The No 107 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 15. 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. In fact, its final destination is Gelsenkirchen railway station, where – as one of the few passengers with working phone signal confirms – the crowds are “utter carnage”.
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.
