German authorities are coming to terms with the fact that 100 000 English football fans will be travelling to their country next summer. At least 50 000 of them are expected to be drunk and singing songs about World War II. This, they suspect, could lead to problems.

Hosts of previous football championships have employed differing approaches to cope with the ‘over-excited’ English. There’s the ‘beat em all up’ model, whereby all those sporting England football tops are hit with something heavy. The flaw in this approach is that those intent on trouble don’t actually wear England tops. They wear burberry instead. English police have advised that the beatings could be reserved for men wearing Burberry. Blighty can see no problem with this approach.

Optimists point to the Euro 2004 Championships in Portugal as a sign that an ‘inclusive approach’ towards fans, telling them how nice their tattoos are, works. Only one arrest was made during that tournament. There was a large punch up in Algarve, that’s true, but that was just English men enjoying their holiday in their usual inimitable style and had nothing to do with the footie. The problem with using the Portugal experience as an example is that we didn’t fight two World Wars with them during the last century and they don’t monopolise all the towels and deckchairs in the Med.

Fears of a World Cup final between Germany and England closing the tournament in bloody, chaotic fashion abound. This is a possibility as Germany were giving a virtual bye to the World Cup final in Japan so will definitely given a help in hand on home soil. It’s merely a case of Germany v who. Blighty’s outside tip is Togo.