Lithuania v England. 08/10/17

"Scott, this isn't what I imagined watching England would be like."

Lithuania 0-1 England. LFF stadionas.
Sunday 08/10/17.

When my girlfriend asked me what I wanted to do for my 30th birthday, she probably had a number of ideas in mind. Now I'm not one to dive into the female psyche, but I'm willing to bet that none of them involved "Lithuania away for four days for a pointless World Cup Qualifier, via Estonia and Latvia and spending a night sleeping on a bus." Yet here we were, setting off from London Stansted at 6.50am on a Friday morning bound for Tallinn, capital of Estonia for a whistle-stop tour of the Baltics.

Katie had never been to any of our three destination countries before, nor been to an England game - an away match in Vilnius is as glamorous a start as you can get - while I was looking forward to actually seeing some of Tallinn this time, having famously been so hungover on our 2014 visit that I slept through the entire Estonia v England game in my hostel.

Firstly, we had to get there though which Ryanair were seemingly determined to make as difficult as possible. A spectacular cock up from the budget airline meant that they were having to cancel 2,000 flights over October and November due to a lack of pilots. Somehow, ours was one that escaped the cull and so there was deep joy when we touched down in Tallinn against all the odds.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

My desire to see some of Tallinn this time rather than laying comatose in bed with the sort of hangover that would drive a lesser man to cutting his own head off was fulfilled as we wandered around the old town, up Toompea Hill for some stunning views of the city and we even visited several churches. No alcohol passed our lips until late in the afternoon, a McCarthy Football Travels record of five hours between touch down and first beer.

Tallinn Old Town from the top of Toompea Hill was a fantastic view

That first beer took place in a little side street pub called Bear Bar. I'd been here alone in 2014 while waiting for some friends to arrive and found it very friendly and a good place to drink by myself. This amused Katie for reasons I was unable to fathom until she pointed out that we were in fact in a gay bar. I refused to believe this until the evidence became overwhelming; the glittery table clothes, the blaring out of boy band tunes and the fact that every other patron bar Katie was a bloke.

While outing yourself as a possible homosexual while abroad with your girlfriend isn't an ideal turn of events, it could have been much worse given I'd been raving about the local beer beforehand. Luckily, I never referred to it by name, otherwise telling her "I love Le Coq" along with the fact I had a great time alone in a gay bar might well have bought a premature end to the trip.

Pint of Coq in the Bear Bar

Pint of Coq in the Bear Bar done, it was off for birthday food and drinks which consisted of a medieval banquet of bear, wild boar and elk and some strong honey mead and then a pub crawl through Tallinn's finest bars for Coq and the local speciality, vodka. This crawl of course included Labor, the bar famous for selling shots of some horrific concoction called cocaine in test tube shots. Five of these each to toast 30 years on the planet left me feeling nearly 60 years old the next morning. Katie meanwhile had contrived to do the impossible and drunkenly lose one shoe at some point between entering the hostel and getting back to the room.

Bear, elk, wild boar - the medeival banquet

Labor - when will the lesson be learnt that any shot coming in
a test tube isn't going  to be good?

There was another McCarthy Football Travels first on Saturday as we went to an art gallery, Kumu. The Estonian's know how to do culture well as Kumu also sold beer although, unfortunately yours truly was too hungover to enjoy the paintings with a bottle. This cultural activity was offset by some more traditional behaviour, namely getting into Kadriog Stadium, home of FC Levadia Tallinn for a nose around.

Kadriog Stadium, home of the nine times Estonian champions

Classic Eastern European Stadium

Before A Le. Coq Arena was built, Kadriog Stadium had been the home of the national team. It had everything you want from a small nation home ground - two small stands, a running track, no roof and a huge scoreboard. We probably could've got on the pitch if we wanted for a kick around - Katie informed me she used to be a handy defender back in the day - but out of respect for the nine times Estonia champions, we decided not to. That and the burly security guard who was wandering slowly around the ground having second guessed what was about to happen. 

