Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

  Day Twelve – Tuesday 25th June 2024    Denmark 0 Serbia 0    Munich Allianz Arena – 9pm local time     I woke up to a glorious sunny day in Munich, although the hotel’s blackout curtains were of sufficient quality that I had no idea until I peaked through them. My son had been watching Copa America on his phone until silly o’clock, so not only did he sleep through the hotel breakfast, I left him to his slumbers as I headed after 10am on the bus and train to central Munich to buy a gift for the Mrs back home. Couldn’t really go empty handed and this was the final opportunity unless I was going to buy her something from the overpriced UEFA merchandise on offer at a game.    I’ve become aware that the transport system in Germany has been the subject of criticism from many quarters, and today justified such comments. The S-bahn (overground) train from Dachau to Marienplatz (tourist central and deservedly so) took a long time to get ab...

  Day Eleven – Monday 24th June 2024    Rest Day 2 (of 2)    Munich Fan Park – Italy 1 Croatia 1 - 9pm local time    Today we made our way from Pforzheim near Stuttgart to Munich. But not before opting for the hotel breakfast, in what was a ballroom that had been converted to a the reception desk and a dining area. We were the only people eating for a while until later one other guest arrived. No wonder hot food was cooked on request – a choice of scrambled egg or scrambled egg with bacon. I didn’t see too much of Pforzheim, but it looked a nice enough place.   We couldn’t check in until 3pm in Munich, and with checkout at our hotel at 10am, we stopped a couple of times on the route for extended periods. I was taken on some strange diversion by Waze, presumably to avoid some autobahn queuing, without which I wouldn’t have seen the delightful village of Wiesensteig – set in a valley. The other stop was at a more prosaic service station. They c...

Day Ten – Sunday 23rd June 2024     Scotland 0 Hungary 1 Stuttgart Arena - 9pm local time     After four nights, it was departure time from Duisburg. Encouraged by my windscreen not becoming two pieces of glass soon followed by the birth of a few thousand ‘Hackney Diamonds’ on the two hours’ driving the day before, plus a dry weather forecast, I was far less stressed about the journey south to Stuttgart.   I took the recycling and general rubbish down to the communal bin area of the block we were staying in, joined in the lift by an aging male resident doing similar. I was  conscientiously  putting the recycled stuff in the correct bins but this guy was giving me the third degree in German as if I was doing something wrong. I explained I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but he kept going. Such was his aggression, I just walked out and put everything in a lone bin outside my son had used for some bottles on our arrival four days ...

Day Nine – Saturday 22nd June 2024     Portugal 3 Turkey 0 Dortmund Westfalenstadion - 6pm local time     I’d used a shower squeegee borrowed from the bathroom of the studio flat we were staying in as an improvised windscreen wiper successfully on the way back from Gelsenkirchen, so went out to buy one on a sunny Saturday morning. On the short drive to an area with a home improvement store and a giant supermarket (the latter had one for five euro, the former some overpriced thing with a fixing for the wall), I noticed the windscreen crack spotted on my previous drive on Thursday morning was extending further across. So, I was also on the lookout for some kind of repair kit so that it wouldn’t worsen further. I did consider actually seeing if I could get the whole screen itself repaired short notice, but I am pretty sure I can get this done for a lot less back in the UK on my car insurance, and these things generally need booking in. Bloody complicated when ...

Day Eight – Friday 21st June 2024     Slovakia 1 Ukraine 2 Dusseldorf Arena – 3pm local time The weather forecast for today’s match was not encouraging. Rain forecast, and given my lack of functional windscreen wipers (read the last couple of entries to catch up on that), I decided we’d have to suffer public transport to reach our afternoon game in Dusseldorf. The plan was to meet a reader of my blog, and past editorials on onlinegooner.com back in the day when I was editor, David, for a drink before the game. He lives in Dusseldorf, due to his German wife, and had made contact through a comment on a previous blog entry for this trip.    This plan was foiled due to a number of delays. 1 – My son deciding to make a sandwich at the time I told him we were leaving. 2 – Our missing a bus as a consequence and having to wait 20 minutes for the next one. 3 – The train from Duisburg to Dussledorf being about 15 minutes late. 4 – The tram/train from Dusseldorf central st...

Day Seven – Thursday 20th June 2024     Spain 1 Italy 0    Gelsenkirchen Arena AufSchalke – 9pm local time      It was nice to wake up knowing I wouldn’t have to pack my things and move on, the benefit of securing tickets for four games in the Rhine-Ruhr area over four consecutive days. Tonight’s game saw Spain face Italy in Gelsenkirchen.    However, it wasn’t a morning of complete relaxation. For those of you that read the previous edition of this blog, you will be aware of my windscreen wiper issue. I decided to see what the cost of replacing the broken parts would be by visiting the Nissan dealer in Duisburg, where my son and I are staying for four nights. They took a look at the problem, told me the cost would be 800 euros and that the job could be done on Saturday morning. I bought the car in 2021 for £1271. I might as well buy another one. I explained and they understood. They did then see if a more effective temporary repair could be ...

Day Six – Wednesday 19th June 2024    Scotland 1 Switzerland 1    Cologne RheinEnergieStadion – 9pm local time    Having been to the east of Germany, it was time to criss-cross the country again as we headed from Leipzig to the industrial heartland of the west. Given the proximity of the four stadiums in the area, I’d secured Airbnb style accommodation (in spite of booking through a hotel website) for four nights in a place called Duisburg. Shortish trips to the relevant host city each day. What could go wrong?   Well, getting there in the first place. Engine-wise, my 14-year-old Nissan Micra has performed admirably on the trip so far. However, halfway to our destination, all of a sudden, the windscreen wipers stopped working. It had rained on and off during the morning, and they were working just fine. And then, they weren’t. I had a towel handy to reach out the window and sometimes just stuck my head out of the window for a clearer view. A lot of Ger...

Day Five – Tuesday 18th June 2024 Portugal 2 Czech Republic 1 Leipzig Red Bull Arena – 9pm local time   We were headed east, deep into the heart of what used to be East Germany. We had to checkout by 10am from Hamburg and could not check in until 4pm in Leipzig. So, we could take our time, even though it was another long drive after a day of rest from the autobahn. The weather was hot during our drive, although that would change later – Germany generally got very, very soaked and doubtless if you caught any of the buildup to the Turkey v Georgia game you’d have seen that was almost biblical in terms of rain. Our hotel, as such, was a long two storey building with each door having a pin code pad so you could access your room. No staff or reception of any description. It was clean and modern, so no complaints. We also found the pin code worked an hour before check-in, which was handy as it gave me some time to have a bit of a nap. It poured down heavily for 30 mintues once we were th...