km 3887
Wednesday 21st June was the day that the Dutch invaded Frankfurt. From the dikes and dams they came, in their buses, camper vans and dutchmobiles. Shirts, shoes, socks trousers, crop-tops, bikinis and hats. Clogs, angel wings, milkmaid wigs & windmills, the whole city was just Orange.
Really I’ve never seen anything like it. Orange is a pretty stand out colour in any situation, so when there’s 50,000 Dutchmen all dressed head to toe in it you can imagine the effect. And it wasn’t just the colour, they had totally taken over the town. They brought their own beer tents with “Hupp Holland” slogans, and there own disco buses and food stalls. And then, not content with just taking over the town, they were stealing the songs and chants of the German fans and turning it into there own Dutch Version. Which according to Frank sounds like “Drunk German”.
It was tough for my German mates who live here. They were grinning and bearing it, after all this is the World cup, all the nations are friends and everyone loves each other (!), but there were a few phrases along the lines of “There are too many bloody Dutchmen in my city!”
The Argentines in their blue and white stripes were almost lost in the Orange sea, you could only make them out when they clustered together in a big group, singing there distinctive chants and waving their flags high.
So everywhere Dutch … apart from on the pitch, where it was definitely blue & white. From where I was stood (in a packed out Frankfurt FanFest next to a particularly drunk group of young Holland fans), Argentina were clearly the better side, taking the game to Holland and being unlucky not to score. Tevez had a particularly good game I thought. Apart from a good spell in the middle of the second half, and then late on as they tried to get the goal to win the group, Holland really looked second best. Think they’ll have to raise their game considerably to get past Portugal in the Round of 16.
After the game the orange party continued, with a blue and white streak thrown in now and then. Just outside the FanFest near one of the bridges it got a little ‘boisterous’. A few fans had climbed up the lampposts and traffic lights and were waving scarves and flags and a group of Argentines were celebrating in the road, joined by some Dutchmen. Suddenly there was a local bus which had come across the bridge and was trying to drive through the crowd. Of course everyone had to start dancing around and in front of the bus, slapping on the windows. The driver was understandably shit scared, but he just kept cool and drove slowly on. Then the crowd started shaking the it from side to side, lightly at first but then more and more, until it was really rocking. It was all getting a little out of hand, when suddenly the German police showed up and forced everyone away from the bus before escorting it on. There was nothing malicious in it, only high spirits, but it shows how easy things can spiral out of control sometimes.
That was the Wednesday. Thursday was another day, another game, another atmosphere. Me and Dirk headed down to Stuttgart to catch the Group F encounter between Australia and Croatia. I’d been in the city of all the Aussie games so far, so thought I’d continue the streak and get over to support them in the big decider. One of the downsides of travelling around so much is inevitably you end up missing a few games, and that happened yesterday as we were on the road for the Italy v Czech and Ghana v USA games. But as soon as the games finished we knew the result. Not from listening to the radio news, or SMS updates or anything like that. No, because 5 minutes after the final whistle the roads were full of Italians driving like nutcases, beeping horns and hanging out of the car windows flying their huge red, white and green flags. As we arrived in Stuttgart and hit the match traffic they were all getting out of their cars and dancing in the streets. They’d only won the group, imagine what it’s gonna be like if they go on to win the whole tournament! Later on we found out that Ghana’s 2-1 result had given them the second place, nice to have an African team in the last 16.
Frankfurt had been orange the day before, this time it was Stuttgarts turn, this time the colour was red and white. Not sure if there were as many as the Dutch, and the colour isn’t quite as standout, but the place was brimful of Croatians. Some had probably made the journey west, but probably the majority were Germans living here with Croat heritage. Whatever they were certainly outnumbering the Aussies, probably more than 10 to 1, although the Southern Cross and the kangaroos were definitely around. As we walked through the centre we passed the hotel where the Croats must of been staying, there was a huge crowd gathered round a bus with the Croat flag painted on. As we got close the Croatian coach was the last man on, and with the crowd giving a huge cheer as the bus pulled away, the team headed off to the stadium.
The difference in the atmosphere at this game was that this time there was an edge to proceedings. One of the teams would definitely go out of the tournament, a draw or a win for the Aussies would take them through to meet Italy, a Croat win would see them qualify in second. As well, it has to be said fact that a large group of Croats can be quite an intimidating bunch. There were some big lads walking about that you really wouldn’t want to mess with. Coupled with the fact that they have a very distinct language that has no relation to Latin or Germanic tongues, so you can’t understand any of the conversation flying about you, it was definitley a day to watch yourself. I soon elected to support the Aussies in a more ‘low key’ manner than the other games!
It looked after two minutes of the game that supporting the Aussies might just be a token gesture, after the Croatians got of to a flyer with a free kick from the edge of the box. The Croat fans went crazy, red flares flying alongside the flags. I thought they might run away with it then. But the Socceroos took control of the game then, and pulled deservedly level with a penalty towards the end of the first half. It was looking like a tense second half. And when Kalac, the Aussie Keeper decided to give the Croats a helping hand by parrying snapshot into the net, it looked liked it was going time for Australia to head back to the soccer outback. The Croatian fans were already celebrating, when suddenly Harry Kewell pounces on the ball and rams it into the back of the net. The Aussie fans at the front went wild, i tried to keep the celebration quiet being surrounded by lots of red and white shirts. Then it was a nerve wracking last 15 minutes, for the Aussies as they tried to hang on, Graham Poll handing out a couple of red cards, and for me, as a couple of times a Croat guy in front of me turned round and said something unintelligible right in front of my face. Time to move away a little bit! Then the flash of another red card and it was all over. Australia had made it to the last 16!
There were no problems after the game, the Croatian fans were obviously gutted, but they took it pretty well and there were a fair few dancing in the street with some Ghana fans after the game. The only place were it did start to look a little ugly was on the main square, where some Aussie fans were celebrating loudly on the town hall steps, and a large group Croats had gathered beneath there flag and were chanting back at them. Somebody threw a box, and for a moment it all looked a little dodgy, but after a few moments it calmed down again. Lets hope that the FanFest keeps trouble free over the next couple of weeks. The problem now is that the atmospheres will be much more tense now teams are starting to go out of the tournament, and it only take something small to kick off trouble. Fingers crossed it’ll all stay good.
So we’ve almost got the full round of 16 decided. Ukraine have just wrapped up second spot in Group H, now all that’s left is to finalise Group G and we have the full line up. And if the Swiss beat the Koreans and win the group then I win some money ! Hupp Schweiz !
This evening we’re off to the Langen Apple Wine festival, which is a big event here, everyone makes sure there in town for it. Sounds like it should be good fun. Prost !