If there was one part of the trip that was being approached with something akin to dread, it was the overnight bus. Katie likes to get a good night's sleep and how much sleep you can get in eight hours between Tallinn and Vilnius is debatable.

"Strictly no alcohol is allowed on the bus"

The answer, it turned out, was quite a lot if you load up on Jim Beam whiskey in a bar beforehand outside the bus station, and then blatantly ignore the no alcohol rule and  take a large bottle of the stuff onto the bus with you. It helps that the Lux Express has to be one of the most comfortable coaches around and that it was so empty that we were able to spread out and have two seats each to lie across. We left Tallinn at 10.30pm Saturday and by 6.30am we were in Vilnius.

Welcome to wet and windy Vilnius

After a two hour stay hiding from the wind and rain in a McDonalds outside the bus station in which we were only accosted on four different occasions by the homeless, we were able to check into our hotel a few hours early. Despite being Lithuania's capital, there was actually very little to do in Vilnius other than attempt to haggle with market sellers over the price of a flat cap or go to the pub where we soon met up with the usual England away crowd of Mark, Kevin, Fiona and Sara.

Mark in particular was having a good time of it, a root canal tooth probem meaning he was on antibiotics and had been unable to drink on the trip so far. Within 10 minutes of our arrival, we'd driven him to take up a strong local beer and within a pint of that he was absolutely hammered, which provided probably the best entertainment of the day given how dire the football would turn out to be.

The normal rules of engagement on a match day are visit several pubs and see the city. Given the fact that it was more miserable than the Tory Party Conference outside, that went out the window as we stayed within the shelter of Artistai until 30 minutes before kick off. Some of us were even hoping the game would be called off due to a waterlogged pitch. That was pretty unlikely given that the pitch is artificial, but nothing would surprise me any more after that debacle in Poland five years ago of a waterlogged pitch in a stadium with a retractable roof. Unfortunately, there was no failure of Eastern European technology this time and so we had to make the 20 minute walk to LFF stadionas.

LFF stadionas in all her glory

Ku Klux Klan (a)

Now came the challenge of getting Katie a ticket for the game. Thankfullly, this challenge proved fairly straightforward and we had in our possession one home end ticket at face value. One kind hearted England fan then swapped his away end ticket for that home end one and boom, Katie was in for her first England game. As an added bonus, our knight in shining armour definitely ended up with the better deal of a stand with a roof and alcohol inside the ground.

"Scott, this isn't what I imagined watching England would be like", Katie turned to me midway through the first half and said. And she had a point. When you are used to watching the Three Lions on television from Wembley or in huge stadiums at big tournaments, then LFF stadionas will come as a bit of a shock.

The cover included trees

Holding a total of 5,067 people, it was essentially Withdean Stadium or a pre season friendly in Scandinavia. The away fans were in a tiny stand behind the goal so close to the pitch you could hear exactly what was going on on it, including some delightful industiallanguage from Aaron Cresswell on his first start, Along one side was another small stand, meant for home fans but with at least 50% England. This had some cover towards the back in the form of some lovely trees while the opposite side held the main stand. Behind the other goal was just a set of tents making it look like a village fete rather than an international football ground.

While the home end had cover and alcohol, the away end had ponchos and tea. Stewards on the turnstiles were handing out green and yellow ponchos and with every single person in the ground wearing them, it looked like the Ku Klux Klan were holding a rally in their away kit. There might have been no beer in the away stand but at one end of the tents selling refreshments, you could pick up a 'sweet tea'.

1-0 England and time for the flare

Given that there was sugar freely available and so you could add as much as you liked to a normal tea to make it sweeter, a cynic, or someone who had spent the previous night drinking whiskey straight to knock themselves out for a bus journey, would say that the 'sweet' element in this special sweet tea was in fact whiskey. The tea certainly helped take the edge of the cold and more importantly, the mind numbingly boredom that the game inflicted on everyone.

