Monday, June 12, 2006
The atmosphere in Frankfurt
For England's first Group B match in the FIFA 2006 World Cup, I flew in Frankfurt the afternoon before the game to 'sample the atmosphere' which is a very weak euphanism for getting drunk.Due to FIFA's criminally low allocation to competing teams only 5,000 of the stadiums 48,000 seats would be filled by official England fans. The reality was that over 30,000 England supporters were in the ground. Most of these had probably never seen England play football in their life so there were plenty of England fans left in Frankfurt to watch the game on the big screens.
I landed just before 4pm and my first job was to pick up tickets from both FIFA and the English FA. The stadium is very close to the airport so we drove to the ticket collection point - big queues to stuff that, I'll get them later. The English FA ticket collection point was right over the other side of town. The driver found it easily enough and we chatted a little about football. After I got my set of priceless match tickets it was off to the hotel and then off to find the lads to get drunk.
We had planned to meet in an Aussie bar slightly off the beaten track. In general, we try to keep away from the popular places like the Irish and English bars. They are always packed and are targets for anyone looking to start trouble with English fans. When I got to the Aussie Bar (called Yours), a couple of my friends we already there. The opening match between Germany and Costa Rica was on, naturally we wanted Germany to lose but they let us down. Poland v Ecuador was next and that was a much better result for us with Ecuador winning 2-0. None of the teams in Group A particularly concern me as potential opposition but it would be preferable to play Ecuador or Costa Rica and with Ecudor's victory, the chances of playing them look good if we can win the group.
The atmosphere was incredibly friendly in the Aussie Bar and on the streets. There were people from many countries - England, Trinidad, Togo, Australia, France, USA, Paraguay, Mexico and others which I managed to forget due to alcohol. We spent a lot of time talking to the Aussie supporters who had flown over from Melbourne. There is huge sporting rivalry between Australia and England and we had a lot of good natured banter on both Friday and Saturday nights. Looking at the BBC website earlier today, it seems a couple of them managed to get their photos taken which you can see here.
As the night wore on, we moved from the Aussie Bar to one of the streets line with beer tents where more people were mingling. It really was a good night with thousands of happy people enjoying the greatest show on earth.
The 3pm start on Saturday meant an early start. We met up back at the Aussie bar for breakfast having missed it at the hotel. Just under 7 Euros for all you can eat buffet breakfast seemed like that way forward although I managed to keep off the beer for a while. This meant I would see the game against Paraguay with a clear head, a mistake I don't intend to make again. Some of the lads hadn't made it out on the Friday night depending on their travel plans. We decided to make our way over to the stadium at about 1pm, 2 hours before kickoff as 48,000 people tend to put a bit of a strain on public transport.
There had been a lot of talk about the security and ID checks so we weren't sure what to expect there either - quite a few of us suspected that it was just hype as FIFA are the biggest touts of the lot so there is no way the checks would be too strict. We took a very full train to the stadium which only took a few minutes and then it was a 7 or 8 minute walk to the entrance. The first security check was to take away plastic bottles. The official reason is so they can't be thrown on the pitch but the real reason was to force people to buy the beverages inside the ground. Once through the brief search, it was on to the electronic ticket reader. I just put the ticket into the machine and the gate opened. No ID checks or anything like that - more hype.
I won't go through the match as much has already been written but we left on 83 minutes, as Hargreaves came on. We'd seen enough and wanted to get back out to "sample the atmosphere", if you get my meaning. A quick stop at my hotel to ditch my camera, a quick shower and it was out again to watch 2 interesting games involving Sweden in one and Argentina in the other. We grabbed some food in the Aussie bar which some very noisy Aussie who thought they could outsing us.......they couldn't. Our version of Waltzing Matilda is much better !!!!
The rest of the night was just drinking and merriment. I'd heard some bad things about Frankfurt before I went there. It was meant to be a dull industrial city but we had a great time, one of the best England trips I can remember.
// posted by Big Blue Marble @ 9:12 pm 
