Berlin World Cup trip, June 2006.
Who's who:
Gus
Occupation: Test Analyst
Likes: Looking back to the Good Old Days, Curly Wurly and Caramac bars, Anything free, His 2 greyhounds, Any music by Keane
Dislikes: Smoking, Poor service, Losing Bets, Never having enough money
Tony
Occupation: Patient Attendant
Likes: Going to Sporting Events, Pub Quizzes, Blackpool Football Club, Tetley Beer, Push the Button
Dislikes: Getting a £2 coin with his change, Girls with Tattoos, People standing in front of him at football matches, Not being able to go out the same way as he went in
Dave
Occupation: Call Centre Betting Operator
Likes: Practical Jokes, The Internet, His Job, Brechin City, Special Offers
Dislikes: Litter louts, Owing Money, Changes to Plans
Robin
Occupation: Customer Service Call Centre Manager
Likes: Pub Quizzes, Crystal Palace, Leeds United, Drinking in Headingley
Dislikes: Star Wars, Blackpool
Kev
Occupation: Wages Clerk
Likes: Betting Arbs, Greyhound Racing, Chess, Leeds United (but not enough to pay their admission prices!), Getting a large bet on at Good Odds
Dislikes: His bet being refused, Losing out on an argument about having his bet refused, Telling a Bookmaker to close his account for refusing his bet and then having to call to re-open it, Noisy People
Ted
Occupation: Self Employed Bookkeeper and Accountant
Likes: Film making, Website design, Vimto, Caramac, Hull City and Kaiser Chiefs
Dislikes: Tote Monitors changing markets every 10 seconds. Overblown websites taking ages to download and flash frontpages
Wednesday 21st June
A bright sunny morning. All 6 of us met up at Ted and my mum's house in Bardsey for the mini bus pick up to Newcastle Airport, or Ponteland airport as Tony insisted on calling it. We'd travelled a couple of miles when I received a call from my mum advising that a jacket containing a wallet had been left behind.
Kev realised it was his jacket straight away and as it contained all his holiday money we had to persuade the mini bus driver to go back for it.
Typical Kev he nearly caused my mum to have a heart attack when we went over to Ireland last year and forgot his passport, causing a dash round Leeds at rush hour and now he'd done something similar. Without mobile phones he'd have been sunk.
A feature of our breaks is that Ted videos everything and this was no exception. Nobody ever seems to see the films, but Ted somewhere has probably got about 30 hours of tape from previous trips.
Tony made everybody laugh first by commenting on the fact that it looked like it might rain soon. Outside the sun continued shining, but Tony genuinely didn't realise that the mini bus had tinted windows.
Tony also asked me what I was doing 2 years ago today and when I confirmed I couldn't recall he said that England beat Croatia 4-2 at Euro 2004 and he'd met Stuart Hall, the former It's a Knockout presenter, in the Skyrack in Headingley and got him to call me at home and talk about Hull City. As always I remembered about it when he told me, but would never have known the date.
Kev mentioned that he'd had a strange call at work from somebody he didn't know called Brian who also worked for the council and knew that he liked chess. He felt a bit spooked that this person knew so much about him until I pointed out I'd seen Brian in the Ladbrokes at Seacroft earlier in the week, having not seen him for sometime and mentioned the website to him.
Poor Kevin for some reason had never read this website so wasn't aware of what had been written about him.
We also talked about Troy Jenkins an American journalist who had read my website and sent some good comments making a particular comment "What a character Tony sounds like".
Tony mentioned another meaningless fact that it was 20 years ago on 7th June that the George Pub got a TV installed for the 1986 World Cup.
I mentioned that I'd had £50 on there being less than 645 corners in the whole of the World Cup and that every time one is given away I shout at the TV. In the Sweden v England game the previous day I moaned that there had been 18 corners and most of them could have been avoided.
Ted advised he'd bet on there being more than 23 disallowed goals and more than 4.5 goals in extra time for the tournament. He'd also had a small bet on South Korea qualifying for the next round.
Robin talked about his vow never to visit Blackpool in his life (One of my favourite places in the world by the way!) or go and see a Star Wars movie. A Star Wars convention in Blackpool looks unlikely for him then.
Dave as usual was making quick fire comments which involved responding with "Howzat" whenever cricket was mentioned or "do you think anything will develop?" when photography was mentioned or "it's so rough there they play tig with chisels" when talk switched to a dodgy area. And then moaned that he'd never seen his football team Brechin City ever win, despite going on numerous trips to Scotland.
Kev moaned about how the bookmakers always seem to mess him about when he "only" wants £50 each way on a 33-1 shot by only accepting £10 or nothing at all. I also complained that I didn't understand how some punters got the big bets on that you see mentioned in the newspapers as I once wanted £120 on Dumbarton at 7-2 to win the Scottish League Division 2 in August a full 9 months before the season ended and was restricted to £100.
Mention was made that of the 6 of us only Robin, Tony and me had tickets for the Ukraine v Tunisia game on 23rd June in the Olympic stadium in Berlin. This was because there was a maximum of 4 tickets per person for each game and payment had to be made by Mastercard. Ted's Mastercard was rejected for Dave, Kev and his own ticket in January and no further tickets became available on the Fifa website.
I'd managed to secure 2 tickets on e-bay earlier in the week though which we'd agreed could go to Ted and Dave, although it sounded slightly dodgy in that the seller was going to transfer the tickets to Ted and Dave's name and we'd have to pick them up at the stadium..
