Nürnberg in 2007 - Would you like to share your memories in a special podcast?

What a trip that was! We flew to Prague and got a 5-hour train on to Nuremberg... little did we know how many other Evertonians were doing the same thing.

Great fun, one of the best.

That would be great Paul.

Unfortunately, I missed out on the European tours at that time. Not long back from Afghanistan and preparing to go again, so it was Salisbury Plain for me!!

I did manage to catch it on the tele and it looked great. You can't make them all, but it would be great for those who did.

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There was loads of great memories but my favourite was being approached by a big German, right at the end of the game.

Big fella, wearing a pair of leather gloves, suddenly points at me and says “Everton.”

I stood back thinking “Here we go…” because I had my two young kids with me, and nodded. Suddenly he starts shouting and pointing all around the stadium saying “Everton, Everton, wonderbar, wonderbar!!!”

I started smiling and asked him how many fans? Six, seven, eight, nine, he shouted, and started shaking my hands, and pointing with his other finger shouting “Wonderbar!”

Was a good Everton side that was.

Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if we'd managed to win that Fiorentina penalty shootout because I think we'd have gone close to winning it.

Was the Final not down the road at The Etihad too?

My Bayern Munich crazy mate and I bought tickets for the final both anticipating a Bayern-Everton final as both teams were flying at that stage of the comp. Alas, we know how that turned out.

Took the train up from London for the game and hung out with Rangers fans pre-game. The city centre looked like a bomb went off the next morning.

Keep the stories coming on what looked like a great evening!

Great story, Tony @3.

Here's my, very lengthy, report from way back then. Will hopefully work well to put some of these stories into words on the podcast.

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[Editorial note: Sorry this link seems bad at our end… doing what we can to fix it.]

I can’t believe you got so few responses after writing that essay, Paul!

I like Germany, and had already had a fantastic experience during the 2006 World Cup, in that country, so when you wrote about a square Paul, my own experience was that there wasn’t really a square, until the very welcoming and sensible Germans, closed the road, and redirected traffic, so us Evertonians, could have a wonderful stress free afternoon.

The Germans went up even higher in my estimation, when I had to cross the imaginary square, and realized how they had used their common sense to let everyone enjoy themselves, which is not something that many police forces, in Europe would have allowed us to do, imo👏

Tony #8,

Haha, yea,h not a load of responses, I can't imagine too many made it to the end haha, and it was 16 years ago... where does the time go, eh?

Yeah, Germany tend to get these things right. Maybe the premise of: Don't antagonise the fans and they'll behave better for it.

We flew out of Manchester airport on the Wednesday morning, and arrived in Nuremberg early afternoon. The rest of the day was spent down by the canal in the various bars down there. That evening, I remember a bar we were in, full of blues naturally, and the RS were on in a CL game, I think. After a while my mate headed back to our hotel, with me staying in the bar with some lads I knew. Eventually I left, but could I remember where our hotel was? I seemed to be walking around for ages looking for our hotel, which, luckily enough I could remember the name. After what seemed an eternity I gave in and stopped a taxi. I jumped in, gave the name of the hotel and off we went. The driver asked me was I over for the football, and I replied yes. Next minute we stopped, right outside our hotel. We hadn’t even turned a corner. I must have walked up and down that road half a dozen times, straight past our hotel!! I think the fare was €2.

The next morning, or rather afternoon, I surfaced from bed and joined my mates for the afternoon session, before something to eat then off to the match. If I remember rightly, wasn’t there an open air bar outside the stadium, serving Steiners for about €2 or €3 a go? Anyway, into the stadium, and what an atmosphere generated by blues, who seemed to be everywhere. A great result was followed by a great night around the city centre.

We flew back Friday morning, via Stuttgart I think, (it was 16 years ago) and I remember the airport there being full of RS and red Mancs who were flying over for their weekend games.

So some great memories of another brilliant European away.