Destined for k-town?

The word quickly passed around the Australian fans that extra tickets to the Australia Italy round of 16 game in Kaiserslautern would go on sale at 10am today. Hower the ticket sale location in Stuttgart was not to be revealed until 9am on the FFA Travel website.

Well into Friday night little else was on our minds except how to get the jump on the rest of the crowd and get to the front of the line. Groups of fans laid plans-Where to get internet? Is it close to a transport? Some even scoped out potential sales locations such as hotels and conference centres for clues. Everyone was asking where are the FFA staff staying? Could it be there?

It had the amazing race written all over it. This was the middle of reality TV, except there was no cameras, producers or directors prompting the action.

Pete had his Blackberry so our plan was to station ourselves at the cab rank outside the main station and as a back up to the sometimes unreliable wireless service I would be inside at an internet kiosk. As soon as we knew the location we´d be in a cab with an offer of a big tip to the driver to get us there fast.

The FFA were doing the best to make this as fair as possible knowing that many would miss out. We knew that some would get the inside run on the location. We just hoped, somehow, it would be us.

None of us slept very well. I was certain that there was something we hadn´t considered, hadn´t thought about; something that would give us an adavantage, fair or otherwise, that in hindsight would be obvious. Sometimes it is a blurry line between fair and unfair.

We met at 8am and walked to our local station to catch the underground to the main station. As we arrived at the platform we recieved a txt- Maritim hotel. Trusting it was reliable we rushed back up stairs and as cooly as possible asked our hotel to call us a taxi.

We arrived at the Maritm and was ecstatic to find about 100 people in line but would not be satisfied until we had the tickets in our hand. It was only twenty past eight but people kept arriving, on foot and by taxi. Some tried to cut in but were quickly disuaded by a jeering crowd.

Some first hand witnesses said that the FFA website, not the FFA Travel website had the hotel location online much earlier than it was supposed to and word went around the Internet Cafe about the location and then spread from there.

As 9am approached the stream of people arriving grew. At times a train arrival at a nearby station saw a crowd of tens sprinting for the back of the line. The media appeared. How would they cover this story? The joy of those who had tickets? The dissapointment and anger of those who missed out? Or where things went wrong? Those of us there were fairly cheery as we were confident of getting tickets. But we felt for those now arriving, many of whom would have found out from the web site, and might miss out.

The five of us will be at the game and for that we are grateful and ecstatic. I have a ticket voucher in hand, Frankfurt hotel booked and plans laid to see Australia´s first round of 16 appearance. I find it hard to believe I´ll be there. Once again sporting spectator fortune has fallen my way.

But it is bittersweet. As we left for town, wanting to avoid any ugliness that might occur further down the line, we ran into a couple of mates well down the line. They had spent most of the past two weeks hanging with us sharing this world cup experience. Of all the people we should have passed the tip to these guys where the most desrving. In the heat of the moment we had forgotten them and for that we felt so, so, low. We cursed ourselves knowinf all it would have taken was a txt to them. We still don´t know wether they have tickets.

Celebration and Anticipation

Weary and sore Australian heads populate Stuttgart´s internet cafe`s today. After a long night of celeberation, many of us are trying to make arrangements to see Australia versus Italy in Kaiserslautern on Monday. A small number of tickets will go on sale tomorrow morning in Stutgart so despite the arrival of thousands of England supporters for Sunday´s game there is still a large population of Australians in town. Fans are checking ticket selling sites, talking to their contacts and planning their Saturday morning to snag some of the FFA allocation.

I´m looking forward to heading back to Kaiserslautern and am hopeful of getting a ticket. But if I don´t I´m sure it will still be fun as there will be a good contingent of Australians in town to watch it on the big screen.

Stand up if you beat Japan*

*Also sung to tune of Go West

The Croatians and Australians are in town. Thousands of fans fill the streets of Stuttgart while the two 4pm trains play on the big screens. Many Australians have gathered at a beer garden in the park so the crowd in town is mostly the red and white checks of Croation supporters.

Last night hundreds of Croation and Australian suporters faced off in a war of chants with the Croations holding the high ground of the steps to the East of the main square while the Australians stood on chairs facing them.

