Eng-ger-land, Eng-ger-land,Eng-ger-land....

After the massive beer binge of the opening day, both Yates and I were taking things much easier going forward. With a table reserved at 2:00pm at Sam's we stopped off for a spot of lunch at the local Chinese, (all-you-can-eat buffet to line our stomachs, just in case), then made the short walk to our now local watering hole. Luckily we had made the reservation as the place was stuffed with England fans packed into the rafters, singing, drinking and generally having a great time.

As an Englishman and England fan, I could not stop myself singing along with the old football songs, and chanting 'Eng-Ger-Land, Eng-Ger-Land, Eng-Ger-Land', at any given opportunity. There were some very fat sweaty hard-beer drinking fans in the bar, with some varying degrees of sunburn, but everyone was in a great mood with not a hint of trouble. As game time approached the volume of singing increased and the anticipation was almost palpable.

Four minutes in and Beckhams free-kick comes off the hapless Paraguayan defender, and the place erupts with almost the entire bar jumping, shouting, punching-the-air in celebration. Unfortunately, the game had peaked at that point and the next 86 minutes were not quite as exciting as I am sure everyone would have hoped, but a win is a win and England were off to a great start. The singing and chanting in the bar went on for at least the next hour, and we even nearly got Yates singing along to 'Erikson's Barmy Army' at one point. The bar settled down for the Sweden vs Trinidad & Tobago game which was by far a more intense and exciting game, ending in a great result for T&T, (and England too). We had been in the bar now for almost 7 hours, been drinking an endless stream of beer, so we decided that it might be a good idea to watch the third game of the day back at the apartment, which we did...

We are now at the end of a 3 live match road-trip, with journeys to Cologne and Gelsenkirchen, and a game in Frankfurt today. I'll write up my blog about screaming for the Angolans and our disappointment with the USA tomorrow, as we are out the door to the Togo vs South Korea game right now...