Day 19 St Etienne invaded by England fans

St Etienne for England v Slovakia

After the last minute Russian equaliser in their first game, this was always going to be a key game for England so it was a match greatly anticipated by Simon and I. We had brekkie and as usual I completed my blog from yesterday which took a couple of hours. Then, we had a bite to eat before setting off on our day trip from Lyon to St Etienne for the match.

The train service from Lyon to St Etienne is very good, fast and cheap. It cost just 23 euros for both Simon and I to get an open ended return journey, even though, in actual fact the ticket was never checked.

There was a bit a rush at the station Part-Dieu when the platform letter came up for the train and hundreds of England fans rushed to get on the train first. We managed to find some standing room on a carriage anyway. It was nice to chat for ten minutes or so before a group of England fans near us decided "it's too quiet in here" and started their chanting.

As I have noted before, I love the singing and chanting inside the ground, but I really find it a bit embarrassing when its done on a train or in any public place. It's just disrespectful to people who are just not interested in football, do not like it and/or who might be quite fearful at the prospect of being trapped on a train with hundreds of fans who have not exactly enamored themselves in the eyes of the media.

"Vardy's on fire, your defence is petrified" might be amusing to someone the first time they hear it, assuming they have a clue what it means, but when it's the hundredth time, and it's sung loudly by drunks who, let's face it, are no Pavarotti, it sounds horrible.

It honestly makes me cringe and regret wearing the three lions shirt as I am inevitably associating myself with this behaviour.

All I can do is apologise. And I do at every opportunity. The French here have been very tolerant and friendly and their usual response to the loud chanting is to smile but I did see some sullen looks and rolling eyes.

When young men are on tour, and get drunk, it can quickly drift from laddish humour into lurid stuff that is quite nasty and when two female ticket inspectors came through the carriage the language went beyond what I think is civilised. It's difficult to intervene against a dozen fit young men who have had a lot to drink but I think my look of disdain with a hand signal to calm it down did seem to have an effect and I didn't hear anything sexually offensive after that.

Most of these fans seem to think that the French people have no understanding of English whatsoever, presumably on the basis that they have no understanding of French other than "Oui", "Non", "Merci" and "une bierre". 

Anyway, it was a relief when we arrived at St Etienne with no further damage done than a bit of a headache from listening to bad and loud singing.

St Etienne station

St Etienne is more impressive than some people would have you believe

Upon arrival in a strange town, England fans tend to head for the first pub they see. Once a critical mass of fans has filled the bar and started to overflow onto the street, it acts as a magnet to other fans. By the time we'd arrived, the first pub, opposite the station, had hundreds of fans in front of it, drinking and chanting and playing about with a ball. We quickly moved on and with every pub we passed the number of England fans went down. 

The first pub next to the train with hundreds of England fans outside

Everyone who has offered me an opinion on St Etienne to date, has more or less told me it's somewhere you really don't want to go. There's nothing there. Well, as usual, the forecast proved unnecessarily gloomy. The town is not very big of course but the image I had in my mind, something like Mansfield, soon proved to be a gross underestimation.

Eventually we arrived in the town square which really was very pleasant indeed. St Etienne also has many narrow streets that are very attractive.

We soon found a bar that was relatively empty although Simon experienced a nasty incident when an England fan ordered a drink.

"Two ciders!" he demanded.

When the French barman expressed a lack of understanding, he repeated it in a louder, more aggressive way, adding "... and don't pretend you don't understand me. I don't speak f%&#ing French!"

Honestly.

I found a seat on a table next to a French woman watching TV on her mobile phone and she kindly allowed me to sit there. After a few minutes we were chatting about the "maladie anglais" and, again, I apologised.

Simon and I asked her if she knew a bar that was quiet and had few people in it. Not only did she know such a place (one of which she was the owner's friend) but that she would take us there.

We set off, at one point having to squeeze our way through hundreds of England fans who, like Jamie Vardy, were having a party - in the street. It seemed harmless enough, I suppose. A lot of lads carrying plastic glasses full of cheap beer singing to loud music blaring down at them from one of the cafes.

England's having a party, are the locals petrified?

"Comme les enfants" our new host (Lina?) and guide told us. We could only agree.

We continued for a few minutes down a quiet street until we found the place. As promised it was quiet and practically empty apart from a small group of like-minded England fans who had also sought to get away from the racket.

A small, quiet bar in St Etienne

After chatting for an hour or so, exchanging photos on smartphones of our families, Simon and me headed back into the center to find a pub I'd found called "Soggy Bottom" after the band in that Cohen Brothers film.

It was a nice pub and served some nice proper beers. I had a small IPA and Simon's Kreik that he ordered but didn't like.

As we walked through the square it seemed eerily quiet now that the England fans had all but left. All that remained was a pile of rubbish in the streets including hundreds of plastic beer glasses.

