With a little thought and a bit of surfing, following The Lads to Portugal needn’t be expensive. Of course package specialists benefit from volume rates, buying huge quantities of hotel rooms in advance, confident in the knowledge they can sell it on. But you’re also paying a premium to have someone do the legwork for you. If you want to get to Portugal without paying a packet, here’s how it’s done.

Flights

Let’s face it; it’s a long way in your Blockyard-battered Mk 2 Escort. And you’re not even going out with Tracey anymore, so that strip across the top of the windscreen is out of date too. By the time you’ve paid for the ferry, petrol, road tolls and Ginsters, driving’s not half as cheap as you thought. Plus you’ve just doubled the mileage and didn’t you have wheel trims when you left this morning? Faro is the main airport for the Algarve, and there are plenty of airlines serving this resort hub; so let the plane take the strain.

Check the obvious budget carriers first: Cheesyjet, Brian Air and the like. Also check the bigger names, sometimes airlines like BA can offer comparable fares, despite the perception that they’re always more expensive. Look up Faro’s airport website so you know which companies to look at. You’ll see that many of the fares are not terribly cheap. This is supply and demand: there aren’t that many operators from the NE and in peak school holiday season everyone wants to go to the same place.

This is where it pays to look further afield. If the lads are up for it, then why not make a little road trip to the airport? Skyscanner.net is one of those sites which collates information from a number of different places and simplifies the results for you. Select all of July as your date range, and it will present you with a simple graph showing the range of fares available, day by day. It doesn’t check every airline, so don’t rely on it entirely.

At the time of writing, by selecting “London, All Airports” you could get return flights much cheaper from Stansted. OK, it’s a few hours down the M11, but if it saves you £100? Just think of it as four hours extra craic. Long term parking starts at £8.30 per day, or maybe it’s time to look up that distant family in Cambridgeshire?

Charter operators may also have spaces on flights. Check out www.charterflights.co.uk. While you’ll see the same supply and demand in operation, you’ll also see £110 from Gatwick if you can be tempted south, or if you’re an exile.

Accommodation

If it was up to you, you’d sleep in an Asda carrier bag in a drainage ditch just to see the lads wouldn’t you? But well, Dave’s gone a bit soft since he got married and he insists on a proper bed these days. Not you of course, no you’re still nails…

But this is where it’s going to cost you right? Wrong. There’s a huge range of accommodation out there, and by looking around you can find a bargain. Hostelworld.com and Hostelbookers.com are principally for, you guessed it, hostels.

Hostels have come a long way since that sixth form trip where you had to do last night’s dishes while the warden stood over you. Some now call themselves “budget hotels”, with facilities to match. But in places like Albufeira where there are no hostels, these websites also offer apartments and B&B’s.

At the time of writing, you could get a twin bed room for around £17 per night. Some of these places will be hotel standard, some will be more basic. But why would you want to be inside watching crazy golf on Sky Sports 57, when you can be outside turning bright pink and sipping ice cold lager while you play it? Or you can relive those Scout days (www.campingalbufeira.net). For less than a fiver, you can live like an under-canvas King. Just don’t let Akela catch you with that bottle of cider.

Getting Around

Despite Portugal lagging behind the UK and Spain economically, they still have transport that puts ours to shame. The Algarve is relatively compact, and a network of cheap, clean, regular, air-conditioned buses connects most locations. Eva (www.eva-bus.com) run buses between Faro and Albufeira for less than £3 each way, taking around 50 minutes.

If you can’t fly to Faro, then you could always come via Lisbon. Bearing in mind that many Mackems have a second mortgage, not thanks to a summer home in Spain, but to the old GNER, you’ll be pleased to know that in Portugal the 3.5 hours between Lisbon and Albufeira will set you back around £13 (www.cp.pt ). In an aircon Inter City carriage you’ll have more legroom than you know what to do with, and you won’t have to sit looking at the same tree outside Doncaster for an hour because of a mouse on the line at Penzance.

Eating and Drinking

Just like nostalgia’s not what it used to be, every where’s getting more expensive these days. But you can still have a good night out in Portugal and be left with change for the chippy. If you want to do the proper ‘Brits abroad’ thing, Albufeira has a range of bars offering pints for €2. They also compete on food, so you can pick up a decent meal for around €5. If the friction from a thousand polyester shirts gets too much, Faro is more chilled and more Portuguese. If you do go out in Albufeira, take a tip from me and avoid pubs like the Geordie Viking, especially around fourth minute of the derby.

Summary

Most Portuguese are very friendly and speak better English than we do. You’ll probably find them less stand-offish than the Spanish. One of the good things Quinn and Keane have done for this club is to install some ethics: it’s not just about money and looking after yourself. We’re all ambassadors for the city, and we all wear the badge with pride, so let’s make sure we make a good impression and keep the good name Sunderland’s got. You never know, one day we might be playing Sporting in the Champions League…

Simon Cole