Euro 2024 Diary: A Momentous Mittwoch
Made it Germany after a tortuous Tuesday traveling to Dusseldorf ahead of covering England vs The Netherlands
Happy Mittwoch, as they say here in Germany.
A momentous Mittwoch.
Although, given Tuesday’s travails on my travels, I very nearly didn’t think I’d be writing this from my cheap, cramped, less-than-salubrious hotel room here in Dusseldorf this Wednesday morning.
For starters, the three hours spent on the tarmac at Heathrow waiting in a plane that felt it would never take off yesterday had me pondering the meaning of life.
Trains, planes and automobiles this last month.
Especially sat in the middle seat, with two great lumps either side of er, this great lump. It didn’t make for a comfortable ride. Nor was it even a ride, as we didn’t actually move for 180 long, life-sapping minutes.
Although it was nice to hear the loving couple in the row in front kiss, well, slurp, for practically three hours. Get a room.
It wasn’t much fun listening to their relentless canoodling, with their constant kissing sounding like someone with catarrh trying to slurp a broth through a straw.
Nor was listening to a baby cry for three long hours much fun either. I get babies cry. I’ve had kids. I understand, I really do. I also get you have to take your baby on holiday.
But really, is Dusseldorf a suitable destination for a six week old child, when half the plane is about to break into the ‘Great Escape’ at any given moment, after beating the ring of steel at Heathrow Airport, which seemed to consist of the police football hooligan unit - aka ‘Dimbleby’ from Spitting Image - checking his phone slouched next to T5’s Russell and Bromley as we shuffled passively through checks.
Dimbleby’ from Spitting Image
Anyway. As we were about to start moving, the pilot, in those gentle, gilded tones of theirs that reassure you even when your plane is about to hit a mountain, said: “Ah, an engineer has just noticed something irregular on the outside of the plane, so we’re dispatching an engineer to pick up a spannywacker to fix the problem, and then we’ll be off.”
I went from soothing smile to a ‘what did he just say?’ Did he really say a spannywacker? Perhaps it was wibbledibble? Or even a flugenflaven?
Whatever the sprocket was that they needed, I’m not sure I needed to know that a piece of the plane was hanging off, and that ‘Dave’ from the hanger had been despatched to Halfords to get a replacement.
Emergency repairs done after what seemed like an age, because it was an age, the pilot came back on. “Ah,” he soothed, “Due to the fact that Dave from the hanger took so long to fix the plane, we’ve missed our slot. So we’ll be here until the end of time, and possibly beyond.”
Well, he didn’t actually say that, but you can be sure despite his mellifluous timbre certainly meant it.
At that stage, it was time for Spain vs France to start, so I managed to watch the opening 45 minutes of perhaps the best half of football at this tournament.
Certainly the most gripping. Or was it just the fact that I was stuck on a plane with nowhere to go.
My picture of an excessively tall Frenchman taken before I covered the Round of 16 game between France and Belgium in Dusseldorf
Anyway, at half time, just as I was gearing up to listen to the searingly insightful Alan Shearer, the pilot came on the tannoy once again.
“Ah,’ he assuaged, “There is now weather in Dusseldorf, so I’ve taken the decision to fill up the plane, as we don’t want to…” he trailed off.
The balm of his tone was increasingly failing to console.
“Don’t want to, what?? “Crash. Run out of fuel. And crash.”
He added: “So, I’ve asked for an extra ton of fuel to be added.” That’s exactly what he said. “An extra ton of fuel.”
Regardless of just how many Nectar points that would be, how long would it take ‘Dave from the hanger’ to ‘fill ‘er up?’ We were about to find out.
“Ah,” said the pilot, in a voice guaranteed to appease even the most annoyed passenger. “This will mean now that we will miss our slot. But we’ll do our best to get you airborne soon enough.”
Finally, we were off, and the flight attendants fed the now restless crowd by hurling a postage stamp size packet of indeterminate crunchy things that tasted of sawdust and delays. Wedged in, unable to move, I blinked my thanks.
Spoiled by such generosity, we were than handed a minute bottle of water. It was so small perhaps it came from collected condensation on the windows. Eau le fenetre, peut-être.
Anyway, just as we hit turbulence and I assumed the crash position as a way out of the purgatory, the pilot came back on again. “Ah,” he gushed. “Due to the ‘weather’ over Dusseldorf - which has necessitated in the closure of our airport runway - we may have to circle for a while, and if nothing changes, perhaps land at Cologne instead.”
I looked out the window. Well, I angled my eyes 45 degrees as I hadn’t actually been able to move any part of my body since Kolo Muani had put the French ahead many hours/days/months previously.
A picture of Cologne Stadium taken after England’s 0-0 draw with Slovenia. CREDIT:
I swear to god I saw the distinctive Rubik’s cube facade of Cologne Stadium. I sighed. Or at least squeezed out a sigh, as I hadn’t actually been able to move since Kolo Muani had put the French ahead many hours/days/months previously.
And at that moment I said a little prayer.
I prayed to the god of travel to ask that if he or she delivered me into Dusseldorf Hauptbanhof in the early hours of Wednesday morning, I would get the train back to Blighty instead of a plane. And never bother the airline gods again.
And so the greater power decreed that I would be put out of my misery by finally landing at Dusseldorf.
And so it came to pass, via an underpass, funnily enough - although it wasn’t that funny at 2am, even if I looked more deranged than some of the potential muggers I strode past purposefully - that I eventually tracked my hotel down, through the help of some late night calls home as I couldn’t find the name of it anywhere on my phone. (Thank you Evie, and thank you Faye.)
Which leads us to a Momentous Mitwoch.
See you on the other side.
The view from my hotel window here in Dusselfdorf
DAILY LIST:
I) Hang my Match magazine St George Cross out of my tiny hotel window. Well, just because. Tick (See above)
II) Get from Dusseldorf to Dortmund
III) Report on the biggest match of my career after watching/covering England as a fan and a journalist for more than 40 years
