Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

Euro 2024 – The Round of 16 Wednesday 3rd July 2024 Back home after my trek round the group stages, and I had an appointment with an armchair in front of my TV for the first knockout round – two matches a day spread over Saturday to Tuesday.    After 36 games in 13 days to eliminate eight teams, it was down to business proper. Let’s face it, who had we lost that mattered, in terms of a potential winner so far? Croatia? Maybe. But aside from that, we saw the back of Hungary, Scotland, Albania, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. No likely winners amongst that lot.    Now four days, eight games and eight exits. No second chance. Much as the group stage produced some drama, mainly where underdogs were involved and England were not, this is where the tournament actually starts. Up until now it’s simply been a matter of jostling for position… and how well that worked out for England. All the best teams are in the other half of the draw, a little reminiscent of Gareth Southgate’s

Day Fourteen – Thursday 27th June 2024 Homeward Bound It was an early rise on our day of departure from Germany and the Euros. I was up around 6.30 and headed out to fill up with petrol locally, given the extortionate rates charged on autobahn service stations. We had the hotel breakfast, packed up whetever we’d brought into the room the evening before and were on the road by 8.30am.   Our ferry was at 4.35pm from Calais, the drive just under six hours. Still, it’s best to get there by an hour before as the passport checks take a while, and we had to have a couple of stops for me to stretch my legs. It was another warm day and bar a couple of predictable jams near bigger cities, the ride was pretty dull. I’d seen enough motorway in the previous fortnight for a lifetime, and convenient as they are, driving on them bores me to tears.    I admit to fatigue and had a Red Bull at the first stop, followed by a Cappuccino at the second. It was good to reach Calais 90 minutes before departure

Day Thirteen – Wednesday 26th June 2024    Romania 1 Slovakia 1    Frankfurt Waldstadion – 6pm local time     Mentally, I was already in wind down time. Two more long drives and I could spend the remainder of the tournament not having to think about how far I had to drive, where to park, and collecting empty glasses after the game. This morning’s drive was long enough – Munich to Frankfurt. After our hotel breakfast we were on the road with one stop to stretch my legs and have a coffee. There were two separate delays for roadworks, and with a manual car, at times like this you can see the benefits of an automatic gearbox. It was burning hot, and the car doesn’t have functioning AC. The engine temperature crept up to 33 degrees, which felt a bit alarming, but it didn’t give any hint of giving up the ghost, which would have been most likely in the stop-start of the roadworks. My son slept a fair bit of the way anyway. It’s a shame he hasn’t learned to drive yet. The autobahns aren’t exac