Our first full day in Brazil and I was conscious that the England team would soon be jetting away from their base in Rio, to Manaus, for the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ – as the media in England are inevitably calling it.
We’d worked out what hotel the team were staying at, and my wife Semma called to see if we could get a dinner reservation. No problem it seemed, we booked a table for 7. This was going too smoothly.
The Royal Tulip Hotel is about 6km south of where we’re staying in Leblon – a family friendly neighbourhood near Ipanema – along the beach and over a headland. We fancied a walk so we thought we’d try to make it there on foot. The weather was overcast but it was still pretty awesome to find ourselves… in fucking Rio.
There were a surprising number of people on the beach, mainly volleyballers, who seemed to be using their feet as well as their hands, in a kind of keepy-uppy meets volleyball mashup.
As we ventured over the headland, and despite the ominous clouds, we were treated to some pretty stunning views…
The other side of the headland and we found ourselves… alongside a favella.
Before long the pavement came to an end and we were literally balancing along a wall, with a sheer drop on one side and cars rushing by the other. Not quite so fun as before… we lost our bottle and jumped in a taxi. We were glad we did…
It was only 4.30 when we got to the hotel, far too early for our dinner reservation, but we got the driver to take us as close as possible to the hotel (it was surrounded by barriers), and then used the cover of an arriving bus to walk past the first ring of security. We were now on the grounds and strolled through the hotel entrance like we owned the place.
Nobody challenged us and there didn’t seem to be many people about, so we headed for the bar, sat down and ordered some drinks.
With our base established, my son Eli and I started going on reconnaissance missions – the toilet, the shop, the toilet again, any excuse to walk through the lobby. On our 3rd outing we walked straight into Wayne Rooney, who was heading towards us. I politely asked for a photo and he obliged.
On our next outing we walked past the entire England team walking somewhere for dinner. We had to think quick but it was an easy choice… our favourite player in the world – Frank Lampard.
He was extremely gracious, I ended up telling him how much we loved him (“…but not in a gay way”) and we got the second photo of a lifetime in half an hour.
(If you look closely, you can see other members of the team behind them)
After this, Eli really got into it! He began seeking autographs in earnest for his football, which we’d picked up in the hotel shop. I nearly succeeded in getting England’s Equipment Manager to lend us a pump to blow it up, but “they were all at the training ground”. We shared a cigarette instead, despite me having given up, and he told me the difficulties he was having getting equipment into the van. This van to be precise…
Eli’s efforts to get autographs meanwhile were proving successful. First up Steven Gerrard…
… Jordan Henderson, Danny Welbeck and Raheem Sterling…
And last but not least the England Manager Roy Hodgson
In the end, Eli got 11 autographs out of 22, an entire team!
Quite a lot of excitement for our first day.