We also talked about the past a lot, a feature of our life when you've got the assistance of Tony's memory and things like the old Batman film and why there was never a car on the road near Batman's cave or why nobody recognised who Robin really was as his mask was so small.
Oh and why do mums use their mobile phones when they take their children to school and then complain about a mast being built nearby that will make the reception better? And how come people complaining about roads being built seem to travel all around the country in mobile homes?
And why does Clive Tyldesley always mention "picked his pocket" in his commentaries? And wouldn't it be good if he made this comment about the Hull City player Craig Fagan?
It all made the mini bus driver smile.
We were once on a coach trip to the Arc de Triomphe horse race and had a group of women from Harrogate sat behind us. At the motorway services one of them approached us and said "do you know, you lot have talked the biggest load of nonsense I've ever heard in my life". It's still the case!
And so after other meaningless conversation we flew from "Ponteland" airport to Berlin and were driven from Berlin airport to our hostel, the A & O Friedrichshain Kreuzberg, by a very friendly driver who spoke perfect English and not surprisingly talked about football most of the time.
As we got out at the hostel the driver smiled and we became aware that everybody else staying was much younger than us. We felt like Rodney in Only Fools and Horses when he discovered he'd won an Under 14 painting competition.
It didn't get better at reception as the Dutch girl who checked us in only looked about 16 and had a really low top shirt on.
It was a strange check in because she only spoke broken English and I kept asking her to repeat details. It was slow going, but definitely not caused by the low top as the others seemed to suggest afterwards.
Anyway she told us the manager liked the English and as a result gave us free sheets and towels (usual cost 4 Euros) and we were directed to dormitory 011 a 6 berth mixed dorm with en suite facilities. Not before we'd tried to break in to dormitory 001 though because of some poor writing.
Inside the dormitory were 3 bunk beds and a small toilet and shower room. It looked ideal for the price of just 100 Euros each for the 4 nights although there were a few unfair comparisons to Prisoner of War Barracks.
It was after unpacking that we went to the bar and met Bernadette, a lone Australian traveller who would figure in our lives for the next few days. Tony let us down though with his party piece of telling people what was Number 1 on their birthday. For some reason he just couldn't recall what was Number 1 on 7th April 1964.
This was unheard of for Tony and he took a lot of flak about it for the rest of the holiday with Dave in particular accusing him of being a fraudster several times. (It was Can't buy me love by the Beatles in case you were wondering).
Usually on our trips I take charge of the drinks kitty and plan on where to go, but our new recruit Robin (or reliant Robin as Dave kept calling him) was up for this and led us through the streets of East Berlin until we reached an Italian bar restaurant that we liked the look of.
This was our first indication as to how cheap some of the prices were in East Berlin as Pizzas were only 3.50 Euros (just over £2) and Pasta dishes were only 5 Euros.
Robin ordered the meals and drinks in basic German and the waitress seemed to be pleased that she didn't have to speak English.
Ted described his Chicken Tagliatelle as the best he'd ever had and compared the chicken taste to how it used to be in the UK before factory farming took over.
We laughed at the advert on TV for a programme called Inspector Barnaby which was Midsommer Murders with sub titles. The Germans obviously like the English ways.
After eating our meals some girls came round to our table with a laptop and tried encouraging us to open betting accounts with a German company and bet on the World Cup.
It was obvious that they didn't really follow betting and Dave cruelly asked whether they accepted bets on Half time / Full time or Scorecasts which just seemed to leave them baffled.
I'm obviously a sucker for pretty girls and began giving my name, address and telephone number to them which they keyed in to the laptop.
Suddenly there was uproar in the bar as the game between Argentina and Holland had started and the plasma TV screen had become scrambled. The manager of the bar came out and shouted at the girls to leave as their laptop was interfering with the screen. And off they went with my personal details in their laptop never to be seen again.
The conversation in the bar switched to us winding Dave up. Dave is always going on the Betfair chat forum and chatting about racing and arguing with other people's views, even if he agrees with them.
A few months ago using one of his chat names Huggy he'd made some comments about our greyhound Top Commentary on how it would win a particular race.
Kev registered on Betfair under the name of Lemon Drop Kid and started accusing Huggy of loving the dog and that really it was a dodgy dog, owned by dodgy owners and trained by a dodgy trainer. Huggy had fought our corner, but you could tell from his responses some of the comments had got to him.
One time at my house watching greyhound racing on TV, we'd tried to own up to Dave by passing Lemon drops around. He'd still not twigged, but in Berlin we'd dropped a few too many hints and he was genuinely shocked when he realised who the Lemon Drop Kid was.
After a lot of laughter Dave seemed to gather his thoughts and said he knew something that would shock Ted and me about our website. Still we didn't understand what he was on about until he mentioned that Tony was a real character.
It suddenly hit us, Dave was in fact Troy Jenkins the "American journalist" who'd written to Ted telling him how much he loved the website.
Absolutely incredible! And the realisation of how we'd all been winding each other up raised the noise level further causing the restaurant manager to warn us to be quiet.
Back at the hostel afterwards I bought an Internet token to try and see where we were in trying to get tickets to the Ukraine v Tunisia game for Ted and Dave. I'd been the top bidder on e-bay for 2 tickets for the game at £55 each, but the seller had to transfer the name details with Fifa.
