There is nothing quite like being in an English pub when England are playing. Today we visited the Litten Tree for England’s 5 o’clock game against Trinidad and Tobago and it was heaving. We arrived there about an hour early but clearly, even on a working day and even though this was still only a knockout match, it wasn’t early enough to garner a comfortable position (I felt most sorry for Chicken who was absolutely surrounded by everyone’s bags so she could barely move at all.) It was actually amazing to see the absolute stream of people coming into the pub as, just when you thought there was no way for more people to fit, another stream of people would come through again. The pictures don’t capture just how ram-packed the place was. Pretty amazing and to be honest I’m just surprised that I wasn’t wearing any beer though there were definitely a couple of close calls.

As for the game itself, England did itself no favours for the first part of the match as they had plenty of opportunities but just couldn’t capitalise. It wasn’t until late in the game (something like after 80 minutes had been played) that Crouch finally scored followed by a beauty of a goal by Gerrard in extra time. I’m sure you could hear the roar from our pub from miles away. I was just relieved that England got away with a result in the end because I can just imagine how worked up the crowd would have got otherwise. The funniest moments during the game was whenever the camera found Rooney, whether he was warming up or just sitting on the bench, cries of “Rooney, Rooney” would surely follow.

Hunger won out eventually over watching the next match (Sweden v Paraguay) so off we headed to Nando’s and if this isn’t life’s full circle taking effect we ended up at The Elusive Camel yet again to watch the second half of the match. And this time we saw plenty of England shirts – the bouncer last Saturday must have been a newbie hence his eagerness to enforce the rules.