Читать книгу By George - Hilarious Tales from England's Most Fanatical Football Supporters - David Stanfield - Страница 8
ОглавлениеI 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. Ian – standing six foot plus, remember – walked up to this old geezer of about eighty with a walking stick and said, ‘OLA! Do you know where the TRAIN is for the FOOTBALL?’ The old German guy looked up at Ian and looked terrified. This did not deter Ian who just kept repeating, ‘The train for the football? The train?’ At this point we were cracking up at the expression of the old boy’s face. Ian was exasperated at this point and yelled, ‘THE TRAIN? THE TRAIN? CHOO CHOO CHOO CHOO?’ He started doing motions like he was a steam train and running around making ‘choo choo’ noises. In all the lo-commotion, the little old man hurried away as fast as he could and we were still none the wiser as to which train – or ‘CHOO CHOO’ to get, but we’d had a laugh trying to find out.
We eventually got on the train and I got talking to a Scouse lad who went by the name of Jamie. It turned out that Jamie and his seven mates had been in Germany for three weeks already and had no more than £500 between them. They were now all shacked up with some fat single German birds, who were feeding them and giving them money in exchange for them pretending to be their boyfriends.
As we neared the stadium, Jamie’s mate pulled the emergency stop lever and when the train stopped, all eight of them jumped off and ran across the fields. The whole carriage started singing the Great Escape tune as we saw them all disappear into the woods. The guard came along, lifted the lever, and we were off again. When we eventually arrived it then took us over two hours to get into the ground, as we had to keep stopping for hundreds of photos. I bumped into Jamie again, who told me they hadn’t any tickets so the day before they’d come to the stadium to work out the security situation. To get past checkpoint one, they’d worked out that they needed to go through the woods and over the surrounding perimeter fence – hence jumping off the train. Then, while they were standing around trying to work out what to do next, they’d seen a water truck. They all picked up three crates each and simply followed the delivery guy straight past security. All they needed now was to get into the stadium itself. ‘I think I can help you with that, Jamie!’ I said. I got Lee to take our photo with the two stewards and as I looked over my shoulder, Jamie and his mates were in. Jamie put his thumb up and said, ‘Nice one Stan, we owe you one.’ Then they vanished into the crowd like they had into the woods.
After watching England beat Paraguay 1-0, Lee and I made our way back to the square. The other lads were already there, but Chubb had gone back to the camper as he still felt like shit. The whole place was going mental, celebrating England’s victory.
An hour later we saw Bruce (still in his George suit) absolutely hammered staggering through the square and heading for the large fountain. He climbed up onto the fountain – a group of Mexicans were already up there and they started singing, which annoyed Bruce, who then started pushing and shoving the Mexicans. After pushing all the Mexicans off the fountain, Bruce was hailed as King by all his new-found followers below. Bruce then conducted a rousing rendition of all the football songs he could think of from his perch atop the fountain, and every drunken wet English fan joined in. Someone then tried to pull him into the fountain, and he turned round and had a go at the guy – which was a big mistake, because while his back was turned, I ran over and shoved Bruce straight into the water.
I went over to Dave, who was pissing himself. Bruce then joined us. He stripped off the wet George suit and stood there in his shorts. Paul went behind him and pulled his shorts down to his ankles. Bruce was that pissed, it took him a while to notice – and the thing was, he had nothing on under his shorts. He soon twigged when everyone started singing, ‘You’re not very big, you’re not very big’! We were crying with laughter, but suddenly Bruce shouted ‘OH FUCK!’ and opened his bum bag, which was strapped to his body. He pulled out his £300 mobile phone, his passport and all his money, all of which were soaking wet and ruined. He went mental, but we just started wetting ourselves again.
That night we drank by the riverside and had a whip – each of us put in 30 Euros which Dave would hold. At 2am, Dave vanished. ‘I bet he’s fucked off down the brothel with the fucking whip money, the bastard,’ Bruce screamed. We looked for Dave for a bit, but gave up. Ian, Jimmy, Bruce and Lee where all driving back to England in the morning so agreed to call it a night with Ian virtually carrying me back to the camper. I woke the following morning to hear Bruce screaming at Dave, ‘Where’s the fucking whip?’ Dave looked in a right bad way and said, ‘Did I hold the whip last night? I can’t remember!’ He went through his pockets and came up with about 11 Euros. Bruce was not happy, and as the two of them went at it again I just sat in the deckchair on the pavement, opened a beer and enjoyed the show in front of me.
Once we had separated Dave and Bruce, Ian, Bruce, Lee, Jimmy and Chubb jumped in Ian’s motor and left. We were supposed to be going to Nuremberg that day, but the rest of us were definitely not in a fit state to drive the camper van, so we stayed for one more night in Frankfurt. A couple of hours after the boys had gone, three girls from Tamworth approached us called Nicky, Nieves and Kayleigh.
After talking to them for quite a while, the girls asked whether we’d guard the shower door while they showered. Being the gentlemen we were, we agreed. Once the girls had gone inside, Paul wrote a sign out saying ‘PEEP SHOW: 1 Euro for a limited time only’. I sat with the sign announcing the show to all who passed, but most people just laughed and carried on going. All except this little French lad called Cedric.
The girls had finished in the shower and were getting dressed when they noticed this strange-looking lad peering through the door. They told him to fuck off and thanked us for the help, and they told us that if England got to the quarterfinals they would come back to Germany to meet up with us. We said our goodbyes to the Tamworth trio and carried on lounging on the pavement.
That night we were back at the Brazilian bar by the riverside, drinking strawberry punch. There were twenty Brazilian birds doing that arse-shaking dance, but no blokes could dance with them. We knew how to change that. Paul and I Georged up along with Dave – arise George the Fourth. Dave said he felt like a twat, but he changed his mind when the three of us had twenty Brazilian girls all over us. Which just goes to show it isn’t who you are, it’s what you’re wearing.
After several hours of dancing with these semi-naked Brazilians, Dave, who was wearing some weird carnival headgear, shouted, ‘OUR NAME IS ON THIS CUP, STAN!’ I raised my drink and carried on dancing with the girls.
I woke up the next day really hanging and knew the only way to sort myself out was to have another beer. The first couple were a real struggle, but I got through them. Two hours later the other lads woke up. Paul said, ‘How many beers have you had?’ ‘About six! Why?’ I replied. ‘Cause you’re meant to be driving to Nuremberg today. Great, I’ll have to fucking drive now,’ Paul said. Before we left, Steve emptied the toilet bucket. Dave wanted to watch the contents coming out and proceeded to throw up when he saw log after log nose-diving down the drain. We jumped in the vans and we were off…but oh no, we weren’t.
Paul couldn’t start the camper. Every time he tried there was this horrendous bleeping sound but the van wouldn’t start. Two hours later, Steve saw the steps of the camper van were still down, ‘I wonder if we lifted the steps up, would it help?’ He said. We lifted the steps, Paul turned the key and the van started. ‘The fucking steps!’ Dave said, ‘Why didn’t you think of that Stan?’ At this point I could barely make out the difference between day and night. We were on our way.
