Football News - Euro 2004 From The Inside

The Purist Went Inside Euro 2004

"We is European champs, innit?" represented a glorious stab at summing up a summer’s football, capturing perfectly the eloquence of Greek journalist Alex Constantinou. "I enjoyed it and the best team won," chipped in Dave Rainford of Manchester, with more of a gift for understatement than his prodigious vocal cords might suggest.

"That Karel Bruckner... is he Colin Hendry's dad?" Steve Hardie wondered aloud on a Porto-bound train. But no list of favourite English observations would be complete without: "How about that Postiga, the cheeky bastard!" So said a Spurs fan leaving Lisbon’s Estadio de Luz, having witnessed the first of Scolari's masterful substitutions convert a quarter-final shoot-out penalty with maximum disdain and minimum resemblance to his single season's efforts at White Hart Lane. Sure, there was more to the whole adventure than England’s ritual resort to self-pity, but that one was priceless.

The Purist set out to eavesdrop on some of the random thoughts you’d only ever obtain with that old-fashioned reporting technique of ‘patchwork’ – in other words, by putting in the hours out in the field, on the buses, in the bars and even, when the occasion demanded, in the sea.

You’ll find a rudimentary cast list at the end, but justice could never be done in print to the kind of international relations fostered at a tournament such as this – such a boost to spirits laid low in an age busily ushering in the Orwellian prospect of perpetual warfare.

If you had a problem with any Italians in Portugal then you should have met Dom "My mate Luca put €100 on the Greeks to win before the start" Bercelli. Dom readily agreed with most of The Purist’s respondents that Buffon edged Beckham as the moaner of Euro 2004 for his reference to the lack of a word for ‘fix’ in Swedish.

Moaning? We’ve all done it, but never was a good moan more justified than in the case of customers of the ‘special’ trains laid on for supporters on matchdays at astronomical mark-ups, with unexplained delays thrown in free. The verdict was unanimous that this so-called exercise in security took the honours as the outstanding rip-off of Euro 2004.

A far closer call was costume of Euro 2004, with a Swiss Scooby Doo pitted against a troupe of Swedish cheerleaders unafraid of getting their flip-flops wet in a downpour of Biblical proportions prior to the ‘local derby’ with Denmark. Danish female Else Kvist, so biased she nominated Jon Dahl Tomasson for best goal, just tipped the voting in favour of Scooby.

Running into Mick McCarthy, who was manager of Ireland for that gallant World Cup exit at the hands of Spain's penalties two years before, could have been a more pleasant experience as he scouted for Premiership hopefuls Sunderland. Emboldened by previous encounters, which displayed at least some humour, this friend of two SAFC supporters duly approached McCarthy for a couple of signatures.

OK, personalised autograph requests in an airport with an hour to kill between internal flights may not be up every diligent coach's street, but his reaction to being asked to sign "Stop making things up, Garry" met with: "I'm not puttin that." "It's for a big Mackem," came the protest; "it's only a joke – how about, 'Do you mind turning up a few more times next season, Garry?', instead, then?" The point was wilfully missed and ‘Best Wishes’ was all there was to show for bumping into ‘the English ****’!

One anonymous Uefa employee, in awe at the many talents of the Dutch masses, was a bit more forthcoming, or should that be less discreet, than McCarthy: "We were shown how to carry 20 pints of (alcohol-free, not even Super Bock) beer in two hands thanks to the corrugated cardboard carriers provided by Carlsberg."

Perhaps fazed by such an expensive round of pretend beer, the revelation of that particular sponsor’s sloppiness in its selection of an official man of the match was thus let slip: "The winner was not always who the people voted for," our ‘Euro Deepthroat’ continued. "There was a cut-off point for counting votes so there’d be time to present the award at the final whistle, and quite often the choice was overruled, especially in the case of a late goal!" Oh, the corruption – The Purist, barely recovered, has subsequently retired from investigative journalism a disillusioned man.

As for the fans of the tournament, those Dutch may have been outnumbered by the English, but, as Spaniard Jack Rico pointed out, "They party harder than the English!"

Joao Nuno Coelho astutely suggested Big Phil Scolari for quote of Euro 2004, and "Football is to kill" will surely endure no matter what becomes of the man who uttered it. Even so, Joao himself went close when asked for his favourite road sign. "Come on, I’m Portuguese!" he replied.

"Road sign of 2004? Easy… ‘Attention: Weasels crossing’ – I killed one myself," offered Roland Renner, who led an Austrian film crew around for a month as an original way of warming up for their turn as (joint) hosts in 2008. All agreed that signs on motorways would have been far more useful located further than 20 metres from the turn itself, while quite what locals made of an English banner from Brighton draped over a motorway bridge ("Give us our ground, Fatboy" next to a portrait of UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott) is anyone's guess.