The hostel had 4 Internet terminals, but they were all a nightmare to use. The letters and characters were all in different places to the keyboards in the UK. 2 of them were Chinese keyboards, whilst the other 2 were German.
As my passwords involve the top characters on a UK keyboard it became essential to find out what these characters were and where they appear on a German or Chinese keyboard.
Fortunately an English person nearby was using his laptop and I carefully wrote the characters down.
More frustration though as I realised that the keyboard I was using didn't have an S, W or X working. I couldn't switch terminals as these were now all busy so had to copy and paste these letters from other parts of the terminal. It was 15 minutes before I finally signed in to my e-mails and E-Bay and found there was no news on whether the transfer of names had gone ahead or not.
I needed a drink after this and we all stayed up until 3.00 am even though we were all so tired.
Thursday 22nd June
After a hot and sweaty night in our dorm (and that's just from sleeping) we all had to wait patiently for a shower. "Do strangers of both sex really share rooms like this?" I questioned.
We went for breakfast in the kitchen area. At 5 Euro it seemed a bit overpriced compared to the night before meals and consisted of bread rolls, jam, meat, cheese and boiled eggs. It was good to speak to a few more people staying at the hostel though and get to know them.
"Guess what happened 20 years ago today" said Tony before going on to tell us that Maradonna had scored his "hand of god" goal. We all then recalled where we were when this happened.
"Guess what happened this year" I said. "Somebody hasn't brought any shorts to wear and the temperature is expected to be about 30 degrees for the next few days". This was a reference to Tony who just hadn't thought about the possibility of Berlin being hot.
"Twenty one years ago today I was at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool to see the Style Council and the beer was only 66p a pint" said Tony with another one of his classic meaningless memory pieces.
It was back on the Internet then, but still no news about the World Cup tickets.
The football fixtures had just come out for season 2006-2007 so I printed the Hull City and Blackpool fixtures.
Barnsley home 8th August, Leicester away 12th September, Norwich away 25th November, Leeds at home 31st January were all noted as possible for Hull City, whilst Yeovil v Blackpool on 17th March was a fixture I'd already talked about to Tony as we could get a cheap flight to Exeter and then hire a car.
There was disappointment that we probably wouldn't be able to go to the Southend game on 31st October as it was midweek. The last time I went to "Saafend" with Tony was just a couple of years ago and we both recalled the snack bar staff there who'd made us laugh with their jokes.
"I don't believe this" said Dave. "We're in Berlin for the Worlds biggest football event and you 2 are complaining that you won't be able to go to Southend later in the year"
We'd decided we'd make our way to the Olympic stadium at the other side of Berlin to see if the tickets for Ted and Dave had been transferred to their name. Dave thought it sounded like a con and was betting 33-1 that the tickets were genuine.
The nearest train station to our hostel was Ostkreuz and it just looked like the station in the Great Escape film so there were a few comments of "Good luck" and "Thank you" being made.
A 3 day ticket on all the public transport in Berlin was called a Welcome card and cost 20 Euro, but if your budget is tight don't bother buying a ticket as there are no barriers anywhere and no one will check you have a ticket.
At the deserted Olympic stadium we had to walk all the way round the ground till we got to the Ticket marquee and joined the Transferred tickets queue.
When it came to our turn I gave a hand written note to the woman with Ted and Dave's details on and asked if there were any tickets transferred to them from "my friend" Mr Osgood.
Having checked her screen and looked at us blankly Dave commented that the odds of getting the tickets had gone out to 50-1 and we all talked about how we were probably going to have to get tickets on the black market.
Suddenly though the woman said "Could it be a Mr Hosgood that owned the tickets?" "Yes that's his full name" I said convincingly and she proceeded to photocopy Ted and Dave's passports and printed 2 tickets out.
Only Kev now remained without a ticket for the game and despite an attempt by touts outside to sell a 100 Euro ticket for 150 Euro Kev decided that he wasn't willing to pay this sort of price.
Ted and Dave though were delighted.
It was on to the Fanfest in the centre of Berlin next. A 2 mile stretch of road leading from the Brandenberg Gate had been cordoned off and along it were all sorts of football and food stalls as well as prepared beaches and palm trees and lots of bars. Throughout the Fanfest loud music was blasting out helping to create a buzzing atmosphere. Bob Sinclair and Love Generation was one song that was played a lot. Music was a feature of the World Cup as a whole and reminded me of the Florida Theme Parks which also used music to enhance the atmosphere.
It was whilst kicking penalties against a goal with electronic sensors we noticed Bernadette in her Australian top eating some Asian food. We stopped to chat and promised to meet up with her later on to watch the Australia v Croatia game where Australia needed at least a draw to qualify for the next phase.
We wandered down the Fanfest and out in to the square near the Brandenberg Gate and to the BBC studio that we'd all seen Gary Lineker on all the BBC World Cup programmes. There was no sign of anyone famous when we went past though.
It was shortly after this that we lost Dave. He'd called in to a Tourist Information shop for some water whilst we'd all just continued walking past the British Embassy and on to the Jewish memorial. At the time we didn't realise it was the Jewish memorial though and proceeded to jump from one piece of stone to another before being advised by security staff to stop doing so.
We back tracked a little to try and find Dave and even played back Ted's video, but couldn't determine exactly where he might be so decided to go back in to the Fanfest to watch the Czech v Italy game believing that Dave would probably find us there.