Harry Kane got the only goal in front of the away fans in the first half from the penalty spot, a goal that was greeted with a flare going off. The owner of said flare rather boldly let it off before Kane had even struck the ball which led to some regret that Kane actually scored it given that a miss followed by a bloke wondering what the hell to do with his lit flare would have been fantastic.

Actually, it would have been the highlight of the game as nothing else happened. Jack Butland made one save of note and even that was from his own defender Michael Keane. Large swathes of the England support left at half time seeking the solace of beer, warmth and Baltics special garlic bread and you couldn't really blame them. It was a typical performance under Gareth Southgate for England - dull, pedestrian and lifeless but it got the job done, even if Lithuania were arguably the better side. Had they have had a striker, it could have been an embarassing result for the Three Lions.

Thank God that game is over...

We stayed until the bitter end before walking back into the centre to meet up again with Mark, Kevin, Fiona, Sara and the rest for some post game beer and vodka straight to get into the Lithuanian spirit. They were all playing the long game, hanging out in the pub until closing and then going straight to the airport, given that they had a 6am flight from Vilnius back to Gatwick. Mark in particular looked to be in a world of trouble by this point, somehow believing that he was in Glasgow rather than Vilnius. The only possible similarities were the dreary weather but even so, this was a fine advert for why drinking on antibiotics is an excellent idea.

We on the other hand had a bed for the night and an 8am coach onwards to country number three of the trip, Latvia. That was a mere four hour journey, giving us enough time to have a look around Riga's old town, eat some traditional Latvian meatballs and experience some Latvian beer.

Country number theee - Latvia

Yes, that is a monkey in a space suit;
no, no idea either

Last time I was in Riga I was too hungover to drink but I did at least make a game of football, Latvia taking on Turkey in a game that was nearly as boring as Lithuania v England. Nearly, but not quite. This time we stumbled across one of the stranger statues in existence of a 30 foot tall monkey in a space suit. Answers on a postcard as to what that is all about, please. 

That night it was homeward bound from Riga to Stansted on another surprisingly successful Ryanair flight, which brought to an end our Baltics tour and Katie's first ever England game. So, did she enjoy it? She did, which is great news given her birthday in March coincides with the Netherlands away.

Amsterdam, here we come.

Lithuania: Erenstas Setkus, Valdemaras Borovskis, Linas Klimavicius, Edvinas Girdvainas, Vytautas Andriuskevicius, Arturas Zulpa, Arvydas Novikovas, Ovidijus Verbickas, Fedor Cernych, Vykintas Slivka (Karolis Chvedukas), Darvydas Sernas (Deivydas Matulevicius).

England: Jack Butland, Michael Kane, John Stones, Harry Maguire, Kieran Trippier, Jordan Henderson, Harry Winks, Aaron Cresswell, Michael Rashford (Daniel Sturridge), Dele Alli (Jesse Lingard), Harry Kane 1.

Attendance: 5,067

Scotland v England. 10/06/17

"I assumed you were joking when you said you were bringing us a pack of beer up because the pubs here aren't allowed to open until 11am."

Scotland 2-2 England. Hampden Park.
Saturday 10/06/17

England v Scotland games are like the proverbial London Bus. You wait 14 years for one to come along, and then you end up with four in three years. Not that any supporters of the two nations would've complaining.

No, the only murmurs of discontent predictably came from the police and the British press. The police had firstly wanted this game to be a midday kick off and then when that request was quite rightly denied, they decided to put in place a ban on any street drinking across the weekend. Spoilsports.

"Us v them"

As for the press, well the way they carried on in the run up to the game you could've been forgiven for expecting World War III to break out on the streets of Glasgow. One respected national journalist even went so far as to suggest a return to "The dark days of 1980s hooliganism" was on the cards, based on two idiots pulling Hitler salutes at the Germany away game back in March.

