The day before England were set to play the Netherlands in the Euros semi-finals, I received a phone call from my dad. He opened with, “what are you doing tomorrow?” I already knew he had a ticket to the match, through the advantage of knowing a few well-off businessmen, but it seems his luck had, at that moment, extended to me. Following this 10 minute phone call, I booked a flight to Düsseldorf for the next day.
I will skip my less than ideal day of travelling, vendetta against TfL, and other such turmoils, and jump straight to my arrival in Dortmund. Stepping out of the train station, it became clear that us England fans may have been a little outnumbered by the orange army. But that didn’t hinder our pilgrimage to the stadium, carefully marked by a mile long strip of astroturf that had been laid to help direct fans.
The atmosphere built the closer you got to the stadium as more and more fans joined us on the path to the game, punctuated by half-and-half scarf sellers and policemen. Once inside, I could take in the stunning view of the stadium and the whole pitch that I had from the upper level of the stands, midway between the halfway line and the Dutch end. From here, you could see why the Dutch were given the yellow wall.
Adorned in bright orange, with drums and flags, they certainly are a fanbase to admire. You could see the smaller allocation of England fans trickle in over this time, but clearly we had chosen to drink outside of the stadium for much longer th.
