Nervous that I'd be late to pick up mine and World Cup Billy's tickets - FIFA make you claim them 90 minutes before kick-off, otherwise they get given to people on the waiting list - I decided to leave Frankfurt and catch the 5am train to Nuremburg, just 13 hours before kick-off. Hey, I'm English, I was being cautious, I'm used to leaves on the line in the UK and there was no way that I was going to miss my first England match at a World Cup.

World Cup Billy decided to stay asleep and said he'd get the 8am train, he is sensible.

As can be expected with German trains there was no shrubbery on the tracks, that doesn't happen in Deutschland. So I arrived in Nuremburg absolutely shattered, after four hours sleep, at 7:30am, only 10 and a half hours left till kick-off.

After cold-calling a number of hotels to see if I could reserve a room for the day, they all said 'no'. I ended up on the steps of Nuremburg's main train station, regretting getting up so early, but then I spotted London England fans co-ordinator Mark Perryman on his bike. This man is a legend (we interviewed him before the World Cup) he's cycling to every England match during the tournament, so I went over to chat to him to see how he was getting on. He had no idea who I was and looked quite frightened.

After numerous coffees, the shuttle bus that takes all us media types to the ground finally arrived, I'd been waiting nearly two hours! Hurrah, I was on my way to the stadium at last; in fact I was the only one on the way to the stadium, the first media representative of the day, how keen am I?

Once there I collected our tickets without any trouble, or queuing, and I knew in my heart that although stupid, the early start was worth it. I even got the opportunity to show Jim Rosenthal where the toilets were. Just two minutes after collecting the tickets a fresh faced World Cup Billy appeared.

Tickets in hand we headed out of the ground and towards a massive park in Nuremburg, where I promptly fell asleep, and Billy began the Fan Hunt quest.

Three hours later and with a grass print firmly tattooed on my face I woke up with just 4 hours left till kick-off, we decided to head to the Stadium Media Centre to check emails and have some ridiculously over-priced food. We settled down, ate, saw Garth Grooks, thought of some long questions to ask him, bumped into Ray Stubbs, watched Ecuador v Costa Rica, and then it was time to make our way into the stadium.

For 80 + minutes it was dreadful, my first England World Cup game was a nightmare, I began to worry thinking that maybe I was an unlucky omen, Sven's side just looked average and sluggish, as a number of you told me via email.

But then up leapt Peter Crouch like a salmon, a salmon using a defender's dreadlocks as leverage mind, and bagged the opener, what a great delivery from David Beckham. Then just a few minutes later Steven Gerrard scored a screamer, the atmosphere in the ground suddenly changed and it was time for England fans to celebrate.

After the game we jumped onto the Media Shuttle back to the train station thinking we'd beat the mad rush back to Frankfurt, we didn't, the platform was heaving and there was no chance of us getting on the train. All the German's getting off of the train in Nuremburg looked rather scared when faced with the prospect of fighting past 800 England fans.

Annoyed at lack of train space but still happy with England's result, World Cup Billy and I headed to a bar at the back of Nuremburg train station to watch the Sweden v Paraguay game and let the England fans disperse. We sat with a German guy called Sasha who worked in a Sausage factory and was obviously still drunk after celebrating Germany's victory over Poland the previous evening. Once the Sweden match was over we decided to head back to the platform and get on the train to Frankfurt, it was still packed.

We headed back to the bar for more insightful conversation with Sasha the sausage maker. Did you know that there are over 1000 different types of sausage in Germany? Finally at 1:55am, after four hours of sausage chat, it's amazing that you can spend that long talking about pork, we got on a train back to Frankfurt and both promptly fell asleep. We arrived back in Frankfurt at 4:15am, a nice 23hr round trip.

The plans for the commentary in Hannover have been cancelled; we're doing it in the second round instead.

What did you think of England's performance? What do you think of Germany as a whole? What do you think of sausages? Email me and let me know please, i do really enjoy going through the emails you send.