In the Fanfest the Italians outnumbered the Czech fans by about 2 to 1, but both sets of fans as well as the neutrals were making a lot of noise.
Part the way through the game Dave turned up and was not happy that we'd left him mentioning that we should have gone back to where we were last all together as he'd been waiting at the Tourist Information shop for 45 minutes.
None of us recalled this though and Ted's video appeared to show that Dave, or someone that looked like him was with us at the British Embassy. We may never know the outcome as we never seem to see Ted's video, but the latest betting is 9-4 Dave was on the video and 1-3 that he wasn't.
Italy beat the Czechs 2-0 to reach the next round and the Italian fans celebrated as if they'd won the World Cup.
I was more concerned that the World Cup corner count was now averaging 11 a game and needed to be about 10 for my bet to win.
Back to the hostel we quickly freshened up and went out to a restaurant where we hoped to see the Australia v Croatia game. No luck though as every bar and restaurant had the Brazil v Japan game on which kicked off at the same time.
Never mind though we thought as there were still 20 minutes to kick off so we could eat our food and get back to the hostel to see most of the Australia game. If only!
Robin made the orders in his improving German, but nearly an hour later, 8 corners and 35 minutes of the Brazil game had gone and still our meals hadn't arrived. Kev in particular was getting annoyed as he'd hardly eaten all day.
He wanted odds on his meal being the last to arrive and the price I offered was 4-1, before Robin, Tony and Dave's meals arrived bringing a reduction in the odds to 13-8.
We were trying to clarify the rules of the bet i.e the last plate to hit the table, but no assistance to be given to the waitress, when Ted's and my meals were placed before us. It was a full 3 minutes before Kev's meal arrived leaving him fuming.
The German waitress had already annoyed him by not putting the Australia game on the TV and for wearing an Italian shirt just because she liked Totti so it's fair to say this wasn't Kev's favourite restaurant.
There were only 20 minutes of the Australia game left when we arrived back at the hostel to find groups of Australian and Croatian fans, including Bernadette watching the game. The score at the time was 1-1.
Croatia scored to go 2-1 ahead and the Croatian fans celebrated believing they were through to the next round.
The Australian fans looked to have been drinking all day and were in a right state, shouting friendly abuse to the Croatians and generally staggering about to get more drinks.
Then, incredibly Harry Kewell got a very late goal to bring the score to 2-2 and the Australians were banging the tables and chairs and singing Waltzing Matilda.
As virtually all the people in the hostel were cheering Australia the place just went wild from the late goal to the final whistle. The Australians staggered on to the tables, beer bottles in hand and continued singing.
It was a bad result for me as I'd laid Tony £10 at 3-1 for Australia to qualify for the next round, but when you're so drunk and people are celebrating all around you the loss didn't seem to matter so much.
Very soon the Croatians left the bar and Bernadette came over to apologise for how her fellow Australians had behaved. To be honest though we just thought it was all great fun.
Some Italian fans arrived in the bar still celebrating their win earlier in the day. I don't quite know how it came about, but we all sang Shaddap Your Face, the Joe Dolce song from 1981 at the Italians.
Perhaps surprisingly the Italians took it well and came over to talk to us, in English of course. One of them claimed to be a footballer for Bologna, but from the state of him this hardly seemed plausible. However we got talking and mentioned that Italy would now play Australia in the next round and that it had been 24 years since they'd last won the World Cup. The same length of time between Brazil winning their second and third World Cup.
We were then interrupted by a young lad from Finland who mentioned that he had a mint copy of Joe Dolce's Shaddap Your Face and because we'd sung it so well he'd like to give it to us.
We mentioned the usual trivial nonsense that Joe Dolce prevented Ultravox and Vienna getting to Number One, but this didn't seem to mean anything to him.
He swapped e-mail addresses with Robin and myself and said he'd contact us afterwards to arrange to post the record. We're still waiting! Shock horror update a mint copy of Joe Dolce Shaddap Your Face has now been received from Ilkka who describes himself as the drunken Finn. Amazing! Now what shall we do with it?
It was 3 o'clock again before we went to bed and it had been another good day.
Friday 23rd June
The day of the Ukraine v Tunisia game.
It was another hot morning and everybody wanted showers. A process that took over an hour mainly due to Tony spending 15 minutes in there.
The girl who used to sit next to me at work had mentioned she was going to the World Cup in a camper van and I'd jokingly said she could use our shower if we'd met up in Berlin. As it happens her trip to Germany never went ahead, but as I walked in to the toilet and shower room I was met by an awful sewerage smell as well as a sauna temperature and was glad that her and her friends hadn't taken me up on the offer.
Tony was becoming the usual butt of all our jokes and the fact that he was the only one of us not to bring a pair of shorts meant that only his face had been catching the sun all week, prompting us to nickname him Swan Vesta man.
Dave had also put a shampoo bottle top in one of Tony's shoes and incredibly he'd wore them for half an hour without really noticing until Dave asked how his feet were.
"Where were we 22 years ago today?" Tony said to me. When I couldn't guess he proceeded to tell me that we were at the last Greyhound Derby held at White City London, before it was demolished. The race was won by Whisper Wishes and as well as Dawn and me going Tony went with his girlfriend at the time, Pat who sadly died a few years ago. He has a habit of helping you remember some good times!
We were getting to know Bernadette quite well now and as she had a ticket for the Ukraine v Tunisia game agreed to stay together for the day.