In completely surprising news, this full blown campaign of bed wetting hysteria turned out to be absolute nonsense. Both sets of supporters were passionate but it was never anything more than that. There was even the surreal sight of Scotland and England fans clapping each other as the Scots exited Hampden Park while the visitors were locked in for 30 minutes after the final whistle. Needless to say, that show of mutual respect didn't make any of the papers the next day.

This was effectively a day trip for me thanks to that old favourite, the National Express overnight coach. A 10.15pm departure from London Victoria on Friday night saw a 7.15am arrival in Glasgow Saturday morning while going back the other way it was a 10.15 departure Saturday evening, arriving back in London at 6.40am. Travel and accommodation rolled into one and for less than £30. Which was just as well as the match ticket was a stonking £55.

No pubs opening until 11am forced us into
the "Kronenbourg in hotel room while watching
Coronation Street omnibus" approach

Now if Scotland were a modern, civilised country then a 7.15am arrival would've been no problem at all. A quick visit to Wetherspoons for a fry up and a pint would've got the day off to an excellent start. Scotland is however still living in the 1990s, with draconian drinking laws that mean pubs can only serve alcohol between the hours of 11am and midnight. This makes somewhat of a mockery out of the claim that it is a nation of drinkers, when you can in fact only drink in the prescribed hours laid down by Nicola Sturgeon.

Miss Sturgeon had burned me in this way on England's last game in Scotland at Celtic Park in November 2014 and, much like the Scottish electorate in the general election 48 hours previously, I wasn't going to be fooled by her a second time around. Before leaving London four cans of Kronenbourg were purchased and so I trotted off to meet my fellow Brighton supporter Lewis in his hotel room, where we enjoyed a morning beer and Coronation Street omnibus. If watching Bethany Platt attempting to run away with a bloke old enough to be her father doesn't get you up for one of the most historic rivalries in international football, nothing will.

11am - finally, a beer!

Happy campers as we finally get a pub drink in the Bon Accord

The very aptly named "The State"

By 11am and opening time, a gabble of Brighton supporters had gathered at Bon Accord for a pub crawl leading from the Charring Cross area of Glasgow right back to Central Station. As well as the Bon Accord, the crawl took in The Henglers Circus, a pub very aptly named The State, The Hippo Tap Room and The Pot Still. It proved to be well worth the four hours wait between my arrival and opening time as the pubs were excellent, as was the whiskey which ended up being a pretty unnecessary accompaniment to each Tennants. The Scottish theme didn't stop there either as haggis was taken on board for lunch. Thankfully, I managed to escape having a haggis bomb, which is seemingly a Jaegerbomb with the Red Bull substituted for Irn Bru. Lewis had the misfortune to have one after the game at approximately 2am in Popworld and reported back that they are every bit as horrible as you would imagine.

Haggish, mash, swede - food of champions

Hampden Park is around a 15 minute train ride from Glasgow Central, in the suburb of Mount Florida. Naturally, England and Scotland fans couldn't be trusted to travel together to the stadium and so we had completely separate trains that went to completely separate stations. The English station for the day was Kings Park which led to a merry dance around a housing estate to reach the stadium.

The Scottish FA are considering leaving Hampden Park when their tenancy agreement is up in the next few years and it isn't hard to see why. It just doesn't work as a football ground. The bowl shape means that the areas behind the goals are miles back from the pitch for seemingly no reason as there isn't even a running track. England were housed behind one of those goals and I was lucky enough to grab a spot in the back row. Even halfway down the stand the view becomes impaired and if you are at the front then the technical term for what you can see is better known as bugger all.

Hampden Park

Pre game display from the Scotland support

Scotland's poor performances over the last decade mean they also struggle to fill it apart from for the really big games. Taking the national team on the road and using Celtic Park and Ibrox when the crowd size demands it seems a much better option than another long agreement to rent Hampden from where I am standing.

Rousing renditions of both national anthems gave away to a pretty disappointing atmosphere in terms of what you would expect from the occasions. That probably wasn't helped by both sides looking very much like 22 players who hadn't played a competitive game for three weeks; the game being desperately poor for 70 minutes with man along the row from me being rumoured to have slipped into a coma through sheer boredom.

