As slogans go, it's not too bad - "A time to make friends". But for one small village on the edge of the Black Forest, the official motto for the 2006 World Cup, being held in Germany, has proved all a bit too much. Residents in the picturesque hamlet of Iffezheim have staged a revolt at the prospect of a summer invasion by hordes of drunken England fans, writes Luke Harding.
At an angry, three-hour parish council meeting on Monday evening, some 800 locals spoke out against
plans to build a giant camp to accommodate England supporters in the village for four weeks during the tournament in June and July. Iffezheim, in south-west Germany, is 20km away from Baden-Baden - the prosperous spa town where the England team will be based. But the proposal to have 5,000 England supporters camping out in the car park of the local racetrack has gone down badly.
"It's a small place. The racecourse is 200 metres away from my front door. You can't just plonk 5,000 England fans there," Hans-Jürgen Eckert, a parish councillor opposed to the plan, told the Guardian. "It's not that we have anything against England fans per se. But people are worried about disturbance and noise. And the fans are going to be here for four weeks. It could be a disaster."
The village, surrounded by alpine meadows and trees, has a population of just 4,900 people. Some 100,000 England fans are expected to descend on Germany this summer, most without match tickets. The British organisers of the Iffezheim camp had promised fans an opportunity to watch England games on a big screen, as well as an Oktoberfest beer tent, discos and German-style "humpa humpa" music.
In another gesture of goodwill, they offered to take on the locals at footy. So far, however, such overtures appear to have failed. "I feel I took a bit of a battering in Germany," Richard McCabe, the organiser of the proposed "England camp" said yesterday, after flying back to Britain from Monday's angry meeting. "We approached the race course two-and-a-half months ago. We have experience of running events for football fans, and we were trying to create something similar in Germany."
Mr McCabe said he had tried to reassure Iffezheim residents by pointing out that British hooligans were banned from travelling to the World Cup. All fans would have to give their passport numbers, he said, and music in the supporters' camp would be turned off at midnight. Security guards would also be on hand to deal with drunken behaviour.
"If England do well, Iffezheim could be put on the world map," Mr McCabe said. "But if it [the camp] doesn't happen, c'est la vie." The local council is due to vote on the proposal next week, when the mayor returns from holiday. Villagers have also expressed unhappiness about the camp's likely sponsors - the Sun newspaper, which is not exactly known for its contribution to British-German reconciliation, and the beer firm Carlsberg.
"The camp is going to be surrounded by fences. I hate to think what the Sun will make of it,' one resident said to the local paper, the Badisches Tagblatt, yesterday.