During the late morning we walked round Berlin and made plans for the next day to go up the Fernsehturm tower, go on a boat on the river and visit Checkpoint Charlie.
For today though we set off to the game about 2 and a half hour's before the kick off.
Ted and I wore Hull City shirts and there was quite a bit of friendly banter being made by passers by. The trains going to the stadium were just packed and to make things worse the train we were on broke down and a replacement came, meaning we were even more crammed in with no space and temperatures just below 40 degrees.
Somehow I'd ended up next to Bernadette with the rest of our group at the end of the carriage. I kept holding my hands up to show I wasn't touching her in the crush and they all just kept grinning back.
The Germans on the train were singing a very catchy song, about what even Robin didn't know and the train just became even more cramped and hotter as incredibly more people somehow managed to get on at each station.
Eventually to the relief of everybody on the train we finally arrived at the stadium and joined the large groups of people entering a Fanfest set up at the side of the ground.
Kev was still trying to get a ticket for the game, but the prices were still around 150 Euros and it looked unlikely that he would get one.
You were supposed to have a match ticket to get in to the Fanfest, but although the body searches were very thorough they were less concerned about tickets and Kev managed to get in here.
On the stage groups of supporters from Ukraine, Tunisia, Germany and England were getting up to sing their national anthems and there was just a general relaxed, friendly and fun atmosphere.
Without Kev we made our way in to the stadium concourse. We had no problem getting in with our tickets, but we found out later that Ted and Dave's tickets were rejected probably due to them being folded and the chip inside them being damaged.
Whilst they thought they'd be just waved in to the ground they were escorted to an office where they had to provide id to prove they were the person named on the ticket. Thankfully they had their passports with them.
Bernadette, Tony, Robin and I were taking in the atmosphere inside the stadium.
Although never having been to an American football match it reminded me of what one would be like. There was no uneasy atmosphere watching out for opposing fans and there were food, beer and merchandise stalls everywhere.
We left Bernadette and went to our seats which were next to about 7000 Ukranians at the Olympic rings end. At the other end were about 5000 Tunisian fans. The remaining 60000 fans in the stadium were neutral with the majority being German all displaying their colours.
During the game vendors constantly walked up and down the aisles selling ice cream and drinks to the annoyance of Tony who hates anybody blocking his view. One of Tony's favourite comments when we've travelled to places like London, Southampton or Plymouth to watch a game and fans leave their seats during a match is "What jokers. They've travelled more than 200 miles just to get a pie." That said we were still tempted by the ice creams and it felt surreal eating our Cornetto's in the Olympic stadium watching a World Cup match.
The game itself was a very drab affair and ended up with a 1-0 victory for Ukraine scored from a dodgy penalty.
Most of the Germans seemed keen to start Mexican waves as the match itself got progressively worse which also irritated Tony.
Eins, Zwei, Drei they shouted as they waved their hands in front of them before jumping up.
On one occasion the whole stadium, including Tony, did get up to do the Mexican wave and it must be said that it was an impressive sight seeing 72000 fans all joining in.
After the game we slowly made our way to our meeting point and we could tell that Kev hadn't got in to the game. He'd obviously been drinking all afternoon and was slurring his words and had his shirt off.
It was at this point that a fan of the Bolivian football team La Paz approached us in a similar shirt to Hull City's. They were also nicknamed the Tigers and an impromptu photo session outside the stadium was set up.
We all then went to the bar next to the ground which was virtually taken over by Ukranian fans celebrating their victory. Curiously all the Teletubbies were also in the bar drinking through their eyes. They must have been so hot wearing those costumes all day.
A Ukranian fan swapped their scarf with the commemorative scarf Ted had bought earlier showing both teams with the date of the match.
From the corner of the bar came a chorus of "Grimsby, Grimsby", clearly aimed at our Hull City shirts and it was being sung by a large group of Ukranians. One of them approached us afterwards and said in a Yorkshire accent that he was from Wakefield and his grandparents were Ukranian and he followed Ukraine whenever he could.
We talked about Kinsley Greyhound Stadium, Leeds United and Hull City before hand shakes all round as we wished each other all the best.
We slowly made our way to the trains back to the centre of Berlin and everywhere there were singing Ukranians.
As we got on the train there was a German man already on from a previous station and he just looked so shell shocked at seeing all the Ukranians and ourselves and promptly got off at the next station.
Meanwhile as mentioned earlier Kev was well oiled from drinking all afternoon and broke in to a chorus of "Marching on Together" joined in by Robin.
The Ukranians responded well singing "We love you England" in perfect English
We got off the train at the newly opened Hauptbahnhof station and had something to eat. Dave pronounced his sandwich as the best he'd ever tasted.... And he's had a lot.
This has to be the best train station in the world and reminded me of Meadowhall shopping centre with trains running through it on 4 different levels. It was hugely impressive.
It was then on to the Fanfest to watch the France v Togo match on the giant screen to cheer on Togo. Ted had bet on South Korea qualifying for the next stage and a good result for Togo would help this.
There were also quite a few French supporters at the Fanfest and it would have been nice to see them disappointed and go out of the World Cup. It wasn't to be though as France won 2-0 and it was South Korea that were knocked out.
A slow walk in the dark after the game took us past the BBC studio where we could just make out Gary Lineker and Marcel Desailly.