The England masses seperated from the Scotland hoardes

Full time. 2-2

And then the last 20 minutes happened. Thank Christ there were two clowns in either goal as both goalkeepers belatedly decided to make things entertaining. Craig Gordon firstly made a total mess out of Alex Oxlaide-Chamberlain's shot to hand England the lead. The visiting support were crowing, the sound of "You're just a shit San Marino" bellowing around the ground. Scotland supporters could only offer a pretty feeble Icelandic Clap in response. Hey, at least we made a major tournament in 2016. And 2014. And 2012. And 2010. And 2006. And 2004. And 2002. And 2000.

That looked like game over but Leigh Griffiths and Joe Hart clearly had other ideas. Hart had already offered the only entertainment of the first half by wearing a baseball cap rarely seen outside of the school playground or in any game involving Chris Kirkland. Did the hat have magic powers? Possibly as without it, he was beaten by two virtually indentical Griffiths free kicks in the space of two minutes to turn the game on its head.

England scrape a draw with "a shit San Marino"

The roar that greeted the second could probably be heard on one of the moons of Jupiter as bodies went flying in the home sections and general bedlam broke out. I've never seen a goal celebrated so wildly and a special mention must go to the three disabled supporters at the front of the Scotland sector to England's right. They took the time in amongst the jubilation to wheel over to the away fans and celebrate in front of them with some standard middle fingers thrown in for good measure.

Glasgow looked set for a big Saturday night party until Harry Kane saved England's blushes in the 93rd minute with an equaliser that prompted hysteria of a different kind. If Griffith's ssecond gave Scotland unbridled joy, then Captain Kane's goal was an outpouring of sheer relieve. Thank Christ we didn't lose to them.

Hampden empties but the English fans are kept in

The final whistle blew at 2-2 with the unreported appreciation from both sets of supporters towards to each other. By the time we were finally allowed out of Hampden, there was only time for a couple of beers before I had to board the coach home while the others headed out for a night on the town and haggis bombs in the aforementioned Pop World.

Although when you think about it, there was only 105 minutes of pub time left between my departure for London and the calling of last orders anyway given midnight was approaching. Those beer laws really do need looking at ASAP. Sort them out, don't play at Hampden Park and then Scotland away might finally live up to the hype.

Scotland: Craig Gordon, Christophe Berra, Charlie Mulgrew, Kieran Tierny, Ikechi Anya (Chris Martin), James Morrison (James McArthur), Scott Brown, Andrew Robertson, Robert Snodgrass (Ryan Fraser), Stuart Armstrong, Leigh Griffiths 2.

England: Joe Hart, Kyle Walker, Chris Smalling, Gary Cahill, Ryan Bertrand, Jake Livermore (Jermaine Defoe), Eric Dier, Marcus Rashford (Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 1), Deli Alli (Raheem Sterling), Adam Lallana, Harry Kane 1.

Attendance: 48,520

Slovenia v England. 11/10/16

"When I said I was going to have a little nap, the general idea was to wake me up when the second half kicked off. Not leave me asleep for another 20 minutes."

Slovenia 0-0 England. Stozice Stadium.
11/10/16

Insomniacs, your days of sleepless nights are over. For I, Scott McCarthy, have come up with a cure that will send any man, woman or child into the land of nod at the drop of a hat.

You won't find this treatment on the NHS. If you went private, it would probably cost you hundreds of pounds. But, being the kind and considerate member of the human race that I am, I'm giving it to you for free.

Firstly, you want to book yourself a cheap flight to Munich. There, visit six or seven of this great cities finest beer halls. At 3.30am, board a bus to Ljubljana. Five hours later you will arrive in Slovenia's capital city. Have some breakfast. At 10am, recommence drinking for the next eight or so hours. At 9pm, attend Slovenia v England at Stozice Stadium. By 10pm, you will be out for the count.

GERMAN BEER!!!! 

