Nuremberg v T&T 15.6.2006....so on to match 2 of the tournament for Liz and I . Missed out one important detail in the Frankfurt report and that was bumping into Frank Lampard Senior, had a chat with him, top bloke! So Nuremberg in a day this time. It was a 7.45am flight this time, so a 5.15 start was much better than the last one. We took off on time, landed at about 10.30am local time and where soon wandering down to our coaches to take us to the ground. It was already very very hot, so the air conditioned coach was very welcome. We where dropped off by the coach park and just after midday we where in the busy city centre. Nuremberg is a beautiful city, we took a stroll round, stopped for some food and refreshment and met up with one of the BBC journalists covering the tournament
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldcup/2006/06/making_his_mark.html
The main square was heaving with football fans, loads of good natured singing and partying, the T&T fans adding a carnival atmosphere. Next we headed up to the old castle, then back down to find a bar slightly away from the square for some extra cold drinks, it was now up to 32C, and very humid. We watched the world go by, the Police numbers where high, but they were out of your face with vans/cars parked
away from the bars. We saw quite a few English Police, who were much more high profile and they were talking to groups of lads, but it was all amicable and i think for once people thought the fans are being treated fairly. Soon it was time to head to the ground, we caught the packed mainline train to the stadium, another Brighton lad (Michael from Worthing), was sitting in the next group of seats, strange how you keep bumping into people despite the large crowds! We had to walk past the buildings/platforms built by the Nazis for the Nuremberg rallies.http://www.museen.nuernberg.de/english/english/reichsparteitag_e/index_reichsparteitag_e.html
They now form part of a museum as the Germans want to preserve the history, but showing the horrors of what was planned/stirred up by the Nazis. We walked past these sites and then it was into the stadium and into the England sections. The ground is very strange, 8 sided, 2 main
stands down each side and 3 stands at each end. There were quite a few empty seats around us, and talking to others after, that appeared to be the case all round, why??? I wont talk about the match, but WE WON, so that's enough for me. The poor 82 minutes were soon forgotten as we scored 2 good late goals. After the game we wandered back to our coaches, sat round with some nice cold drinks, before heading off at 9.30 to the airport. We saw Andy S (fellow listee), Nigel B who works for BA, 2 lads from the A21 supporters, so plenty of fellow Albion fans about. So the last 16 could be any combination of matches, I hope we win the group and play Ecuador in Stuttgart,so that probably means Germany in Munich!
COME ON ENGLAND
Mark R
Below are some pictures taken on my mobile phone
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