Socceroo Al’s lucky break proves just the ticket
The 8am train from Frankfurt to Kaiserslautern was thronged with boisterous Aussies and embarrassed looking Japanese fans. As they blasted (the Australian) AC DC’s Highway to Hell from a ghetto blaster, other passengers smiled politely, averted their eyes and tried to read their early newspapers, though empathising, I suspect, with the song’s sentiment.
I began asking around for tickets immediately, somewhat surprised at the massive number of fans who made the trip from so far away. I eventually procured the aforementioned Al’s ticket as he had failed to return to the hotel after leaving a city centre bar with a German girl the previous evening. His friends looked like they had been drinking since their team qualified for the World Cup and crudely goaded and taunted the reserved Japan supporters. After explaining my quest to see all 32 teams on a budget of 150 they agreed to give me the pass at face value, 100, a hefty chunk of my daily allowance, but I was extremely satisfied to secure it so early in the day.
When we arrived in Kaiserslautern I afforded myself a few minutes to suss out the several touts who greeted us warmly as we left the station. All English, and mostly Scouse, they were quoting ridiculous €400 prices, but fans I chatted to afterwards said that this figure tumbled to 200 after some cajoling. While chatting to one cockney scalper, he suddenly turned and ran down the street like a man who just realised he left the gas on at home, as a siren signalled the Polizei had arrived.
I pitched a tent in the nearby “fans’ camp” for a fee of 14.50 and, with the train costing 20, my budget was very quickly eroded. Lunch was a loaf of bread and some processed meat from the Lidl next door. Eating it, alone on the sandy hard floor, I realised I have quite the adventure ahead of me.
The small city centre square and main street was like Thurles on a Munster final Sunday, but for Abrakebabra chip butty read Brotwurst, and cool pints of porter read any variety of rich German beer. The Aussies were loud and colourful but seemed to be ill-prepared or perhaps inexperienced with no chants or songs to speak of. The Japanese, in contrast, were like a regiment of samurais with choreographed songs and dances and displays. One offering of “You neva wok allo” was particularly memorable. They bowed politely at their counterparts in yellow, who uniformly offered them two fingers and told them where to go, “the flaming gallahs”.
The ticket I had bought looked real to me and certainly “really” cost me, but it was missing one vital marking. Franz Beckenbauer, tournament organiser, and Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, have been promising for months that all fans must prove — with their passports — that they are who their tickets claim they are. Mine had no-one’s name at all. I left the square early for the stadium to chance my arm.
The Fritz Walter is a short walk up the Betzenburg hill. Officials checked and stopped every fan as they climbed the many steps towards the arena. Nervously, I employed every Paul Daniels-like method of distraction and diversion to get past the stewards, finally coming to the stadium. Let’s not forget though this isn’t Semple and the auld fella at the turnstile isn’t going to squeeze me through the gate with my father. The officials scanned my ticket through a computer and without asking for “my papers” nodded me through. I certainly had pulled, good and proper.
The match itself was worth every cent and every minute of worry. The Aussies strung together a version of Ole, Ole (Aussie, Aussie) and buoyed by an enormous sense of outrage after the “dishonest” Japanese goal (surprising considering their forefathers were convicted criminals), they roared the Socceroos to their eventual, emotional victory.
Perched like a loft of roosting, exotic yellow birds up the steep stands behind the goals, they spewed a surf of vitriol onto the pitch from the moment Nakamura dubiously put the ball passed Schwarzer. Afterwards big Aussie men with big meaty hands and leather skin cried into their kangaroo teddies and swept us back to the square on a wave of relief and joy.
The Japanese fans, though clearly broken-hearted, smiled politely and nodded their heads as they left quietly.
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