Help please, film title is driving me mad!

[LeftieRightsHoarder]

Lighthearted rom-com, English, from I think 1980s or 90s (or 70s??). A young woman is travelling to somewhere in Europe. She advertised for a female companion but the only answer was from a man, who reassured her by telling her he was gay. She has cultural interests, which he pretends to share, but he’s actually going to a football match.

It was funny and sweet; I’d read the book too, and would like to read more by the same author. I think it had a short, football-related title, eg like Own Goal or Playing Away, but it wasn’t either of those.

All ideas will be gratefully received! I’m trying to get to sleep as I have an early start tomorrow, but possible titles keep ‘helpfully’ popping into my mind….

‘Adventures of a Taxi Driver’ is the answer google gave me when i googled most of your first paragraph with “1970’s film” added…but reading the plot synopsis I don’t think this is it 😂

Would have been an expensive taxi ride, lol! Thanks for trying 😀.

Chat GPT says:

A few close-but-not-it possibilities you might be mixing with:

• The Match (1999) – Scottish rom‑com built around a village football match (short, footie‑ish title), sweet/funny tone, but no travel‑companion ad plot.
• My Summer With Des (1998) – light BBC comedy tied to a football tournament and relationships; again, not the travel‑ad premise.
• When Saturday Comes (1996) – football + romance, but not your plot.
• Adele Parks – Playing Away – short, sporty‑sounding title (you already ruled it out), and definitely not about football.

To zero in fast, any of these ring a bell?

• Where in Europe did she go (Italy for a tournament? Spain/France for culture)?
• Was it a novel first (you said you’d read the book), or a TV movie/film based on a novel?
• Any tiny detail you recall—author’s gender, a character’s name, the team he went to see, a specific museum or monument she wanted to visit, or a line/joke?

Give me any scrap (city, team, channel it aired on, paperback cover colour, etc.) and I’ll nail it.

Ooh thanks, Crow. I thiiink it was a novel first, female author, and the football match was in Germany. All of those are I thiiiink.

I remember they went swimming, or fell into water somehow, but he forgot he had both their passports in his pocket so they made a fire to dry them out.

And in the novel they saw a line of English fans “well wrapped up against the heat, plodding in an orderly fashion” — that may not be an exact quote, but very like that.