Football Crazy

It won’t really surprise many people that football doesn’t really interest me, really, at all (honest Guv!). I mean, come on …. a bunch of grown men, running around a grass field, wearing socks up to their knees and really short trousers, fighting with each other to chase a spherical ball and trying to put it through a rectangular frame at either end of the field, without touching the said ball with their hands … enough to keep you entertained for about 4.5 seconds before you realise that they get paid vast amounts of silly money to do this.

Well, I was in Frankfurt on Tuesday this week (13th June) and decided to meet up with Jeanne for dinner. We found a lovely little restaurant by the Main (the river that runs through Frankfurt) and enjoyed an extremely yummy salad with an even yummier dinner on a beautiful summer-like evening, accompanied by the setting sun. After dinner, we decided that ice cream was probably a good idea, so we walked towards the opera house where, I was assured, was the best ice cream in the city, made by the Dutch and sold by the Australians!

The further we walked, it became more and more obvious that there was something going on in the city. I mean, how could you really miss it – the football world cup was being held in Germany and the whole of the pedestrian zone in the middle of Frankfurt had turned into something that resembled what I can only imagine to be like a pilgrimage to Mecca – people from Brazil and Croatia walking up the hill toward the holy land that was the big television screen in the middle of the pedestrian zone. All the little restaurants and shops down the street had smaller television screen, of varying sizes, and these had just one thing in common – they were all tuned into the same channel – the footie match between Brazil and Croatia.

The atmosphere was pretty nice – lots of people wearing t-shirts from the teams that they were supporting, so needless to say there were many yellow shirts and red shirts (for Brazil and Croatia respectively). I noticed that there were far more red shirts than there were yellow ones, and this I realised was because, earlier on in the afternoon, the players from Togo & South Korea had been running around a patch of grass in their knee length socks, similar to the one that the Brazilians and Croatians were running around at the time and the South Koreans and managed to get the round ball through the correct rectangular frame more times than the players from Togo.

It took us a while to battle through the crowds towards the Australian ice cream shop, but given that we had already fought hard to get as far as we had, we were determined to complete the journey and claim the ice cream prize.

The ice cream was wonderful – mango and raspberry in a cone dipped in chocolate ……mmmmm. !

It was really difficult not to get caught up in the football atmosphere that had gripped this city. It so happened that Germany (the host country) was playing Poland the very next evening so I figured that going to watch the football (even though I really didn’t have much of an understanding of the game or the off side rule or even how many players from each team are meant to play (which I’ve been reliably informed is 11).

After having finished work around 8pm the following day (Wednesday), I put on my Johnny Wilkinson England Shirt (the only English sports t-shirt I have) and met up with a couple of friends in a pub close to the river, about 150meters from my old apartment in Frankfurt to watch the game.

I thought that the first half was pretty standard – not a lot happened. The Germans kicked the ball around for a little while and so did the Poles. Germany came close to scoring a few times but they never really managed to get the ball into the rectangular goal, in spite of having at least two or three opportunities - the Polish goal keeper did well to hold back the Germans. The first part of the second half was similar – more kicking of the ball, more chances squandered. I thought to myself that this game wasn’t really interesting – there had been no fights; no one had been sent off; no one had scored and we still hadn’t seen a streaker ! My longstanding view of football was justified !

Soon after, it all started to happen. One of the Polish players was sent off in the 83rd minute, to chants of “you’re going back to Poland” by the German fans. Then, in the first minute of stoppage time, Germany managed to score, which put them 1-0 ahead. Needless to say, everyone in the pub was on their feet and hugging and kissing each other as well….and then the party began.

We walked down the street and it was swarming with people. In the 5 months that I lived in the neighbourhood, I’ve never seen that many people there by a long shot ! There were flags being waved, car horns being tooted and fans chanting, “we’re going to Berlin!” The atmosphere was pretty euphoric – similar to that at the Roy-Tho (for those of you that don’t know what the Roy-Tho is, it’s an Annual interschool cricket match played in Colombo, SriLanka between my secondary school St.Thomas’ Collage and our arch rival Royal College! The atmosphere there is pretty amazing too !)

We continued our walk towards the riverfront through the celebrating Germans where we encountered a sea of yellow, black and red. There were fans from all over the place – Ireland, England, Croatia, Brazil, Italy Holland, Japan, SouthKorea in addition to the German and the Polish fans. The people were all shoulder to shoulder revelling in the atmosphere and drinking lots of beer from the beer gardens that were by the water. It’s pretty hard to describe what it was like, but I did take some pictures which really don’t do justice to the sense of excitement and camaraderie that was there.


Here are some of the pics that I took shortly after the Germany Poland game.




Some of the German fans with the German Flag




Crazy fan with crazy hat - also known as Football Head !




A disappointed Polish Supporter :-(




Some of the crowds by the river




More crowds by the Main




So, has my position about football changed? Probably. I still don’t understand the whole things about wearing socks upto your knees and shouting at the ref, but I think it’s fair to say that my curiosity has been aroused. I will most likely follow Germany’s and England’s progress through this world cup, and reserve judgement until then.