When Anna and Ronnie Ellis each parted with £450 for a seat on an “executive” coach from Liverpool to Kiev, they were expecting a few little luxuries for the 30-hour journey to the Champions League football final. Plug sockets, a toilet, maybe even a TV. Somewhere to store their bags that wasn’t their own laps would have been nice.

But the minibus that pulled up outside the Arkles pub in Anfield on Thursday was a little more … rustic. Let’s just say the jerry can a fellow passenger had brought with him from work “for emergencies” was likely to be in high demand on the 2,750km-journey to the Ukrainian capital. Given the number of pints sunk in the pub beforehand, it may well have been full by the time the bus trundled on to the M62. Yet the cheerful couple were determined to make the best of things. “There was no way we were going to miss the match,” said Anna, white wine in hand.

At least their transport showed up. A thousand other Liverpool fans found themselves stuck at John Lennon airport on Thursday when the air traffic controllers in Kiev decided they weren’t going to be able to cope with all the extra flights and denied three Scouse planes a landing slot.

Onboard the minibus from the Arkles, not everyone had managed to wangle one of Liverpool’s 16,000 tickets for the match against 12-times Champions League winners Real Madrid – including organiser Martin Cleary and his 17-year-old son, Lewis Francis Cleary (“His initials are LFC – my missus is an Evertonian so I had to register him when she was still under sedation”).

Father and son were confident of getting inside Kiev’s Olympic stadium, even if they got burnt last time they bought from the secondary market. “We paid £600 for e-tickets for the [Champions League qualifying] game against [Slovenian side] Maribor and when we got there they were blank, fakes,” said Cleary, who has planned for the bus to turn back around at 2am on Sunday, pretty much straight after the match.

Jess Handley, 23, who was travelling alone, was unfazed by the journey ahead. “It’s the chance of a lifetime. You’ve got to grab it,” she said. Her mum, along to wave her off with her nana and granddad, was less sure. “How will she ring me to say she’s OK if she can’t charge her phone?”

A few doors down at John’s Supper bar, a popular post-match chippy, the owner John Paraskeva was preparing for Saturday night, when 30,000 fans are expected to watch the game on screens at the stadium five minutes walk away. He had sourced a lifesize cutout of Mo Salah, the Egyptian king of Anfield, and was making a big vat of curry sauce to pour over chips for £1.50 a cone.

“I tried to get tickets in the ballot to go to Kiev but I didn’t get any, so I’ll make the best of things here,” he said, still excited about Sadio Mané, Liverpool’s star winger, pulling up in his Porsche outside after the penultimate game of the season. “I offered him free chips but he said he had to look after his diet.”

Outside the stadium, merchandise stalls were doing a brisk trade, with anything Salah-related most in demand. Buying flags for her car, Elizabeth Wright, 66, was another fan of the Egyptian striker. “People are now going to mosques because of him. He’s bringing harmony – that’s nice, isn’t it? I might go to mosque on Sunday. Are mosques open on Sundays?”

In Liverpool city centre, many businesses are capitalising on the match by upping their prices on Saturday night. The German-themed Bierkeller is selling tickets for £20 a pop and most hotels have tripled their usual prices.

Gareth Roberts, the editor of the Anfield Wrap, a Liverpool FC podcast and fanzine, said it was “a bit grim” how much profiteering was going on in his home city. Those charging silly prices may regret it in the long-term, he suggested: “It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I think a lot of fans will be choosing their bars more carefully in future.”

He said he had been contacted by fans from all over the world who couldn’t get tickets to Kiev so were descending on Liverpool instead. “When they’re being fleeced like this it doesn’t give the best impression of Liverpool,” he said. “It’s a tax on the passion of football.”

Back at the Arkles, manager Carl Baines said they were treating it as an ordinary match day. “We’re not going to charge fans to come and watch the biggest game of the season.”