The No tram pulls up next to a racecourse just outside Gelsenkirchen and judders to a halt. We wait. And wait a little more. Five minutes become 10, and then Songs and idle chat gradually turn to sighs and anxious hubbub. One England fan thinks this tram might be getting diverted back to Essen. Another thinks it might be going straight to the stadium. Which is also a pretty decent description of the tableau unfolding outside the windows. Here thousands of England fans in various states of distress and confusion, some in shirts and some not, are swarming in all directions across the pasture: some staggering, some running, some trying to clamber over the metal crash barriers in an attempt to reach the tram, some succeeding and some failing comically.
Gelsenkirchen main station packed with fans still trying to get away but trains either not turning up or delayed. Game finished almost 3 hours ago. There are crying wet children. Grimacing wet adults. Columns of German riot police jogging down the street in formation, looking for wet Englishmen to baton, even though there is not the faintest wisp of violence.
Back in the tram, 35 minutes becomes 40, and then The problem, which we only really manage to piece together in retrospect like a bad dream, is that Trabrennbahn on the edge of town is where the local authorities have decided to host a fan park.
From which too many fans can get not enough shuttle buses to the Arena AufSchalke, where England are playing Serbia in β checks watch β just over an hour.
Trouble is, to get from the fan park to the shuttle buses, you need to cross the tramway. Which soaking England fans are now doing in their hundreds. And so everyone is stuck.
