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Switzerland v England

St Jakob’s Stadium, Basel

7 September 2010, 20:45 K.O. (local time)

Eleven months after my last England away game, I should have been looking forward to the Switzerland trip with great excitement. Two weeks sat at home watching a masterclass in ineptness over the summer, however, had put a bit of a dampener on it. A decent performance and four nil win against Bulgaria on the Friday night had helped though and it would be good to meet up with the lads again.

The question ‘who are you travelling with’ is always one that I get from work colleagues and friends before these trips, but as is often the case, it is much easier to ask than answer. For this one, I was flying out to Zurich with Alan, Jazz and Matt, then meeting up with Keith once I got to the airport. The other lads on the Manchester flight were all spending Monday night in Zurich whereas I had a hotel booked in Basel. Keith had flown over from London and we were sharing a room at the Hotel Alexander. He got to Zurich an hour before me so by the time I landed, he’d secured train tickets and we got straight off.

If the hotel booking had been the first indication that Switzerland hadn’t got any cheaper since I went out there for the Argentina game in 2005, the second hint was the train ticket. There is less than fifty miles between Zurich and Basel and the train takes under an hour. That doesn’t stop it costing over forty quid. I guess you get what you pay for though with the transport system running like (cuckoo)clockwork. [Sorry, I haven’t written one of these for a while and the jokes have just got much, much worse].

We were in Basel for about 1pm and used the instructions I’d printed out to find the hotel. The instructions were perfect but there was one slight problem. They are in the process of  upgrading the tram lines which, while not causing any delay, means that the stop at Messeplatz  (by the hotel) has temporarily been moved around the corner. The instructions told me that we must walk in the opposite direction to the tram and take the first right. The hotel would be on this road. About fifteen minutes walk later, we set off back to the tram stop, walked past it and pretty much straight into the hotel. Well, we probably needed the exercise.

We’d got a decent deal on the hotel room (for Basel) but had been warned when reading tripadvisor that the rooms were a bit pokey. This wasn’t a concern as you’ll know if you read the Amsterdam report last year. What a surprise we got therefore when, after surrendering our passports (a security measure the hotel had put in place after Liverpool fans caused havoc a few years back apparently), we got up to the room. We’d booked a triple as Neil was joining us on the Tuesday but actually got an annex of the hotel with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a ridiculously large balcony. The only downside was the fact that it was two double beds. One had split duvets, the other just had a double. I grabbed the double, Keith and Neil could get cozy.

We had a quick scoot round Basel taking in the main tourist attractions; some squares, a bar, a big wooden horse, another bar, the town hall (if you had a beautiful town hall, why would you feel the need to put a psychedelic poster over it to cover up some scaffolding?) etc. we decided that we should be sensible and have something to eat and a kip as Keith had been up since three and I wasn’t far behind. Heading back towards the hotel we found a ‘traditional Swiss’ pizzeria. Then we had our snooze – ok, we went back into town and had a couple of drinks before finally grabbing an hour in bed.

There weren’t that many English about on the Monday night. We went to a few bars along the main street before decamping to Annie’s Bar just off the main drag. This was only a small bar but was heaving. I think the landlord thought all of his Christmases had come at once. At the same time, he was clearly very on edge, quickly quietening down anyone who was getting too loud. I’m not really sure what type of establishment this was. It all seemed very respectable except for the comics they had on the walls in place of pictures. I don’t know if “Little Annie’s Fanny” was their own publication or if this is a popular read in Switzerland.

The cost of drinks, and this was one of the cheaper bars, ensured that we didn’t get too hammered and about one o’clock we decided to head back. Luckily, the bar next to the hotel was open and we got talking to a couple of Swiss chaps who had just knocked off for the night after a shift at a nearby restaurant. Their English wasn’t perfect but much better than my German and we spent some time talking football with them. During this time, I noticed a large black lady perched on a bar stool. It was apparent that this was a lady that Mr Rooney would know more about than I would. She must have been sixteen stone and was wearing the tiniest dress that ‘showed off all her curves’. Then she did something that gave me nightmares for the rest of the trip. I can only describe it as ‘the full Sharon Stone’. We left shortly afterwards!!

Neil arrived on Tuesday morning and we all met up at the Hilton which was the nominated signing in point. After that we dropped his stuff at the hotel and ventured out for the pre-match entertainment. After a few scoops the night before it is always a difficult call as to just how you should plan the day of the game so as to enjoy yourself, yet actually see the game. We decided to take it slowly and after a spot of lunch, we headed down to a bar we’d drunk in the previous evening. We’d been the only English in there on the Monday, in fact we were probably the only guys and the only people over thirty as well. The clientele had, however, somewhat changed on matchday.