Today the Australians hold the steps and as I passed several cheeky chants echoed through the air such as the one above and "Your shit, but your chicks are hot". We have the benefit that we don't understand Croation but they mostly understand English. I did hear a chant of Goodby Australia in German though.

Many of us will shortly head to the ground to find out who will go onto the next round.

Heidelberg

With a whole day free of football or domestic commitments (yesterday was washing day) I took the 40 minute train ride to Heidelberg. The old city is built on the River Neckar with the Shloss (castle) overlooking the city. In its hey day the castle must have been an amazing sight (it still is) with massive grounds surrounding the defensive walls on the side of the mountain.

After a walk fromt the station, a climb to the castle, a wander around the top of the mountain and folloing philosophers way along the mountainside on the opposite bank back to station my legs were well and truly ready for bed.

Seeing Stutgart

With a few days in Stuttgart before Australia´s final group game against Croatia I´ve had a chance to take in some sites.

Stuttgart is home to the Porsche and as my favourite fast car I could not miss the drool fest that is the Porsche Museum. The museum houses a selection of Porsches and Porsche designed vehicles (such as the VW bug) through out the years. My favourites included the fire engine and a Stuttgart police car.

I watched a little of Germany´s game in the fan fest but there were so many people and the result seemed a foregone conclusion that I continued a self guided walking tour of some of the city´s interesting sites.

On the train home I met a South African who has been to a game every day of the World Cup so far. He chooses a game and with his Eurail pass heads for the city that morning and then to the ground to buy a ticket from a scalper. He has bought most tickets under €100. On several occasions he has picked up a category 3 or 4 ticket and then resold it to buy a category 1 or 2 ticket. He recomended that I do this with my category 4 ticket but I pointed out that I don´t like to encourage scalping. He agreed but made an interesting point that all of the tickets he had bought so far were sponsors tickets such as thiose for Addidas and Yahoo.

A few of us hit the town looking for a club after watching the Sweden England game back at our hotel. There where plenty of German fans about celebrating but I called it a night after a couple of drinks. I think the pace of my holiday is catching up with me...

Home base

The small Swabian city of Oehringen, an hours drive from Stuttgart, is the home base for the Socceroos during their World Cup campaign. They laid out the welcom mat as young ambassadors welcomed each coach load of Australian fans to their city and handed out maps and guides.

Almost every shop window in town is football themed and adorned with Australain and German flags with many more Australian flags hanging from buildings around the city. They made us feel very welcome indeed. The town centre hummed to the eating and drinking of both locals and Australians as several bands played throughout the day. A nice touch to their web page is that it uses the Australian and not the UK or US flags for the English version.

While our main motivation for the visit was for the Socceroos training session it was nice to wander the streets seeing their beautiful town. They had a beautifully well prepared pitch and the locals turned out in force to join us for the training session. I know the Socceroos are in good hands.

The match we´d been waiting for

Many of the Australians on tour with FFA gathered in a Munich Beergarden at the north end of the English Garden, one of the largest city parks in Europe. The mood was good but after an early lunch of almost half a chicken, chips and a litre stein of beer I figured that I could not continue this patten until heading to the stadium for the Brazil Australia game.

I headed into the city to soak up a more mixed atmosphere of Brazilian and Australian fans and to check out some of the sights close to the city centre. Like many European cities Munich is very beautiful with many old civic buildings and churches. Unfortunatly I missed the famed Glockenspiel do its thing but to see the town centre was still worth the trip in.

After a short detour to the beer garden I was glad to head to the stadium early to watch the finish of the Croatia Japan game. The Australian crowd was pleased with the 0-0 result as it left it in Australian hands as to wether we would get to the next round. Interestingly this stadium was constructed using the same technique as the rocket tower for the National Space Centre in Leicster.

The stadium quickly became a sea of green and gold of the Australian and Brazillian fans filed into the ground with a spattering of German colours. I won´t go into the game as there is plenty written elsewhere about it except to say that the feeling of those around me was the played well and the score could have been very different. I was pleased that Brazil was scoreless at half time and felt that our team had their measure.

We only had a short time in Munich after the game before having to board the train back to Stuttgart. I don´t think I could sum it up better than I did in an SMS to a friend who asked "So do the Brazillians party as hard as the Japanese?" To which I replied: "The Brazillians party louder than the Japanese but not as hard as the Australians when we lose.