In typical Bavarian style, a group of around 20 elderly ladies come
and join me for dinner

If you forget the turgid 90 minutes Gareth Southgate's England side served up in Slovenia - which it is bloody easy to do given sod all happened - this was another excellent trip. Munich remains one of my favourite cities in Europe. It has the perfect mix of beer, sausage and history, which made it the ideal starting and finishing point.

So, what does one do on a Monday night in Munich when one has to wait around until 3am for a bus? Augustine Klosterwirt, Ratskeller, Hofbrauhaus, Augustiner am Platz, Weisses Brauhaus, Palais Bar. In that order.

Pint of Hofbrau please bar keep

One of the many cost cutting measures you can take on these sorts of trips is overnight travel. It means you don't have to pay for accommodation and your time sleeping is put to good use getting from A to B, leaving more time to explore wherever you happen to end up.

This is all well and good in theory until the bus driver decides somewhere up in the Alps at 6am to whack the air conditioning on full blast, ruling out any more sleep. Cheers mate. There is of course also the washing situation. If you are sleeping on a coach for two consecutive nights, showering becomes a problem. Thankfully, I had my friends Lewis and Mark to sort me out in this regard with the use of the facilities in their splendid apartment in Ljubljana.

Ljubljana drinking at 10am with complimentary blankets

The best way to say thank you to Lewis and Mark was clearly to drag them to the pub for 10am and get the beers in, after which we could explore Ljubljana. There have been plenty of beautiful places on these footballing trips and Ljubljana ranks up there with the best of them.

The tiny Ljubljanica River meanders its way through the middle of the city with a plethora of charming bridges connecting the cobbled streets on either side. High above the city rises the castle, keeping an eye on everything going on below. A cable car takes people up to the top, from where stunning views of this quaint corner of Europe can be had.

Beautiful Ljubljana

Drinking on the banks of the Ljubljanica

Unfortunately, I never made it onto the cable car, instead preferring to try out a number of the bars situated along the banks of the river. In the height of summer, you can imagine the throng of people drinking outside these places as the sun beats down. It wasn't quite that pleasant on a cold October day with intermittent showers but, thanks to the Slovenian penchant for blankets we had a real good go at remaining outside while pursuing a range of local beers.

Monk Lewis is all wrapped up for our boat trip

It wasn't all drinking, mind you. There was some culture involved as Lewis, Mark, the recently arrived Ciaran and myself decided to take a cruise down the Ljubljanica. This featured a complimentary beer when boarding the boat and lasted for approximately an hour. I slept through approximately 45 of this which was a sign of things to come. At this juncture, I’d like to take the opportunity to apologise to any of my fellow boat passengers who may be reading this and who, in their attempts to take photos of the scenery around us, will probably have a Seth Rogen look-a-like ruining every one given my prime position at the back of the boat. Sorry.

Boat trip over, we were soon trying to make our way to the ground. On route, we passed a hotel with a coach outside and a mass of people. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but here it allowed us to see the England team boarding their transportation to the stadium. Wayne Rooney got the biggest cheer from the crowd, a far cry from those who shamefully booed him at Wembley three days previously. There was also a high five from Southgate who thanked us all for coming. With the benefit of hindsight with regards to his sides eventual contribution, I could've returned the favour and thanked him for aiding my pioneering work into insomnia.

Stozice Stadium

The birthplace of the cure to insomnia

Stozice Stadium was a 20 minute cab ride outside the city and at first glance appeared to be tiny. Only upon entry did it turn out that the entire place was sunk into the ground, so that you entered at the very top of the stadium with the pitch below you. It was a smart little place although on this occasion relatively empty.  A combination of the fact that England had played there less than 18 months previously and a disastrous Euros meant that the away end wasn't sold out. It was even less full by the end as supporters began streaming out from as early as the 15 minute mark in favour of the warmth offered by the city centres many great bars.

