Three stadiums and hanging out at Fritz Walter's house - my pre 2006 World Cup tour in Germany

Germany 2005 revisited: Ten years ago this month I started working as a journalist at The Evening Star in Ipswich. One of the perks of that job along with free newspapers and a generous vending machine that often gave away free Mars bars was the press trips.
For those that don’t know a press trip, often known as ‘jollies’ within the trade is a short vacation provided by a PR company who want to plug a tourist attraction. Normally theses are part of the advertising the destination will do and they work out a whole lot cheaper than paying for a straightforward advert in a paper.
They often dazzle the reporter with great food and drink and leave them with a head-spinning experience that will result in a stream of high praise and flattery. I had some great trips – to Florida, to an £800 a night stately home in Leicestershire, but the perhaps the best was exactly half way through my Star career – in October 2005 in Germany.
Billed as a ‘football and wine’ trip I was lucky enough to join three other reporters from England to go over to Germany ahead of the 2006 World Cup. It was a simple itinerary – three stadiums, three cities, loads of wine and vineyards and a chance to snoop around Fritz Walter’s house.
First of the stadiums I got the chance to look around was the Gottleib Daimler Stadion, the impressive home of Vfb Stuttgart.
This lovely old ground hasn’t changed much for years and is a great old fashioned European ground. Shaped like a bowl with a running track around the outside, it instantly became one of my favourite European grounds – especially when I was fortunate enough to tread on a few blades of the hallowed turf and roll a ball into the goal.
There was plenty of work going on in terms of putting in new seats for the start of the World Cup and a tour inside the stadium gave an interesting insight into the life of a footballer.
The changing rooms were huge featuring a massive communal bath, and cute little tactics board. Walking down the tunnel and onto the pitch was great and I’ve to say Stuttgart is a lovely city.
A couple of days later after some top food and wine we pitched up in Kaiserslautern, a compact little town dominated by the memory of Fritz Walter.
Walter was the German star of the 1954 World Cup winning team – the first time West Germany lifted the Jules Rimet trophy and he’s certainly the most famous person to hail from Kaiserslautern.
Walter gives his name to the great stadium which is tucked away in beautiful woodland surroundings.
Again the stadium was having a pre-World Cup makeover and new seats were being added. Inside the Fritz-Walter Stadion we were allowed to walk on the pitch and it was great to do this as I’ve not seen many stadiums from the point of view of the centre circle.
As the sun was setting in Kaiserslautern we had a really memorable trip to Fritz Walter’s former home in the city which is now a museum full of memorabilia from his glittering playing career.
It’s amazing – it literally is just a normal home, albeit at the end of a road and is open all year round.
A German flag and picture of Walter in action during the 1954 World Cup is outside the house and once inside it’s a massive cavern of memorabilia – you name it, it’s here.
Behind glass doors are loads of trophies and awards, many of them are pottery or plaques – there are even commemorative bells. Walter certainly managed to attract a lot of honours during his career.
A plate depicting the victorious 1954 World Cup side sits pride of place in one cabinet, and there are Olympic medals, a replica of the Jules Rimet trophy, autographs from players such as Pele, a picture of Walter and German team mates giving the Nazi salute before a game, certificates, photos and newspaper clippings.
The following day we ventured towards Frankfurt and had a look around the fabulous Commerzbank Arena.
England were due to play Paraguay in their World Cup opener in this ground so it had extra interest and there was an international table football championship going on when we were there.
We had a look around the executive boxes and behind the scenes areas and we weren’t the only ones playing the tourist game - none other than the Afghanistan national football team were also there looking around which was a tad strange to say the least.
The ground is the home of Eintracht Frankfurt and inside the ground is a huge canopy that covers the playing area as well as an American ice-hockey screen that has four sides giving everyone a view of replays and scores etc.
Three grounds in a little over three days was great. The weather was stunning and the only regret was that there was no live football to watch.
But returning to Stuttgart, Kaiserslautern and Frankfurt remain high on the agenda of things of places to go and watch a game.