Life and soul of the party no matter where we sleep

People are choosing to sleep rough in Poland for a break from their tents as the novelty factor of camping slowly turns to hatred.

Industrial estate warehouses, fire stations, park benches, even a patch of welcoming concrete are just some of the places the Irish have been laying their heads. Anything, it seems, is better than waking up with your face stuck to a flysheet.

Exhausted fans looked skywards with some yearning in Sopot on match day. Cold, cloudy, and damp. Just like home.

Wallets are getting tight and livers are taking punishment.

Such was his loathing of any canvas form of accommodation that Thomas Clean from Dublin has simply refused to sleep. Awake for a straight two days, he looked like a man who should be hitting a park bench. No chance. Just before noon, he was stocking up on supplies of Lech in the local supermarket for another 24 hours of full, if not entirely focused, consciousness.

Professing himself “too sick” to even crack a smile for a photographer, you knew he was feeling the pain. But for one more day, he was determined to reach inside of himself and find that will to pull out one last performance.

“Anytime I see a tent I just want to set fire to it, burn it to the fecking ground. I haven’t slept in two days. I refuse to go to that bloody tent, I just refuse. I’m here since Saturday but I might even fly home tomorrow. I’ll see how I feel. I’m a broken man at this stage,” he said.

Michael Sheridan from Lucan was at an earlier stage of hedonism so seemed happy enough after his first stint with homelessness.

“We have an apartment but I couldn’t get in so I slept on the street. It was grand. It was a nice night. I slept next to some Polish bloke and got about two hours kip so not too bad all in all,” he said.

Breakfast on a bench was also the option being taken by Barry McSweeney and Dave Tracey, who although looking a little ropey, were actually going strong from the night before.

“We flew in with no plans, no tickets and nothing booked. We met four lads who hadn’t slept in four days who said we could kip in their van but we found a hostel in the end. My aunt texted me to say ‘Whatever you do, don’t sleep rough’. So I managed that much and kept her happy.”

There were no such accommodation woes for Jonathan Antoniotti, also from Dublin, who travelled from Germany in a rented Mercedes Benz and was staying in the relative luxury of a Sopot hostel.

With a name like Antoniotti, the young Dub could be forgiven for letting his feet stray into the Italian camp. Any such suggestion, however, is quickly swatted away. A look at his face, which is painted green, white, and orange tells its own story.

“Well I’m half Italian but I’ve an allegiance to only one team and that’s the boys in green. I can play for Italy under the grandfather rule but I told them in my teens that I wasn’t interested and I turned my back on them.”

Even a suggestion of inter-family rivalry was dismissed and Jonathan’s Italian dad is also very much an Irishman. “No he’s an Irish fan too. He was at Italia ’90 supporting Ireland so he’s all for us.”

We mightn’t have Roy Keane on the field but chants for the original “Keano” rang around the square in Sopot as funnyman Mario Rosentock had merry fans in convulsions doing a his Roy “all credit to the lads” Keane send up.

With an atmosphere like that, it’s no wonder that even some English fans are taking to travelling with the Irish gang. Angie Moore from Dublin, who is travelling with a large group dubbed “Angie’s Army” is keeping a diary of her trip and pointed to a number of fans of the Three Lions leaving entries.

“They are following their own team but the Ukraine seems a bit of a nightmare to travel in so they decided to travel with the Irish fans instead. We bring such an atmosphere other fans would rather travel with us. It’s great.”

Other fans fight, we get naked, climb lampposts, or swim in fountains singing: “We’re going to top the group but nobody believes us”. We tried, honest...