Day 31 of the Walk to the World Cup – JUNE 9th

Frankfurt am Main – the rollercoaster ride 

A day of very mixed emotions started with another blue sky and breakfast in Hoescht with our hostess, Karin. She has been kind and understanding and her children Marcus and Vanessa who speak excellent English are curious and interested and good company.

I walked down to the Stadtmitte and found an internet café, sent off yesterday's dairy and answered the 20 or so emails – many from friends saying well done. Then loaded up with banner, England flags, wrist bands and collecting bucket, we caught the train for the 10 minute ride to the Hauptweche. Hadn't time to buy a ticket before getting on the train so, of course, we saw our first ticket inspector of our stay in Frankfurt but after 5 minutes filling in forms he was fine. Tristan and Will were already in the square by the time we arrived and it was noticeable immediately that there were many more football fans around – not just English but Argentineans, Brazilians, Australia, Trinidad and Tobagoans, Swedes…..and every other nation in the tournament but the English massively outnumbered all the rest.

We set up our wares in the Romer Platz and were soon doing a roaring trade – we raised around 500 Euros for Tim's trust in around 2 hours. During this time, the media were buzzing around, lots of photos, interviews including one for Five Live that Rosella Lauciello from the Goethe-Gymnasium had come along for. It was for the Victoria Derbyshire show, broadcast live from the edge of the square and was over in a few minutes but Victoria was great, gave me a big hug afterwards and then we were off to the Niederrad and the last 2k to the stadium.

We were running late and met up with Oleg and 2 of the other students at the station and set off for the 20 minute walk. The Commerz-Bank Arena is like no football stadium I have ever seen before. It is surrounded by a wall and fence with barbed wire on the top that is at times over 1K from the stadium itself – a ring of steel around the ground. It is set in the middle of the largest urban forest in Germany – and the contrast is almost surreal. So having walked to the ring of steel in 20 minutes, we then spent the next 90 minutes walking around the ring being passed on from one gate to another and finally to the accreditation centre. Oleg was so good and diplomatic, explaining to one petty official after another that I just wanted to be able to walk up to the stadium – not go inside – but the answer each time was Nein. At any other time we would have had a much better chance but the England and Paraguay teams were training on the pitch – we saw the England coach arrive – and Germany security was at its most paranoid. All my stupid fault for not planning this crucial final stage of the walk.

So tired, very hot, thirsty and dispirited, I made my way back with Sandra, Tris and Will who had been so supportive, to Frankfurt and the river Main to watch the Germany-Costa Rica game on one of the huge screens set up on the river. The atmosphere was fantastic and best of all, we had an emotional reunion with Dan who had arrived from Prague.

Then it was back to Hoechst and a relaxed and enjoyable meal in the Altstadt with Karin, Vanessa and Marcus. A long day with many good things and many kind people; not the end of the walk I had hoped for but we had achieved our aim of walking from Chelmsford to Wembley Stadium to the World Cup.