ENGLAND fans, much like their team's football, aren't always a pretty sight, but as the crusaders trailed St George's Crosses through Gelsenkirchen and out of the World Cup they expressed a battered pride and found a previously untapped generosity of spirit.
Having had the talismanic Wayne "Roo-Nay" red-carded just minutes after captain David Beckham limped off injured in the second half, England's 10 men held a goalless draw against Portugal into extra time, falling only at the penalty shoot-out. The result may be failure, but a team that had misfired throughout the tournament ended up heroes to their fans.
"We were robbed, " said Tarek Ghouri from Yorkshire, a fan who criss-crossed Germany watching England's stuttering progress into the last eight of the competition on giant screens set up in the host cities.
He winced as each of England's penalties went astray. "It's the luck of the draw in penalties, " he said afterwards.
"We can't do penalties, but hats off to their goalie, Ricardo, he knows how to save them."
But Ghouri was not just being The tension, the heat and the disappointment overwhelmed them at last and their horns fell silent.
There were no early indications that the England fans would "go Bruno", and rampage like the celebrated brown bear on the loose in Bavaria until he was brought down by law (and a bullet).
Departing fans hoped there would not be a repeat of the Stuttgart trouble, when 500 England followers were arrested after the Ecuador match, and that they could move to the next international games with their heads held high. Banning orders, preventing up to 3000 known English hooligans travelling abroad, have had their effect, although fans on the way out of the ground last night warned that troublemakers were still around.
For the quarter-final appearance, the fans came from every corner of Albion - by air to Dortmund, across Belgium and nearby Holland by train, car and coach, and from British army bases on the Rhine. At each point, German police checked passports and British bobbies were on hand in the host city.
They came in pith helmets, German helmets, Mad Hatter hats, beanies, stetsons and with Elvis quiffs. As if to prove they had buried old enmities, they stood calmly for the minute's silence to commemorate all those who died in the first exchanges at the Battle of the Somme, 90 years ago to the day.
Those with tickets for the covered stadium could hardly hide their grins, but most headed, as advised, on free buses to a big-screen FanFest at a racetrack stadium on the edge of town, where there was precious little shade and the drinks tents ran out of water early.
The crowd was composed of the beerbellied, shaven-headed, tattooed stereotypes; the lads' army of young friends; the bikini-clad ladettes and the dads and sons, and even mums too.
SOMEHOW this generation of England fans picked up manners on their trip. On the way to the game a group of lads unintentionally skipped a taxi queue, but withdrew when they realised that a German was in front of them. The trouble in Stuttgart aside, the fans have been praised as much as the team has been derided.
Perhaps fortunately, most of the England fans could only read the words of the Cassandras of the British press, who will doubtless be dipping their quills in the defeated England squad's blood this morning. The foreign media have been laughing every time the team take to the field, puzzling, as the fans themselves have, over game plans that have been as disjointed as a Kandinsky painting and play that has resembled a splattered, stuttering Jackson Pollock work.
Today the press have their scalp. It's goodbye Sven Goran Eriksson, goodbye to the luscious Nancy and goodbye to the Wags, the wives and girlfriends sideshow that became the headline act.
(The girls can't help it, they were a great team and their shopping, partying and strutting on behalf of England should have won a World Cup for consumerism. ) And it's also goodbye to the Beckham era and any chance of David ever lifting the World Cup trophy.
At the FanFest the crusade followers stayed loyal to the end. Long before extra time came around everyone knew it was going to go to penalties, even though they cheered the near misses and jeered the opposition to the last.
"They [the England team] do this to us all the time, " said Dean Kemp, who had endured a 15-hour coach trip from Hemel Hempstead to get to the game.
"It's penalties, and we'll win on penalties, " he said, rolling a cigarette with one hand.
A few minutes later these same hands were clasped, as if in prayer. Everyone was baying at missed penalties, disallowed penalties and the despair of losing - again. Blood, heated by an unforgiving sun, ran cold as Ronaldo came up to the spot. It was over.
The fans withdrew from the field defeated but not sour. "We looked more like scoring with 10 men than we did with 11, " said David Smith at a debrief over litres of lager in a nearby hotel. "It's a pity, but we'll be back in four years."
WORDLY WORDS
"I think the manager contributed to the downfall of England. Everybody will question the manager and quite rightly so."
Alan Hansen, Ex-footballer and football pundit
"There are tears on the pitch as the World Cup dream comes to an end."
Gary Lineker, Ex-footballer and sports presenter
"It is absolutely horrible. I feel for them. You just feel you have let everyone down, when you have not."
Alan Shearer, Ex-footballer of England and Newcastle United
"We practised penalties so much, I really don't know what more we could do about it."
Sven Goran Eriksson, England manager
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