As the beers were not going down easily, we decided to have a ride up to the stadium to have a look around, take the flag picture outside the ground and see if we could put it up inside. We got there about half two, to be met with what looked much more like a block of flats.

After taking a picture of the flag outside the ground, we found the away entrance and noticed that some flags had already been positioned inside. This seemed strange as we’d been told that the gates would be opened for half an hour for this from four. Closer inspection showed that one of the flags was Jazz’s which didn’t come as a surprise as he has a knack of getting it up early.

On the upper concourse, outside the ground is a sports bar which overlooks the inside of the stadium so we went for a beer in there, at which point the heavens opened. We were still intending to head back into town but the change in weather had us questioning the point. By the time we’d had a couple, it was clear that we were there for the duration.

As we were still around, I headed back down about half three to see about getting in to the away end, to find a picture of chaos. It seemed that the stewards had opened up at 1pm and a few people had put up flags. They had then reopened about three and let a few more people put them up. Now, however, they were claiming that all the spaces had been taken. It was clear, just from looking that this wasn’t the case but they weren’t for changing their minds. I wasn’t overly concerned but some of the English fans were irate and further stewarding was required.

Neil, Keith and I decided to wander down to the shopping centre under the ground t break up the drinking. The problem is that we are not really shopping centre kind of people and so the only thing of any real interest in the shopping centre was the bar. Sod it, that was pretty much where we remained until an hour before kick-off. It was a bar in theory, but in practice was a stall outside the shopping centre selling cans of beer and sausages. There was a great atmosphere though, probably 80% Swiss but with a fair number of England fans including Jazz, Alan and Sean.

As is usually the case at away games, the English became abit of a tourist attraction with more and more Swiss being attracted by our songs and the array of flags that soon started to appear attached to anything people could tie them to. There was even a bit of competition as to whether more noise could be made singing Ten German Bombers or by a man dressed as a cow with a  massive bell [even I don’t feel the need to stoop as low as making a joke here].

Inside, the ground was modern but I didn’t feel it was a soulless bowl like some. The atmosphere was decent as it was clear what a big game this was for the Swiss. I managed to find a good spot for the flag and decided that as I had split up from the others, I would stand by our allocated seats in the upper tier so they could easily find me. The only problem was that the block and seat numbers in each tier were identical and so they assumed that our seats were downstairs. The atmosphere was better down there so I joined them.

In the first half, I thought we were superb. The early goal clearly helped and it was great to see Rooney back on the scoresheet. If England are going to be successful, they need Rooney to perform and to be scoring goals. It was interesting to see what a great reception Rooney got both before kick-off and during the game. No doubt most of the fans will be back to booing him over the next few weeks but it is still the case that when you pull on the 3 Lions, support will usually be unequivocal.

We made the Swiss look poor as we passed the ball around and by half time I was amazed that we hadn’t managed to stretch the lead. The Swiss fans, who had been so enthusiastic early on could rarely be heard while the England fans were superb.

The second half was a tighter affair, although you’d have got long odds on that once Switzerland were reduced to ten men and five minutes later Adam Johnson scored a great goal. The locals were seething over the sending off, but I wasn’t sure what else they really thought the ref could do. As for the goal, Rooney was involved again and a wonderful through ball from Defoe gave Johnson the opportunity. There was still plenty to do but he finished with a confidence that would have come in very handy in South Africa in the summer.

I think we all assumed it was all over at that point but after a couple of warning signs when Joe Hart showed uncharacteristic signs of panic, the Swiss substitute (Shakira from what I could make out over the tannoy) scored an absolute screamer… Waka Waka!

With the man advantage, I still fancied us to go on and win the game and so it turned out but I’d never have said that Darren Bent would turn out to be the hero.

We were expecting it to be horrendous trying to get a tram back into town but in reality it was really straight forward. Straight to the station and we ran straight on to the waiting tram. Admittedly, so did several thousand other fans and so we had to endure unbearable temperatures but it allowed us to get back into town in no time.

I’d love to stay that we then stayed out all night celebrating but it would be a lie. We went to the bar next to the hotel (I think Kieth wanted to see our hooker friend again) and watched the end of Argentina v Spain but ended up having an early night with us all up for early flights on the Wednesday morning.

The train back to Zurich was as easy as it had been going and after a flight back to Manchester which managed to sober everyone up by hitting a vapour trail from another plane (all the stewardesses went flying as we veered a good 45 degrees), I was back in work before one. Oh well, I guess I need to keep on earning for when the next qualifier comes along.