Sunday, January 01, 2006
Happy New Year
Happy New Year to one and all. With any luck, in just over 6 months time, we'll be witnessing similar scenes to the picture on the left. The initial frenzy of flight and hotel bookings has subsided although many people are still waiting to here if they have been allocated tickets or not.
My application has gone in and although I'm guaranteed tickets, I'm not guaranteed the price I will pay. We have to pay up front for all 7 tickets which will hopefully take us to the final. If we get knocked out before the final, the money will be refunded in July or August.
Due to the pathetically low allocations from FIFA (8% of ground capacity), many England fans will have to resort the black market for tickets. These come through official agents (I've no idea how these are allowed to continue trading) and through individuals. Quickly browsing the online ticket agents, for once, it appears, England fans will not be paying the top price on the black market. Instead, that dubious honour goes to Japan. Cat 1 tickets for Brazil v Japan are going for $2595 while you can get England v Sweden tickets for 'only' $1450. In the bargain basement is Angola v Iran for $155. You can find out more information about tickets at our World Cup 2006 Tickets page.
The ballot results for the latest FIFA sale and the England Fans will be announced in the coming weeks which is the last hope for fans to secure their tickets. After that, it's beg, steal or borrow. However, England Fans are in a much more fortunate position than many other competing teams. I'm not aware of any other national organisation basing their allocation on a loyalty scheme. Australia allocated there tickets on a first-come, first-served basis and Sweden will run a ballot of their entire allocation if any fixture is oversubscribed. I can imagine that supporters from these countries who have travelled all over the place to watch qualifying matches will not be impressed if they lose out on tickets to people who haven't been to a single game.
Now the fixtures have been announced, it will be easier for supporters to plan their trips to Germany. Our FIFA World Cup 2006 Information website has several useful links for you. There is a new RSS Newsfeed available from the main page and also a new spreadsheet so you can keep track of the results.
If you want to find out more about the 12 venues for the games in Germany, you can find out more at of World Cup 2006 Venues page. Getting to Germany is fairly straight forward due to it's excellent road, rail, sea and airlinks with the rest of the world. For information about the choices available to you, have a look at our World Cup 2006 Travel page. Accommodation in Germany gives the supporter a variety of options. Although you can never guarantee anything with a North European summer, the weather should be nice so camping is a cheap option. Personally, I've got my hotels arranged and despite the stories of price hikes, there are still some bargains to be find, they just tale a bit of searching out. More information can be found on out World Cup 2006 Hotels page.
On the field itself, there has been good and bad news regarding the England forwards. Peter Crouch has finally realised where the goal is and has been scoring regularly for Liverpool. On the downside, Michael Owen suffered a broken metatarsal bone in his right foot while playing for Newcastle against Spurs on New Years Eve. Recover time is expected to be 3 months which should be in time for the World Cup.
The next big event for us supporters is the UEFA 2008 qualifying draw which takes place at the end of January. You can follow the draw from our Euro 2008 website where there is an RSS Newsfeed available. The seedings have already been announced and you can read more about the draw on our Euro 2008 Qualifying Draw page.
// posted by Big Blue Marble @ 6:10 pm 
