckless, even somewhat impulsive.