The mess the locals have clear up

Then, via a kebab shop that served a French twist to the kebabs we know and love in Australia and England - in a baguette-style bread, we walked to the ground. Every few metres we saw the tell tale evidence of men that had urinated next to a wall. Lovely, aren't they?

As we approached the stadium, still with 40 minutes until kick off, the streets seemed unnervingly quiet to the extent that we even considered if we had got the kick off time wrong.

No problem there. Inside the impressive, compact stadium, we found ourselves at one end of the ground, amazingly, sat right next to the guys who Simon had bumped into at the "quiet bar" half an hour earlier.

The rational mind tells you that this was just a pure coincidence but the odds of that happening, considering the crowd was approximately 41,000 is still quite staggering.

Now inside the stadium I have to admit my attitude and impression of the England fans changes almost 100%. It is a truly impressive sight to see three quarters of the ground painted in the white shirts and England flags. I join in with the chanting here rather than getting annoyed by it. We sang "God Save Our Queen" with real passion and it has to be noted that the Slovak anthem was listened to in silence and with great respect and applauded by the England fans.

England were not at their best, it has to be admitted. Roy Hodgson made a number of changes, resting Wayne Rooney, Deli Alli and Harry Kane. Sturridge and Vardy started up front. There was no place for the disappointing Raheem Sterling. Although England completely dominated and Slovakia "parked the bus" (in other words, just sat back and tried to thwart England's attacks) they were unable to create any really good chances in the first half. 

The other final group B game going on was Wales versus Russia and the news soon filtered through that Aaron Ramsey had put Wales ahead, and then that it was 2-0. This really meant that England had to win the match to top the group.

The pattern continued in the second half. England continue to frustrate. The final pass was often way off the mark. Hodgson, to his credit, again acted swiftly and Jack Wilshere was replaced with Wayne Rooney, to great applause. I thought the England fans continued to be impressive and we maintained the tune of "The Great Escape" pretty much for the whole of the second half.

As Wales added a third it confirmed that England had to get that vital goal to win, but despite the addition of Kane and Alli, they simply could not get the goal their total domination had deserved.

Most fans left the ground disappointed that England hadn't topped the group, but not me! Now, I will get to see their round of 16 game in Nice in a week's time, probably against Hungary or Iceland. At the end of the day, the important thing is to qualify and playing the second placed team in Group F is probably going to be no worse than playing the 3rd placed team that Wales will now be drawn against. The down side is that rather than playing probably Belgium or Portugal in the quarter finals, England (if they progress) will now probably be facing France in St Dennis.

Wales win the Group. England through to Nice Knock Out and Goodbye Russia!

So, as thousands of fans headed back to the station, upper most in all of our minds was whether we would get back to Lyon in a reasonable amount of time. The last scheduled train, incredibly, was 9:20pm but we had been assured that extra trains would be put on for the fans. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to know how many. The rumour going round was that there would just be two extra trains, but I must say I found that hard to believe as there were tens of thousands of fans all hoping for a return to the big city after the match.

One has to criticise the organisation of this to some extent. It really would have been a good idea to assure supporters, nice and calmly and clearly, in English and Slovakian, that all the fans would be returned to Lyon, no matter how long it took or how many trains it needed. There was quite a bit of panic among some fans, including poor old Simon who needed to get back to catch an early flight back to England the next morning. There should also have been more volunteers around to guide the mass of fans that had approached the entrance to the station from the same direction to spread out so that they all progressed to it at the same rate. Many supporters seemed to be stuck in a jam whilst others appeared to be sneaking around the side and jumping the queue. This obviously caused a lot of angst in a massive group of tightly packed, and very frustrated, fans. 

Although a lot of fans got angry and chanted disrespectfully about the French authorities, it thankfully didn't descend into havoc and the armed police stayed calm and friendly.

It took over an hour to get through to the station itself and although some bottles of water were passed into the crowd, more could have been done there too. 

Eventually, we were through and quickly onto the train where, ironically, Simon and I found two very comfortable seats in a first class carriage where we could chat with a group of nice England fans, including a lovely lady who told us how she'd been caught up in the violence in the old port in Marseille. "The most horrific incident I've ever been involved in" she said. As she described how a peaceful scene was instantly transformed into a war zone as local French and Russians, who were masked, suddenly raced in "from nowhere" and started attacking people indiscriminately. One of her friends, an American who wasn't even interested in football, was beaten up and had a split lip to prove it.

Anyway, eventually, at around 2am we arrived, gratefully, back in Lyon to buy water and go back to the hotel.

I said my goodnight and goodbye to Simon and went to sleep. He was going to stay up and watch TV for a couple of hours before getting the first tram to the airport.

Bye bye Simon. Hopefully see you again for the quarter finals in Paris!  



Aljice
Gianni's cafe, Rue Paul Bert 
Opposite the Laverie Automatique Leo
Lyon