By George - Hilarious Tales from England's Most Fanatical Football Supporters. David Stanfield
up,’ Bruce said. Dave, Lee and Jimmy fell out of Dave’s van laughing their heads off. I just wanted to throw up – and unfortunately it all got too much for Paul and he was sick at the side of the road.
Chubb began stripping naked – his entire body was covered in shit. Ian threw him a couple of old rags to clean himself with, but all it was doing was spreading the shit rather than removing it. We got Chubb’s towel and shower gel out of his bag – now all we needed was a constant flow of water. So we improvised. We shook cans of beer up, opened them, and sprayed Chubb while he washed his body.
With Chubb cleaned up – sort of – and his clothes and towel dumped in the ditch, we set off again for Düsseldorf. We followed the sat nav until we’d reached our destination, but where were we? There wasn’t a camper van in sight; we were on a main street with lots of tall buildings. Ian drove down the street to see if we could find the camper hire firm. We’d been driving around for ten minutes when Dave flashed his lights for us to stop, so we pulled over and all got out. ‘What’s going on?’ said Dave. Ian explained that we couldn’t find the camper hire place, and we flagged down a police car. Two policemen got out and looked at the address, and they then started laughing and said, ‘Sorry, my English friends, but the place you are looking for is in Mulheim.’ ‘What part of Düsseldorf is that?’ I asked. The policeman replied ‘It’s not even in Düsseldorf – you’re in the wrong city. It’s about forty miles north from here.’
Bruce had the wrong details. ‘The wrong fucking city? I told you – let Bruce sort it out and he’ll fuck it up, he does this every fucking time.’ Dave wasn’t happy and he and Bruce started having a full-blown row. We had to separate the two of them as the police seemed like they were about to intervene and probably nick them both.
Finally we arrived at the correct location, in the correct city! My main concern was the beer getting warm. Luckily the place had several water fountains, so I emptied a crate of lager into one of them. Bruce went to sort the camper out, but there was more bad news. ‘Right, boys…we’ve got a bit of a problem!’ ‘What the fuck now?’ said Dave. ‘Because we’ve arrived later than expected, they’ve let our camper go. We’ve got to wait about three hours for one to be ready.’
I thought Dave would go fucking ballistic, but he didn’t get a chance as the boys were already tearing into Bruce. Bruce just stood there taking all the abuse the boys could give him. Ian said, ‘Fuck this – you’ve fucked up, Bruce, so you can sort it out. I’m not waiting three fucking hours, I’m going to Frankfurt now. You can stay here on your own and drive the camper to us’.
I went to the toilet before we left and when I got to the building where the toilets were, I found Lee gathering up ham rolls from a table laid out with refreshments. It was all free but it didn’t seem up to much – just a few rolls and bottles of drink. I was just about to go into the toilet when I saw two blokes pouring beer from a keg. ‘Is the beer free as well?’ I asked, to which they answered, ‘Yes, Germany are playing Costa Rica so we have invited all the local community to come and have a beer.’ A huge smile shot across my face – this guy had just said the magic words. FREE BEER.
I left the building and got to the lads, who were ready to go. ‘Look, lads, I know Bruce has fucked up, but I’m not leaving him here on his own. I’m staying,’ I announced. ‘Fine, but we’re not – we’ve already fucked about too much and we still ain’t got anywhere to stay,’ Ian shouted.
When the vehicles were out of sight, Bruce turned to me and said, ‘Cheers, Stan.’ ‘That’s OK, Bruce, I replied. ‘They’ve got free beer up there and a barbecue later!’ ‘Well I can’t drink. I’ve got to drive later. I’ll sort out the paperwork and see you up there in a bit,’ Bruce said.
It was nearing half-time in the opening game by the time Bruce eventually joined me. He looked astonished when he saw me. There I was on the table with a German hat and scarf on and my face painted, singing the ‘Ten German Bombers’ song, with all my new German friends joining in. Obviously I was pissed as fart.
Bruce grabbed my leg, looked up at me and said, ‘What the fucks going on?’ ‘They needed a song to sing and they asked me to teach them one. They fucking love it, Brucie baby!’ I shouted. Bruce turned and went outside to get himself some barbecue food.
Bruce almost had to drag me away from my new friends once the camper was ready to go. We we’re just about to pull off, when I realised the beer was still in the fountain. I dived (well fell out of the camper), staggered over to the fountain. Bruce helped me load the fridge of the camper with the lager and we were off to Frankfurt.
I stayed in the back of the camper the whole journey. Bruce was pissing himself in the front and almost crashed on several occasions, especially when I was doing ‘Oops Upside Ya Head’ on the floor, which apparently looked more like someone having an epileptic fit on acid.
We arrived in Frankfurt about 10pm and Bruce called Ian. He and Steve arrived twenty minutes later. ‘We’ve had a fucking nightmare finding somewhere to stay – we had to park at the side of the road and all we want to do now is have a beer,’ Ian said. ‘Talking of beer…where’s Stan?’ Steve asked. The camper door crashed open and I fell out.
They weren’t impressed that I was so pissed, but off we went to the ‘campsite’. The lads weren’t lying when they said it was at the side of the road – we had to park outside the campsite. At least there were portacabin toilets and showers next to us.
Chubb crawled into the camper and said he just wanted to sleep as he was feeling terrible. We left him and headed down the road until we came across a bar that was playing proper hardcore music. It was all kitted out like a beach party outside, but inside was dark and dingy with a few strobes going off. I started chatting to two German lads and they asked me if I wanted to have a drinking competition. Of course, I said yes. We ordered double Jagermeisters and had six doubles each. One German lad spewed most of shot four and his dinner up, so he was gone. Just one left. The second German was struggling as he downed another double, and then his sister came over screaming at us to leave him alone. Dave – AKA Kofi Annan – stepped in to calm the worried sister, offering to buy her a drink. She definitely fancied Dave. It’s strange how some women have a thing for blokes who look like Gollum out of Lord of the Rings.
While the sister was with Dave, the brother had wandered off and completely passed out, still standing upright. Cue the English sense of humour. We undid his jeans, pulled them down with his boxers, and placed a beer on his head. Cameras were flashing like there was no tomorrow – until his sister spotted what was going on. She stormed over and went mental. Even Dave couldn’t calm her down.
I woke up the next day in the camper and couldn’t even remember leaving the club. I was still pissed when I got up, so I opened the door of the camper van, lit a fag and got myself a can of beer. I’d had a couple of cans when one by one the lads started emerging from their tents, all looking a bit worse for wear after their first night in Germany. Steve and Lee went into the campsite and nicked a dozen or so filled rolls to feed the well hungover troops.
We left the camper and all walked towards the river where the fans’ festival was being held. Paul, Steve, Jimmy and Chubb (who still looked like shit) were going as they didn’t have tickets for the match. The Germans built huge fans’ parks in every city, with massive screens for everyone to watch the games on. We stayed with the boys for a bit and then Ian, Dave, Bruce, Lee and I made our way to the square. There must have been four thousand England fans there and the atmosphere was mental. After a few beers had been sunk, we were all back on our game and Bruce and I Georged up.
Once the suits went on everyone, including the police, wanted a photo with the two Georges. After a few hours, Ian rounded us up and we made our way to the underground. The station had a choice of about six tunnels.