The buskers singing Beatles songs outside the Brandenberg Gate helped keep the relaxed friendly atmosphere going and eventually we arrived back at the hostel for a quick chat with the Italians and the Joe Dolce fan before an early night for us at 2.00 am.
Saturday 24th June
Our tourist day.
After another hot and sweaty night Tony complained that he'd had a dream that creatures were eating his eyes. So that's why he was wriggling a lot in the night!
Six more showers and breakfasts and eventually we made our way to the Fernsehturm Tower.
Kev decided that the 8 Euro charge to go up the tower probably wouldn't be worth it, but this was a bad decision by him.
The lift attendant mentioned that the lift goes up 4 floors a second and in less than 20 seconds we were at the top.
From the top of the tower Berlin looked like a giant map and you could clearly see the road and river routes to the Brandenberg Gate, Fanfest and beyond.
On the walls of the tower were profiles of world famous football players and Tony felt there had been a major mistake with Pele's birthday showing as 20th October 1940. Tony insisted Pele was born on 23rd October. A subsequent check on the Internet seemed to suggest Tony was right as well!
In fact Tony has often mentioned the month of October 1940 as being the birth date of a number of famous people such as Geoff Boycott, Cliff Richard, Manfred Mann, John Lennon, Christopher Timothy and of course Pele so it wasn't much of a surprise to find out Tony was right.
Up some stairs on an even higher level was a revolving restaurant. This was too good an opportunity to miss, especially with all the young pretty waitresses seemingly eager to serve us. No sooner had we sat down to order a few drinks though and a real battle axe of a waitress came along to take our order. With "chatting up" no longer appealing we left it to Robin to order the drinks in German.
During our full circle on the tower we talked about all sorts of rubbish including of all things Look North presenters some of which must have been libellous.
The battle axe then presented us with the bill and stayed around until we'd paid up.
It was the same lift attendant who took us down to the bottom and Tony asked if he enjoyed his job. "Ja" he responded. "I expect it has its ups and downs though doesn't it?" Tony added to the attendant and somehow managed to keep a straight face.
On the Underground system Ted was doing his usual filming of us all when he decided that he should be on film as well and passed his camera to an old lady sitting opposite whilst motioning to her to film us.
She just looked stunned though and it took her husband to understand what was required.
No sooner had he stopped filming us though we arrived at the station for Checkpoint Charlie and had to dash off the train.
Once on the platform we became aware of a banging sound on the train and saw the old man who'd just filmed us frantically waving his hands. At first we didn't realise why he was doing this, but then realised he was holding Ted's Leeds United cap in his hand. It was too late for the train doors to open though and the train pulled out from the station.
Suddenly our eyes were distracted by something being thrown out of the train. Ted's cap was resting on the platform as the train disappeared in to the tunnel. This prompted laughter all round as Ted picked up his cap and we made our way out to Checkpoint Charlie.
A woman on the platform also laughed with us and took some film of us all with Ted's camera, before asking who we thought would win the "World Series". Oh well I guess not many women follow football... but you'd think in Germany they'd know at least the name of the tournament.
Checkpoint Charlie is now just a tourist attraction and is not as sparse as it must have been, but you can still sense the history.
It was 1 Euro to have Checkpoint Charlie stamped on your passport and 1 Euro to have your photo taken next to 2 people with permanent smiles on their faces dressed as American soldiers.
Nice easy money for them, but it was probably worth paying as they were very talkative and explained how things were before the Berlin wall came down.
After a drink in the Café Adler bar next to Checkpoint Charlie it was on to a 1 hour boat trip on the river (7 Euros).
It was just too hot on the boat to be comfortable and perhaps because of this one person on the boat asked to borrow Ted's sun cream and proceeded to put it on himself and all his family.
Dave couldn't believe how unhygienic this was and jokingly asked to borrow some foreigner's deodorant, "Preferably Roll On", knowing full well they wouldn't be able to understand him.
Two German women on the boat persuaded us to drink Berliner Weisse a beer with raspberry syrup in. We'll obviously do anything that women tell us and the 6 of us had our red beers complete with straws to drink from. They were just so sweet and sickly though. (That's the drinks not the women).
One of the women explained that her sister studied at Leeds University and lived in Headingley. Dave asked for her name as he'd probably know her, but they didn't fall for that one.
The boat trip was alright, but we should have made sure that the tours had English spoken as we didn't know what we were passing and how important it was.
A feature of Berlin was the number of punks with dogs begging on the streets. On one occasion Ted gave one girl some money and she picked up a cup of water and poured it on her t-shirt. Don't know why though.
It was then on to the centre of Berlin for something to eat
Once again the quality of food was excellent with in my case, Cannelloni being the meal chosen.
Tony was feeling pleased because he'd spotted the restaurant and thought it seemed ideal.
We just got so settled there though and had several drinks and ultimately this caused us to miss seeing the Germany v Sweden game in the Berlin Fanfest, where over a million people reportedly watched the match.
Despite arriving at the Fanfest an hour and a half before the kick off, barriers to get in had been closed as the venue was full.
Quick decisions had to be made and we decided to catch a train and go to Charlottenburg, an exclusive district of Berlin to watch the game.
As we entered a packed bar in our England and Hull City shirts you could sense the locals wondering whether there might be any trouble. The staff though promptly served us our beer and things became more settled.
When the German national anthem played one man in the bar stood up and put his hand on his heart. "Oh sit down," muttered Tony. The man just reminded us all of Tony throughout the game with his mannerisms as he was forever waving his hands around and moaning.
