Posted on June 28, 2010 by stuartnoel
I became a realist England fan about 18 months ago. I missed only two away games (excluding the farce in Trinidad & Tobago) in over 5 years and during that period bought my numerous away shirts, was fleeced by my own FA over things such as ticket prices (more expensive to watch a friendly v Slovenia at Wembley than the competitive game against Croatia for instance, or the 300% mark up on the home versus away tickets in Moscow in October 2007) and even turned out on a number of occasions for the official England Fans Veterans team.
Filed under: Bundesliga, Croatia, England, England Games, Euro2008, Germany, World Cup | Tagged: England, Germany, Under 21, World Cup Failure | 13 Comments »
Posted on June 27, 2010 by stuartnoel
The Germans can be a bit shy though, and so Hamburg doesn’t thrust its naked women down your throat in such a way as Amsterdam does. You have to go looking for it, and all for the sake of research, that is exactly what I did. The street in question is sat back from the Reeperbahn, and is called Herbertsrasse. You can easily find it – it has a huge concrete barrier at each end stopping any casual voyeurs and packs of Balkan prostitutes trying to stop you walking down it, offering their “World Cup special” or “Hatrick of pleasure” at establishments round the corne
Filed under: England Games, Germany, World Cup | Tagged: Cologne, Ecuador, England, Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Stuttgart, World Cup 2006 | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 15, 2010 by stuartnoel
Now, it would be rude not to go with the tournament spitting distance away. And here was the first problem, dare I say contraversay. Ticket sales. FIFA decided to give the French organising committee first dibs on the tickets, which meant that if you had a French address you got to buy them prior to anyone else. And this was the days before the internet, so it was by phone only. Of course all of those tickets ended up on the black market, and to try and prevent English fans travelling to France to buy tickets, the Government produced a wonderful little film showing an England fan, delighted with buying a ticket from a local, being denied access to the stadium. It worked really well as over 60,000 English fans headed across the channel in June 1998, with only a tiny fraction actually having tickets.
Filed under: England, England Games, France, World Cup | Tagged: 1998 World Cup, England, France 98, Ronaldo, Scotland, Zidane | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 10, 2010 by stuartnoel
The tournament kicked off with World Cup Champions Argentina taking on the improving minnows of Cameroon on a sunny evening in Milan’s San Siro. As with the last three tournaments there was a shock on the cards as the South Americans fell behind to Francois Oman-Biyk’s header in the 67th minute that keeper Pumpido could only fumble into the net. However the story of the game has to be the “robust” tackling of the Africans that led to two red cards, including possibly the worst tackle in the tournament’s history by Benjamin Massing. I still laugh at his stocking’d feet kick out at the on rushing Argentina players – pure quality.
Filed under: Argentina, England, England Games, European Football, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, World Cup | Tagged: 1990 World Cup, Argentina, England, Italy, West Germany | 1 Comment »
Posted on June 7, 2010 by stuartnoel
As if a World Cup and 18 O-Level exams weren’t enough of a distraction for me I also had two other “vices” I was trying to control. I had developed a nasty 10 Marlboro’s a day habit (I challenge any boy under the age of 16 to say hand on heart that they have never smoked) which I was successfully keeping secret from my parents, although I was having to bribe my brother not to tell them and I had also got a girlfriend. Well, not a proper one. She was a local girl, and one looking back now would be called a “slapper”. But with all those raging hormones and the odd furtive look at the fine collection of magazines my eldest brother, God rest his soul, had managed to procure and hide under his mattress I was going to take anything on offer.
Filed under: Argentina, Denmark, England, Germany, South America, World Cup | Tagged: 1986 World Cup, Argentina, England, Mexico, Scotland | Leave a Comment »
