Around Euro 2024 – Day Fourteen – From Frankfurt to London

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 where we waited for a while in the queue until they opened the drive through check-in, followed by two passport checks and a brief random inspection of our vehicle. Given the intensity of the search, I figure they were just checking to see if we were smuggling a third person across the channel. 

 

Once we disembarked at Dover, it was a race to drop my son off before making it on time to a Walthamstow Rock’n’Roll Book Club event where one time PIL bass player Jah Wobble was interviewed by ex-Loaded / NME / FourFourTwo editor James Brown. A couple of former Gooner contributors were there – Simon Cardwell, who helps organise the events, and Phil Venton, who was mainly a proofer, but did the odd piece. A bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale went down very smoothly after the rush to make it on time, which I did by about two minutes. 

 

The real hero of the day was my old motor though – sure, there were the issues with the windscreen wipers and the windscreen when we were in Germany, but the engine? Not a word of complaint. Amazing. Drank enough petrol, but needs must. There were a good few long trips. 

 

As for football and the group stage of the tournament – there was certainly a decent amount of drama, with the exception of England’s group of course, even if only eight teams were actually sent home at the end of it. There were hardly any dead rubber matches, and when Spain and Portugal played their final games having already won their groups, the opposition still had something to play for. 

 

England of course got through, somehow winning their group despite being generally appalling. Still, tournament football is about getting to the knockout stages, remaining unbeaten and if needed, being handy with penalty kicks. Italy didn’t win a match in 120 minutes after the quarter finals last time around, but still lifted the trophy. So, I haven’t given up on the possibility England might get lucky, although I grant you, it feels like a long shot.

 

As for the difference between being there and on watching it on TV, it’s the palpable tension in the stadium.  Overall, there were far more fans of the competing countries than at previous tournaments – more from each nation are traveling in far greater numbers. Witness the sheer number of estimated Scots, at least ten times more than had match tickets. It will be interesting to see if the English Channel proves a barrier to continental support in 2028 – Germany is easy to reach by road from much of mainland Europe and at matches where we parked, it was obvious a good number of each team’s supporters had travelled by car. The match tickets were often not cheap but if you are only seeing your team then the ticket price is not such a barrier. It's the like of football tourists like me who suffer more on that score. People spend fortunes on beer and food, but it’s a one-off. I was often struck by the number of undrunk beers and cokes I saw left behind after the game.

One aspect of these finals that raised an eyebrow was the amount of glass throwing at corner takers or injured players lying near the touchline. Pretty harmless if the plastic glass is empty, but three quarters full, these things can hurt. I have no idea if CCTV was used, although somehow I doubt it. Beer throwing itself has become a thing when goals are celebrated, so in the cheaper seats, there is a good chance of a beer shower. It’s bad enough underfoot, the stuff is sticky as hell and there was plenty of beer simply kicked over as people walked through to their seat in a row. And leg room can be very tight – not least in Berlin where the final will take place. 

 

Another thing that I noticed was that in the officially allocated supporters sections for each country you’d often see pockets of fans with opposition shirts. The only way this can happen is the re-sale market. It’s a wonder there weren’t more punch ups. 

 

The group stage made for a good tournament, with not too many dull games, in very decent stadiums, although getting to and from them is something that is very much a minus mark for the hosts. I’ve been reminded since my return to the UK that car parking was actually available for the matches at the stadiums if you booked in advance at a cost of €25, although if you have the option of parking 20 minutes’ walk away, then you’re going to save money. With hindsight, I’d say my only regret was not using the car more often to get to games, but on occasion, my non-functioning windscreen wipers were a factor there. 

 

As for Germany – a big country – very green and spread out. The sense of civic pride is admirable but can get a little OTT. The word German ‘gnau’ re-entered my consciousness during this trip – meaning exactly, but it’s more nuanced than that. Precision is another way of putting it, a certain way of doing things. For example, the cars having to be parked facing the same direction. I guess it fosters a sense of civic pride, and looking at the amount of rubbish discarded everywhere and anywhere back in London, I am not going to knock that. The environment does seem to matter more in Germany in multiple ways. I could picture myself living there from April to October except for one thing – the language – it’s just too alien. I tried to learn some German for about 5 weeks before making the trip, but the fact that they have three versions of ‘the’ did my head in. Thank God English is the international language. 

Anyhow, the trip is over. It was exhausting, but an experience I don’t regret. I saw games in five stadiums I’d not experienced before, of which Leipzig and Hamburg were my favourites. Munich is an excellent stadium to watch a game of football also, but I like the smaller scale of the former two. Berlin, although fantastic on the outside, is a terrible place to watch football, as any stadium with an athletics track invariably is.

 

I spent an extended amount of time with my son, which hasn’t happened for a good few years, and we avoided arguing, even if I did have to bite my tongue once or twice. I don’t always do the Euros, but I did every stadium in Portugal 2004, France 2016 and now Germany 2024. 2028, I suspect I’ll be in front of the TV, but Italy and Turkey in 2032 definitely appeals. Hopefully my son will have learned to drive by then and we’ll be renting an air-conditioned car.

I’ll do four more blogs on the tournament after the last 16, the quarter finals, the semi-finals and the final. They won’t be too long, but will just reflect my thoughts on the matches. It’s nice to be home.

 

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If you like this kind of thing, you can always revisit my Qatar 2022 blog entries - just search for 'Qatar 2022' in the labels