Around Euro 2024 – Day Thirteen – Frankfurt

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 exactly difficult to negotiate, although I accept driving on the other side of the road in the city might be a challenge. 

 

The check in at our hotel in Frankfurt was from 4pm, which I couldn’t get my head around, but messaging them they said we might be able to check in early. We arrived at 3.15 but the place was like the Marie Celeste, so we just took the chance of leaving our valuables in the car and headed off to the ground for our 6pm kick off. That involved a bus to the local railway station, four stops into the centre and then another train to the stadium.

 

It was the penultimate opportunity for the German railway system to demonstrate it was not fit for purpose and it didn’t let us down. The wait for the train was interminable and by the time it finally rolled into the station, there were so many Romanian fans in their yellow shirts on the platform that my son and I only just squeezed on. They sang loud and packed as it was, I admit I have been on more crowded London Underground rush hour trains. All the same, it was a relief when we arrived, as well as a relief that at every stop the doors opened on the opposite side, so we didn’t get further crushed by people attempting to create enough space to join us. It’s not rocket science. You just run double the number of trains for the three hours before a game and the three hours after. You have a more frequent service, but nothing else changes. Germany has been a major disappointment on the infrastructure level. Getting to and from the matches on public transport has simply not been organised properly and this is a common complaint. Were the situation better, we might not have used our car to get near the stadiums at all. The lesson of this tournament is that if you are prepared to walk for 20 -25 minutes, there is always somewhere to park. And often you are walking that anyway just to make the journey on bus, tram and train, especially at the stadium end. 

The train station serving Frankfurt was a walk through the woods away from the stadium. I remember back in 2006 I could park the car in a road near the ground, which is surrounded by woods. I even slept in it overnight (it was an estate car with room for me to sleep diagonally with the back seats folded down). No chance of that option in 2024. Next to the station were some independent stalls selling food and drink. We had a decent sized slice of pizza each and a drink in the sunshine. It was very warm, and I went for water instead of beer, knowing I’d likely end up buying one in the stadium anyway. Sunshine and beer aren’t always the best combination. Our game at Frankfurt was the 6pm kick off between Slovakia and Romania.

 

On entering the checkpoints, a first for me. The guy searching queried the very modest-sized pair of binoculars I take to every game. He couldn’t get his head round the notion that these were not some kind of lethal weapon – ironic given they let people in with powerbanks for their phones, which can cause serious damage if used as projectiles. He called over a supervisor who put him straight. It reminded me a little of how officious they were in Qatar – where initially they were confiscating powerbanks. And I recall some Swiss fans having a plastic replica World Cup trophy being removed. Daftness.

 

As for Frankfurt, it’s a decent enough stadium, although the four-sided videoscreen hung in the middle is poor compared to the similar one in Gelsenkirchen. Not only that, but our view of it was obscured by flags hung from the roof. Once inside, we did a tour of the concourse round the upper tier as there is a nice view out between two towers set either side of the approach to the stadium from the tram line. This was a good memory from my previous visit here in 2006, to watch Holland play Argentina in a dull 0-0 World Cup group game. However, in 2024, this was blocked by huge UEFA banners, so you couldn’t see the view I’d hoped to. Oh well, we continued round towards our block and my son spotted the girl he’d made contact with at the food and drink outlet the evening before in Munich. I was amazed to hear people traveling from city to city for this work – I doubt they are being made much more than minimum wage. Anyhow, over the course of our time in the stadium, she gave him four beers and two hot dogs – for no charge. Not only that but he could trade in the beer glasses for the deposit. 

I had no idea this was going on and just bought my own drink – opting for the local apple cider for a change. It wasn’t all that. Our seats were in the upper tier at the side facing down on the penalty area where the Slovaks scored from a header in the first half. This was the end where the Romanian fans were gathered, although they had far more fans all over the stadium – the stands were a sea of yellow with the occasional cluster of blue, aside from the relatively small official Slovakian section at the other end. They wore a combination of white and blue shirts which didn’t help to identify them as a collective mass. At least you knew where you were with the Romanians. 

 

A draw suited both teams, although credit to both, they went for it, partly as insurance against the opposition scoring and eliminating them. The other game in the group between Belgium and Ukraine was also a draw. A defeat in Frankfurt would have meant a trip home for the losers. At one point in the second half, the heavens opened, with thundercracks. I felt sorry for the fans that got the full brunt of the rain that swept in. Even under cover in the upper tier, a gap between the roof and the stand meant we got wet enough for a few people to head for the concourse. My son wasn’t there at this point. He was more interested in collecting free food and drink from his new friend. 

A decent match to finish our tour of Germany with – a 1-1 draw with enough drama and the thunderstorm even added to it in a certain way. We did our final post-match glass collection and then decided to avoid the train going back, opting for the walk to the tram station. This wasn’t quite as bad as the train, and we made it to central Frankfurt, although they might have thought about running ‘specials’ that didn’t stop at the infinite number of stops on the way. It wasn’t as if people had room to get on. 

 

Ah well, once there, one last train story. There were four stops to the station where our hotel was based, and three different trains that did the route from the central station platform we were waiting on. Three came up on the board one after another, as the platform got fuller and fuller. No trains though. Notification of one on the display board disappeared, the next one came up, went, and was followed by a third. No information as to why no actual trains, only the promise of them, even in German. I asked a hi-viz jacketed security guy stopping people from… well, jumping onto the line from the looks of things, although you could have gone onto those tracks without any fear of danger given the lack of trains. He told me that the problem with the trains was the weather, and when I suggested getting a taxi might be the only solution he agreed. By that time, I was of the mind that the second coming of Jesus Christ was more likely on ‘gleis vier’ (platform four) than a train arriving before midnight.

We got to street level and took an Uber to the hotel, checked in, and were in a pretty basic room in time to catch a bit of the final matches, specifically the drama of the Turkey v Czech Republic game. Fair play to the ten-man Czechs for having a real go, although they really blew it by drawing against Georgia. Portugal playing a weakened team allowed the Georgia to go through. With an early start in the morning, I didn’t hang around too long before getting my head on the pillow for the final time on this trip. Our 13th night and the eighth different place we slept in.

 

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