We stuck it out. At half time, I informed Mark, Fiona, Kevin and Sara who I'd miraculously ended up with having lost them after our little boat voyage that I was going to take a nap. The intention here was to catch up on some sleep during the 15 minute break. Silly me presumed somebody would wake me up if I was still out when the second half kicked off. My associates decided that, rather than do that, they wouldinstead focused on taking a load of pictures of me fast asleep while the game was going on.

One of the photos my lovely friends took instead of waking me up...

Sleeping beauty

Eventually, I woke up  into the second half, in time to see an absolute wonder save from Joe Hart. Hart was the only player to emerge with any real credit on a dire evening of football and that save was about the only thing of note that actually happened. Without him, England could easily have lost the game. But then at least there would have been some goals. Every cloud and all that.

Still, that snorefest had set things up nicely fit the return journey to Munich, this time at the slightly earlier time of 2.30am. 2.30am duly rolled around at the fabulous facilities supplied by Ljubljana Coach Station (a street with some bus stops) and there was no sign of the bus. 3am rolled around and a bus turns up. Brilliant, Munich here we come. Except, this isn't the 2.30am bus. There is a two hour delay on the border with Croatia owing to passport checks due to the migrant crisis and this is the 12.30am bus. Eventually, the 2.30am bus makes an appearance at 4am and we are off and running. That sleep in the stadium isn't looking such a silly move now thanks to that lack of efficiency from those at the Croatia-Slovenia border.

Odeonsplatz

Lowenbraukeller

One man who knew a thing or two about efficiency was Adolf Hitler and you can't really go to Munich and escape the cities links to the Nazi Party. One I'd finally arrived back in Bavaria, there were more beers to be had in amongst visiting several sights such as Odeonsplatz, where Hitler made several speeches and the Beer Hall Putsch came to its bloody conclusion and the Lowenbraukeller, one of the places frequented by Hitler and his henchman. Remarkably, I stumbled across some sort of rally going on in Marienplatz in front of the domineering Rathaus led by the far right Pegida party with plenty of anti-Muslim propaganda going on and a lot of people listening. Munich a hot bed of the far right? Things don’t change that much.

Nazi Congress Hall

Inside the Nazi Congress Hall, which would have held 50,000 if it
were completed

 A short 90 minute train journey from Munich is the city of Nuremberg, where the Nazi Parade Grounds are. This was where Thursday was spent, checking out the fascinating museum about the Nazi's rise and fall and standing on the balcony from where Hitler would inspect the troops. The whole place was fascinating, from the lake which was where the Nazi's had laid the foundations for a 400,000 capacity stadium (the Americans didn’t know what to do with it after the war, so just filled it up with water) to the Congress Hall, a 50,000 seater version of Rome's Coliseum which would have been where Hitler made grand speeches.

Nuremberg Parade Ground

Hitler's balcony

Nuremberg itself was a great little place, a smaller version of Munich with pubs and town squares galore. Having only half a day here was a travesty and a return visit to watch FC Nurnberg has to be on the cards. Their stadium? Part of the Parade Ground, of course. It would be nice to return to Ljubljana as well at some point. If the city was this great as Autumn kicks in, I can only imagine what it is like in the middle of summer.

Best do it soon as well. After all, thousands of people will be flocking there in the not too distant future to visit the city and see the spot where that great medical breakthrough happened. Ljubljana - where the cure for insomnia was discovered.

Slovenia: Jan Oblak, Aljaz Struna, Miral Samardzic, Bostjan Cesar (Miha Mevlja) Bojan Jokic, Rene Krhin (Nik Omladic), Benjamin Verbic, Valter Birsa (Rok Kronaveter), Jasmin Kurtic, Roman Bezjak, Josip Ilicic.

England: Joe Hart, Kyle Walker, Gary Cahill, John Stones, Danny Rose, Jordan Henderson, Eric Dier, Theo Walcott (Andros Townsend), Deli Alli (Wayne Rooney), Jesse Lingard, Daniel Sturridge (Marcus Rashford).

Attendance: 13,274