We called him the German Tony, but Tony hated him! By half time Germany led 2-0.
We'd struggled to see the TV from the back of the bar for the first half so, despite a very attentive waitress, we decided to go and find another bar for the second half.
Just up the road was the bar Don Quiyote, with one half full of Germans watching the match on a giant screen and at the other side of the bar a TV with nobody watching.
We ordered our drinks and got served by perhaps the worst barman of all time. Clearly most of the regulars drank bottled beer as pouring 6 beers from draught proved a monumental effort with more froth than beer on view. There was lots of pouring beer from one glass to another, but at last we got our beers.
It was apparent that the TV screen we were watching the game on was about 4 seconds ahead of the giant screen being watched by the Germans to our side.
This proved to be quite funny as we would cheer or groan when something exciting happened and the Germans would follow us. So we groaned when Henrik Larson missed a penalty and shortly afterwards the Germans cheered. We also made a point of cheering loudly at the final whistle knowing that they would shortly do the same.
During the game we'd been stood next to the bar where all the table's bills had been kept. Towards the end of the match Dave had blown all the bills on to the floor and when everybody wanted their bill at the end of the game the useless barman just panicked when at first he couldn't find them and then had the thankless task of trying to match them up with each table.
The trouble was it delayed us paying our bill as well.... but it was still funny.
On the walk back to the train station we had some banter with some Leeds United fans because of my Hull City shirt. "See you in Roundhay" said Dave much to their amazement.
We got the train back to the hostel and passed through the centre of Berlin where German fans were leaving from the Fanfest.
As we stopped at each station more and more German fans got on and it became a very lively atmosphere with lots of singing and whistles being blown.
A quick freshen up at the hostel and we were off to a Mexican restaurant to watch the Mexico v Argentina game.
This was a good choice for our night out as the place went wild as Mexico took a 1-0 lead with the chef coming running out of the kitchen and punching the air.
It was short lived though as Argentina equalised to total silence in the restaurant.
The chef went back to cooking our meals and they arrived on very large plates, with the Chicken, Beef and Prawn Fajita (12 Euros) placed in front of me a particularly good choice, if a little messy to eat.
Bernadette was walking past the restaurant and we invited her in for a drink and to watch the game. The match was settled by a spectacular Argentina goal in extra time and Ted was the only cheering voice in the place because of his bet on extra time goals.
It was during this game that I gave up the possibility of winning my low corners bet as once again there were 11 corners awarded maintaining the average of 11 a game rather than the 10 I needed.
Back at the hostel things were really buzzing, mainly due to some Australian girls who were literally dancing on the tables to 70's and 80's songs including a number of Abba songs, Nick Kershaw Wouldn't it be good? Buggles Video Killed the Radio Star and Ultravox and Vienna. Cue more talk about Joe Dolce.
One of the Australian men apologised to us for how people from his country were behaving in the same way that Bernadette had apologised a couple of days ago.
"You should be in the Irish Centre on York Road on a Saturday night" I said, which not surprisingly prompted a blank look from him. (Don't you hate people trying to be clever?)
Amazingly the management of the hostel singled us out and told us to keep the noise down. We were admittedly near the doors, but elsewhere in the room the loud music continued with Australian ladettes singing, cheering and shouting.
We said a fond farewell to Bernadette who had to be up early next day for a train. When we told her about the website she mentioned that a former boyfriend of hers had been called Cockerill. Small world!
Although it seemed early it was actually already 1 am as the Argentina - Mexico game hadn't finished until nearly midnight. Dave and Kev called it a night and went back to the room.
The rest of us stayed up a little longer laughing at some of the lad's attempts to move in on the Australian girls. They were worse dancers than us and I was betting 20-1 that any of them got anything out of their moves. There were no takers and the lads quickly got brushed aside anyway.
After saying goodbye to the Joe Dolce fan from Finland we made our way to the room and did the usual thing that drunken lads do, bumping in to walls, asking who had the smelly feet and making a lot of noise.
"Anyway thanks for keeping the noise down," said Dave
Sunday 25th June
Our last day in Germany and it started with the usual delay as we all had to wait for showers. It would have been unthinkable not to have a shower, as the heat during the night was once again really uncomfortable.
"On this day in 1978 was the World Cup final between Argentina and Holland" said Tony "and I gave up a trip to Rhyl so that I could watch it"
As we went for breakfast we noticed that even though it was about 9 o'clock there were some people still asleep on the benches outside. It must have been a long night!
Shortly after putting the usual meat, egg, cheese and bread on our plates some of the Australian girls arrived in the room, not looking too bad considering the night they'd had although they were a bit quieter than normal.
After breakfast we went back to the room and began to pack, except for Tony who still had his shower to have.
Because the room was so hot we left the door open and this prompted a few passers by to say goodbye and laugh at Tony singing "Push the button" in the shower. His favourite song this century, as he never tires of telling us.
One man wearing slippers stopped a while and told us in broken English how bad his foot was. He didn't seem to want to go and Tony came out of the shower and opened the door to find this stranger in the room. We realised this was going to happen and Ted filmed it all.
"Anyway nice to know you" said Tony as he shut the door on the man.
We left our cases in the luggage room (no charge) and checked out.
As England would play Ecuador later in the day most of us wore England shirts.
We'd decided to visit the remaining bits of the Berlin wall and Robin once again did the business leading us on the trains and Underground system to the wall.
