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.

Joy and pain of Munich

I've always wanted to visit Munich ever since my brother returned from a school trip to the German city in 1988 with a Bayern Munich mug.

Having seen them play at Carrow Road back in 1993 against Norwich in the UEFA Cup the famous German side were always on my hitlist of teams to see on the continent.

And so last Satuday me and Gordo jetted off to the freezing cold German city to catch the Bayern boys in action against Energie Cottbus in the Bundesliga.

If Munich itself was cold, the area around the Allianz Arena was brutal. A couple of hastily consumed bratwurst at the station were very welcome as we trudged our way to some cracking seats.

Once the action started, well there could only be one winner right? Well. it didn't exactly go to plan as Ervin Skela gave the visitors s surprise lead with a free-kick to delight the handful of Cottbus fans to our right.

Bayern soon restored order with a cracking Franck Ribery free-kick before Martin Demichelis nutted home the goal that gave Bayern a 2-1 lead.

After the break Miroslav Klose popped in a third before Luca Toni smashed home a volley from a corner.

The Allianz is a great ground, the only problem was you needed special tokens to buy any food inside the ground. Outside the souvenir shop was rammed in the run up to Christmas but Gordo still found time to pick out a rather dashing hat!

Leaving the Allianz behind was for me the best view - it was all lit up in Bayern red.

The day after was a day of contrasts - while the crowds descended on the Christmas markets, we took a throat-lumping trip to nearby Dachau, the former Nazi concentration camp just a few miles from Munich's city centre.
My nanny was in a similar camp in Westerbork in Holland, a camp especially for Dutch Jews - lucky them!

So I took plenty of pictures of the familiar rows of beds, communal toilets and exercise yards and even for a couple of tough Brits with no real connection to the events of 60 years ago, there was still a pretty sombre feeling shared by us.

I'm sure my nanny will shed a tear or two when she sees those pictures too.