As you all may recall, I won the tickets on the toss of a coin from Scouse Andy, who needless to say, was gutted. To soften the blow, we gave him a little project -- we bought an England flag and had him write in huge letters the nicknames of our group of friends, that we could take to Germany and proudly display. So, even if he couldn't go, at least his flag could. He did it, and did a good job--
We promised that we would take pictures of the flag everywhere, doing everything with us -- so even if he wasn't there in body, he was there in spirit. In the picture we are each posing with our respective nicknames, and they're pretty self explanatory really.
After a horribly dull morning in university, Carl and I hopped a cab to Manchester airport where the fun really began. Having checked in and gone through the various security checks we were stopped by the police! We didn't even make it to the departure lounge! The police wanted to know if we were going to the match, and wanted their FIFA liason officer to come and talk to us -- thankfully he was busy, so they took our gate number and told us that he would come and find us later. After paying far too much for a pint of beer and coke, and playing an abortive round of Star Wars Episode I Pod Racer, we moseyed along to our gate. The rest of the passengers on the plane weren't exactly the rowdy football crowd we'd expected, it was full of German business men, in fact, Carl and I were the only English people on the flight. So for the FIFA police liason to come up and lecture us on behaviour, in full uniform, carrying a semi-automatic weapon, probably would have gone down like a lead balloon (or, Zeppelin, if you prefer.) Thankfully he must have been *really* busy, so he never got around to giving us the talk, and we managed to board our plane without any hassle.
Here I am, with the flag, on our teeny-tiny plane. The thing was literally a matchbox toy of a plane. It got tossed about pretty good by the surly Mancunian clouds, but, thankfully got us to Dusseldorf International in one piece. While we were in the air, Germany were playing Ecuador, one passenger smuggled a portable television on board and was giving everyone covert updates on the score. I'm not quite sure if he thought the whole thing through, infact, I'm quite sure that they say transmitters of any kind are banned from planes due to singal interference, but again, we made it, and Germany won 3-0, so everyone was happy.
After touching down in Dusseldorf, we wandered through the airport, not understanding any of the German signs, wearing England shirts, great scene, I assure you. After 10-15 minutes of wandering, a sign from the heavens - we ran into Steve Mcmanaman! England and Scouse Legend! He seemed in a bit of a hurry, so we didn't get the chance to get him to hold the flag - but there was mutual acknowledgement, which was good enough for us. We then somehow found the exit, and our way into a cab, well done us! Our cab driver spoke no English, ZERO English. We handed him our piece of paper, with the hotel address on it, and we were off, zooming down strange German roads, listening to an 80's compilation that included A-Ha, Depeche Mode, and some terrible German sythn-pop. The terrible soundtrack made careening down tiny city sidestreets, lined with ecstatic German fans, yelling and waving flags all the more surreal.
We arrived at our hotel and immediately felt out of place. The 4* Steinberger Plaza hotel was a bit swanky - and we were clearly the poorest people in there, staff included. Thankfully, the concierge spoke a little English, so we managed to get to our room. And what was the first thing I did when we got to our room.
That's right, put on the complimentary bathrobe and pose.
After much tomfoolery in the room, including noticing that on the brochure for the Pay Per View it breathlessly advertised "Hollywood Blockbusters on Channel 1" and "Erotic Adult Movies Channel 2, 3, 4, 5!" Only in Germany eh? We went out on to our balcony. Being contest winners, we didn't exactly have the best view. Our room overlooked a derelict building and a tree -
I chose to have my picture taken with the derelict building. I know my eyes are closed, its actually a recurring theme throughout the trip, nearly every picture taken of me, with my camera, my eyes are closed. Thankfully, Carl also took some of the same pictures, and thankfully, my eyes are open in those - so I didn't ruin two sets, as luck would have it, only my own!
We set off for the stadium at 5:30, and seeing as our combined knowledge of German geography was, shall we say, limited (read: non-existant) - it proved to be an interesting proposition. We were given basic directions by our mate the concierge (no tip!), and sent on our way -- we wandered the streets of Dusseldorf for a while until we came across a subway station, the subway train took us to the central station, where we jumped another train to Cologne (or, Koln). On the inter-city train we met some really nice Germans. Intoxicated on strong beer and Germany's victory, they chatted with us for the entire 40 minute ride, talking football, and even breaking into a rousing rendition of 'God Save the Queen.' We arrived at Koln's central station only to find that we had to take another train that took us to a tram station that took us to the stadium. Needless to say, we weren't best pleased. Thankfully the final tram we got on was FULL of England fans. A few more renditions of 'God Save The Queen', numerous chants of "I'd rather be a carrot than a Swede" and the full 11 verse version of "Ten German Bombers" got us to the stadium, and finally, the match.
Here's Koln stadium, it was quite nice and refurbished for the World Cup - they set up a huge perimeter fence, allowing no one without a ticket within 500 yards of the ground. We were frisked by some overzealous security, perhaps they'd had the call from Manchester that we'd snuck through without the lecture, and we were in. On our trek to the stadium, we took the opportunity to take some pictures of the flag outside the stadium. While this was happening, we were set upon by some Swedes. They wanted to be involved in our pictures, and strangely enough, wanted to take pictures of us with them, laying on the floor in sort of a cheesey male model pose, while humming "You'll Never Walk Alone." We declined on one of three counts, the laying on the ground and posing we could handle, but the humming, that was just too gay.
Anyway, here I am with my Swedish mate -- he had family in Canada, I feigned interest - I just wanted to get into the ground!
Being a small stadium, Koln didn't really have any bad seats, but ours were quite far back. We climbed flight after flight of stairs to get to our section, and then had to climb even more to get to our row. It was 25 degrees and muggy that day, so we were soaked by the time we got up there, after a much needed drink to revive and lubricate the vocal chords, we were up and ready for the match.
We were sitting in about four rows of English fans behind a mass of Swedish fans - they were generally good natured, and there was a bit of banter back and forth, which was really good.
The stadium was awash with colour, huge patches of yellow Swedish fans, with Red and White for England in other sections.
To be honest, I don't remember much about the game itself. Its like a really amazing concert -- you remember snapshots, but unless you're Steve you can't remember every kick and nuance. I remember the teams coming out and belting out the national anthem at the beginning, I remember Joe Cole's scorching volley, I remember Steve Gerrard heading England ahead right at the end, and the pandemonium that ensued in the stands. We went mental, thinking we'd won it, rubbing the Swedes noses right in it, only for them to come back and equalise right at the death.
The whole experience was everything I'd hoped for. The atmosphere was fantastic, the opposition's fans were brilliant, I lost my voice singing and screaming, Steven Gerrard scored! England didn't win, but at least they didn't lose, and at least now I can say that I was there, if England win the world cup, I can tell my children, and I will probably tell your children about my mad 16 hours in Germany.