When it came to tourist attractions, beaches loomed predictably large, although the Republica da Cerveza at Expo, in the capital – a beer museum – did some brisk business and the aforementioned Renner even tracked down an ostrich farm run by an Austrian in exile!

A rare travel option indeed was undertaken by Ben Lloyd, Annie Jago and Neil Stacey, who recruited a captain for their yacht and sailed to Portugal from the Caribbean, a matter of around 6,000km. "Having flown out Robin from Southport, who did the serious sailing, we made such good time we could afford a week on Madeira before the leisurely last leg. We ended up parking in the bay at Lagos," said Ben.

"We’re English and had tickets for the Croatia game. We were hoping for other games too, but they fell through, although one mate told us he had a spare voucher for the Portugal quarter-final… only for it to turn out to be an actual ticket! We found that out as we sat down to watch the game on TV with him and I can promise you he came in for some proper abuse."

That may put Dr Ged Brown’s exhausting-enough holiday route, from Gibraltar to Lisbon and back with a detour to Aveiro and Porto, in perspective, but there’s no need to be competitive about these things! A best chant of Euro 2004 was far trickier to determine given the vivid picture painted by Gundi the Bulgarian when he described a train carrying countless nationalities, all united in song as an elderly Portugese woman answered her mobile phone. I Just Called To Say I Love You was not only surprisingly tuneful given the amount of refreshments around, it broke the ice for a typically situationist and vocal debate on the progress of the tournament… and she even got the joke!

Sporting Lisbon fan Ricardo Bermado was bemused when asked to confirm his team’s nickname once a rival team’s derogatory chant had been roughly translated back to him. "If you don’t jump you're a Sporting lizard..." it went. Ricardo: "No, no, our nickname is the lions!"

However, were we in the business of picking something truly surreal, and The Purist has his moments, this import from The Valley, in south London, bears re-telling, to the tune of Volare: "There’s only one Georgie Costa/One Georgie Costa/He comes from Portugal/He fucking hates Millwall." How could the newly-crowned Champions League winner and former Charlton Athletic defender fail to be flattered by that one?

Any cynics out there still concerned that the €800+m spent on construction and infrastructure may have been wasted should pay attention to the experience of one of the tournament’s actual winners… or, to be specific, a winner of one of the many promotional campaigns you can’t fail to notice on every high street, in every magazine and every ad break in the run-up to all sporting spectaculars these days.

Take it away, Howard James, who won an all-expenses trip to the final courtesy of a very large mobile phone network: "There were ten winners taken over there in total, with only three getting to go to the final. Three of the original eight backed out, for various reasons such as one lad not being able to go because his girlfriend wouldn't let him!

"We had a fantastic time at the final, ate roast boar and drank the best wine, with two hours of free drinks before and after the game. Our seats were right opposite the tunnel, but near the Greek fans so there was plenty of atmosphere, too. We didn’t spend a penny but the tickets had 270 euros written on them!"

And you thought it was all one big scam? Here’s hoping the Portugese can enjoy what politicians call ‘bounce’ from a tournament the nation became so committed to, and that average domestic top-flight attendances of 5,000 are a thing of the past. Here’s also hoping that Faro airport can muster a portable TV at some not too distant point for passengers, friends and family just in case there are any important football matches to catch up with!

And finally, for pure optimism beat this, spotted before Euro 2004 from the German website devoted to Fifa’s Confederations Cup, to be staged as a World Cup dry run in the summer of 2005:

"An eight-strong field will compete for the trophy: Germany (hosts), Brazil (reigning world champions), Tunisia (winner, African Cup of Nations 2004) and Mexico (winner, CONCACAF Gold Cup 2003) will be joined by the winners of the AFC Asian Cup 2004, the 2004 Copa America, the OFC Nations Cup 2004 and EURO 2004. Should Brazil win the 2004 Copa America, the losing finalists will also take part in the FIFA Confederations Cup 2005. The same applies should Germany win this summer's European Championship."

Will we be seeing you there? Whatever you do, GO AND SEE A GAME!

Cast: Ricardo Bermado and Joao Nuno Coelho (Portugal); anonymous Uefa official; Else Kvist (Denmark); Dom Bercelli (Italy); Roland Renner (Austria); Gundi (Bulgaria); Jack Rico (Spain); Howard James (England); Robert Allen (Ireland); Alex Constantinou (Greece)

Thanks to... Steve Hardie, Josie O'Keefe, Matt Fazackerley, Cecilia Albino, Dave Rainford, Ditz, Sally, Steve and Luca, Adam, Rob, Ged, Tim and Joel.

Do try and check out -
Hellbent For 90 Minutes website > http://www.11eleven.at

The Purist
Frank Rijkaard
Euro 2004: A Look Back
Football's Quitting Culture
Gareth Southgate
Warren Barton
Ramon Vega

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