Over much-needed breakfasts involving a significant amount of sausage and pancakes, there was some serious soul-searching going on outside the Maximilian cafe on the Alten Markt of the west German city of Dortmund.
England’s defeat of the Netherlands, securing a place in the country’s first major final away from Wembley, along with a performance that for once lived up to expectations, was a source of great joy, croaky throats – and has raised questions for fans already in Germany over watching the final.
Will the loved ones back home tolerate a few more days away in Germany? Can the credit card take another hit? What would it feel like to be there when the England captain, Harry Kane, lifts the trophy and puts to bed 58 years of hurt?
“We are just having that breakfast debate,” said Reiss Gilbey, 33, a ship broker who with four friends from London had paid £900 each for a ticket for the semi-final against the Netherlands. “I received a text from my wife saying, ‘I’ll see you on Monday then’.”
“We all got the same text, actually”, said Tim Cawthorne, 42. “You can say what wonderful husbands we are.”
The initial plan, Cawthorne said, had been to just “come in and out” but England’s performance had thrown a spanner in the works. “It’s a question of how it will hit our personal net worths,” said Gilbey.
The game is sold out on Uefa’s website. A limited number of tickets are available to England Supporters Travel Club members who have been to previous England matches, but most of those now contemplating a trip to Berlin will be looking to the resale market.
Tickets for the final could be snapped up for about £2,500 each, said Ricky Evans, 33. They were relatively easy to source, added Gilbey.
“The argument for staying is that we might win and we are here,” said Gilbey. “The problem for those at home is getting flights from the UK to Berlin. I’ve got a friend who is going to have to fly from [London] City via Zurich to Berlin and then back again.”
All of Ryanair’s 21 flights from UK airports to Berlin between Thursday and the final are sold out while airlines with spare capacity are charging five times more to travel before the game compared with a week later.
EasyJet’s 12 flights to Berlin from Birmingham, Bristol, Luton and Gatwick between Friday and the match are also fully booked.
On Thursday morning, the airline was charging £918 for a seat on a flight from Gatwick to the German capital on Thursday night, compared with £167 a week later. British Airways was charging £782 to fly from Heathrow to Berlin on Saturday night.
“I haven’t looked at what trains we would get – I daren’t because I’ll book it,” said Gilbey. “But getting a ticket to the final is not that difficult.”
Not difficult, but eye-wateringly expensive. Sat at the next table along with his sons, Callum, 23, and Joe, 22, a tired but content Nick Terry, 50, from Windlesham, Surrey, who runs a wine shipping business, had spent £3,300 on his tickets for the Netherlands game.
He estimated, with a wince, that a further three tickets to the final in the Olympiastadion Berlin would cost him £12,000. “It’s a lot of money,” Terry said.
Terry and his sons had been in Gelsenkirchen for the games against Serbia and Slovakia, when England had struggled. “We played much, much better,” he said. “Gives you hope that we could do it.”
They planned to return to the UK and then fly to Berlin on Sunday morning. “Much to my wife’s pleasure,” joked Terry. “At the moment it looks like we would only be able to get back on Tuesday.”
To those who have not caught the England footballing bug, the sheer scale of the financial outlay might be difficult to understand.
“It’s about memories, isn’t it?” said Terry. “Now we are in the final in Germany we just have to do it. The tournament is going to cost all in all about £20,000. But that’s what credit cards are for.”
