France Ahoy

Just a few days now before the greatest football tournament of them all starts in France. The ‘Coupe de Monde’ sets off on June 10^th involving, as I’m sure you know, 32 nations and 64 matches.

Of course, the readers of this magazine are probably just as interested in the ten stadiums that will be used for the tournament as in the games themselves. The chance to visit some of these grounds for such prestigious matches will not come again for some time, so the opportunity is just too good to miss - as long as you could get tickets of course!

The chaos over ticketing arrangements provoked many column inches in the national press but at GROUNDTASTIC we felt that we had to at least make the effort.

The lines to the World Cup ticket hotline opened in a blaze of publicity at 7a.m. British Summer Time on April 22^nd. We were up bright and early along with thousands of others across Europe eager to try their luck. The marathon began with millions of calls flooding the phone lines in the first few minutes. I could manage about seven re-dials per minute on my particular telephone handset and the other members of the team where doing the same on theirs.

"In 60 seconds I will break free and book 16 tickets for the World Cup"

Courtesy of The Daily Telegraph

The drudgery of re-dial after re-dial went on for the next twelve hours. Most attempts at calling France balked at the B.T. operator - a recorded voice informing us that ‘there is a high demand for this destination’. Occasionally progress was made to the second stage - the French operator who also informed us, with a slightly more tuneful recorded message, that ‘all lines are engaged, please try later’.

By mid afternoon initial excitement set in as progress was made to the third stage. This was yet another recording informing callers that the ticket line would be open the following day and then cut us off ! Frustration grew and the proverbial cats were kicked ! At 7p.m. the lines closed and we still had not got through. The national evening T.V. news carried numerous tales of similar events across the U.K. Some estimates put the number of calls at 20 million. However, due to the chaos, only 15,000 of the available 110,000 tickets had been sold.

The next day therefore continued in much the same vein. Re-dial after re-dial met with a brick wall. Throughout the day more stories broke of the EC threatening to impose large fines on the tournament organisers for the disastrous ticket arrangements. Still, this didn’t help us much ! A second twelve hour deluge of calls from the intrepid team met the same sorry fate as the first.

As the third day started I decided to use a different method of attack. Instead of the 6.30am rise and shower I slept in until 8.30. Once up, I picked up the phone and started my re-dial routine once more. I started to thumb through the newspaper looking at the various tales of woe of France ’98 ticket chaos.

Then, amazingly, on only about the tenth attempt of the day, a ringing tone! I ran like a madman around the house looking for my list and credit card which had been forlornly discarded a couple of thousand of calls ago.

‘It’s ringing, it’s ringing!’ I screamed to the wife and kids. A recorded voice told me that I was through to the official World Cup ticket line and that an operator would answer! Panic set in. Would I suddenly pass out? Would one of my offspring pull the phone socket out of the wall? An anxious twenty minute wait on hold was eventually rewarded with a real live French voice.