This proved to be a very moving day as next to the wall was an exhibition showing films of the wall being built and escape attempts, whilst from a Watch Tower you could overlook the wall and see graves where people had fallen in their attempts to get to the West.
There was a Visitors book at the exhibition, which had several entries about how good an experience it all was. Although amongst these comments somebody had written "Sweden will beat Germany 3-0 in the World Cup Final"
As we walked next to the wall Kev found a metal spike which I used to try and prise bits of the wall out to take as a souvenir. It was difficult, but eventually I succeeded in getting a few pieces, but was then confronted by a German woman telling me that the wall was a monument and should be left alone. She was right of course and as I had my England shirt on I could only imagine what she thought of the English.
We made our way to the Fanfest for the last time, pointing out where Dave got lost and briefly went in to a modern art gallery just below the BBC studio where Dave and me had attempts at doing a "Harry Worth" next to a large mirror.
In the Fanfest there was the usual mix of people from all over the world with most of them being from Germany and proudly having the German flag painted on them.
At one of the bars in the Fanfest a woman was having her breasts painted. One with the English flag and the other with the Swedish flag.
The bar manager put his hands in front of Ted's camera to stop him filming. "If they're this sensitive about filming" I said "Then I don't think I'll ask if I can kiss the English flag"
We then played another football game kicking balls through holes in a goal, which, with my accurate shooting skills not deserted ended in victory for me with 2 out of 3.
Ideally we wanted to watch the England game at the Fanfest, but as we were due to be picked up to go to the airport half an hour after the final whistle decided it best to watch it in a bar near the hostel.
So at the Geronimo bar where the beer was only 2 Euro a pint we sat down to watch the game.
Remembering the "German Tony" we stood up for the national anthem placing our hands on our hearts, much to the amusement of the locals.
The game was a tedious one made slightly more interesting for us as Tony and Robin chose to watch the match on the seats just off the pavement meaning they missed seeing the full screen every time pedestrians went past.
Tony in particular was annoyed at how cyclists rode on the pavement when "there's a perfectly good road there".
There was a bit of a delayed cheer by us for the Beckham goal as we weren't certain it had gone in.
After that we were spread betting on how many times cyclists would ride by on the pavement before the final whistle. The quote was Sell at 4 or Buy at 5 for the 20 minutes and just before the final whistle the fifth cyclist rode past to cheers from all of us and the locals.
"You will have to improve to win the cup," said one of the locals as we went back to the hostel to be picked up. "Too true" I said.
At the hostel I went on the Internet using the only terminal available, the one with the S, W and X not working.
On E-Bay there was a message from Mr Hosgood advising he'd still not had payment for the match tickets. It's a good job he still went ahead and put the tickets in Ted and Dave's name I thought as I replied saying I'd look in to it when I returned to the UK the next day.
I also checked the Greyhound results from Kinsley and noted that Colin and Diane had had a few runners, but no winners.
Kinsley dogs seemed a million miles away, as did the fact that Hunslet Hawks had lost to Dewsbury. Did they really play this game at the same time as the England - Ecuador game?
I gave a Chinese girl the remaining Internet tokens for over 30 minutes. She bowed and thanked me as if I'd saved her life.
The mini bus arrived to take us back to the airport and the man wearing slippers came to say goodbye to us "Have we got a spare seat for him?" joked Dave. At the airport there were quite a few England fans that had decided to do the same as us and leave straight after the game.
For some reason Berlin airport hadn't seemed to get in the World Cup mood and not only were there no TV's to watch the Holland v Portugal game, but there was hardly any World Cup merchandise in the shops to use up our remaining Euros.
Such is the improvement in communications though we were able to keep up to date with scores using mobile phones.
The usual rush to the aeroplane occurred with Tony as always getting a window seat and then it was "Back to Blighty" as I'd said a number of times during the holiday as it annoyed Tony.
Tony was annoyed again when he discovered by text that he had to work a double shift the next day from 9.00 am till 9.30 pm. As we wouldn't get home until 1.30 am he therefore wouldn't be getting much sleep. Still the extra hours would help him pay off the "National debt" the money he still owed me for the trip.
On the journey back from Ponteland airport Tony waited until after midnight before asking "What happened 10 years ago today?" As always none of us managed to work it out, but Tony informed us that 10 years ago to the day England had lost to Germany in a Penalty Shoot out during Euro 96.
I commented that I'd videod my 2 eldest son's Robert and Ian during this penalty shoot out and they were just so upset when England lost. "You can't blame Southgate" said 8 year old Robert on film "He's only young!"
I had the next day off work and was brought down to earth by a trip to Tesco's at Seacroft to do the weekly shop.
I was wearing shorts as well and the temperature was only 8 degrees whereas it had been 35 degrees in Berlin. Back to Blighty indeed !
Berlin 2006 is a personal recollection of the holiday by Gus. Whilst every effort has been made to be accurate no responsibility will be accepted for any inaccuracies.
Similarly every effort has been made not to embarrass anybody during the writing of this piece, but for some this was simply unavoidable.
For information there were 638 corners in the 2006 World Cup meaning I won my bet in the end, there were 24 disallowed goals meaning Ted won one of his bets and there were only 3 extra time goals excluding penalties.
See you in South Africa 2010 for the next World Cup or maybe Austria and Switzerland for Euro 2008. Money and health permitting....
Gus Cockerill.
July 2006.
