My family have all been Arsenal supporters so I kept up the tradition even though I have never been to a game and could not tell you the names of all the team members. My oldest son Russell, started to go when he was about eleven and has had a season ticket for as long as I can remember, and his son is never without his Arsenal stuff, my kids also support them. I used to go to watch the local team every Sunday when I was a kid, home and away, my mother’s uncle was the chairman/manager and his daughter had the job of washing the team’s outfits, including the reserve teams stuff every week. I always remember going round to her house on a Monday to play with my cousins, Monday is washing day! And the garden washing line was filled with football shirts and shorts. The team's called Ashford Wanderers, that is Ashford, Middlesex, where I was born. Even though I support Arsenal I have a soft spot for Newcastle United, I have a lot of fans in the area and one of them, Keith Barrett, runs a firm called Toon Travel, it's unofficial, but he charters planes and buses to the games and they often sing MUNGO songs on their way. When they got into the Champions League they changed my song, “YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE IN THE ARMY TO FIGHT IN THE WAR” to “YOU'VE GOT TO BE IN THE TOON ARMY TO BE IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE”!

I had a really powerful kick when I was a kid but I never played for the school, only cricket, I put on a lot of weight when I was a kid and did not do much sport, my nickname was 'jumbo' for years, I also used to get called 'pud', i.e;pudding, I guess that’s why I got so heavily, no pun intended, into nutrition and fitness training, but even though I was in really good shape, for years I saw myself as I used to be and had to psyche myself out of it.

I played in some celeb matches both in England and Germany, I did one once for the testimonial of GRAHAM GOOCH, don’t know about the spelling, the cricketer. MALCOLM ALLISON was on the other team as captain, I tried to tackle him but he was so big and he nearly knocked me over, I thought that he was taking the game too seriously, but that’s football professionalism ingrained, DENNIS WATERMAN, RICK PARFITT, etc, were also playing. Speed is the art of the game and although I was in good shape I got quite breathless running around all over the place as I never did much running in my training.

I have met several football stars both in England and Germany but no funny stories; I saw Hoddell and Waddell, spelling again! In the studio once when they were preparing to make a record together, but no crazy things.

My children and myself of course, support England in the World Cup, but my wife wants Germany to win, I have a lot of German business partners so when they play another team, not England, or any British or Commonwealth team, I give them my support.

Germany usually beat England! I do not know, the Germans have a lot of determination in their mentality and make a lot of their own luck, they do not give up and they have a will to win and do the best at everything in their genes. I think that the mixed races that have made the English race evolve have another kind of outlook in their genes and this is why the tradition is it’s not the winning that counts but how you play the game. This is true in some ways but in others, it does not add up, if you look at the type of people that have made up the white Caucasian race of the USA, they also have the will to win, I guess that this comes from the genes of the Europeans that went to settle there. Winning at sport for your country, school, or city, to me, is something to be proud of, but it is also an ego thing, and it’s not life threatening to loose, that is unless you are a gambler and you loose your house or something like that.

There are many many UK artists and other businesses in Germany and they, like myself, will all be celebrating openly if England beat Germany, there are also a lot of German anglophiles that will do the same. No problem.

We don’t mention the war, not often anyway, only when discussing fascism.

I was once attacked by some neo-Nazis in a gas station when traveling into Berlin from the East. I had a new black Mercedes saloon and I was filling it up when I had already noticed that there were a load of skinheads hanging around the place but TIM GREEN who was with me said that it would be OK to stop there as skinheads were usually no problem because they like reggae music. Two guys came over to me and started speaking in German, I don’t know what they were talking about and carried on filling up the car, then one of them suddenly whacked me on the side of the head, I did not retaliate because there were so many of them, I just jumped into the car and drove off without paying for the gas. The guy at the petrol station called the cops and said that I had stolen the gas, but, funny enough they was a journalist there too who recognized me and reported it to the press, it was also in the UK papers. I think that the guys thought that I was Turkish, there are many immigrants in Germany, just like the UK, and it seems that because of the economic situation, there has become a backlash against them. There are about five million unemployed in Germany and yet there is a shortage of good qualified engineers.

I don’t know if 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' has been sung on the terraces but a few years ago I played a gig at the Winter Olympics and the next day on Eurosport the crowd was singing 'IN THE SUMMERTIME' at the foot of the ski jump, or bobsleigh course! I have never done or would consider doing a soccer version of 'IN THE SUMMERTIME'.

I advise the English fans in Germany to check out the toilet facilities on the autobahns, they put the UK ones to shame, even though they usually smell a lot stronger. Also check out the beer, especially now it is hot, cold Weissenbier, the bars, the clubs and the countryside. If you can put up with the service, it is also worth checking out the shops and the bakeries, afternoon coffee and cake.

Bring your own music to listen too if you want to hear music, that is, and if you want to have a break from football and chill out watching a movie, then bring your own with something to play it on, although most hotels run English speaking PAY TV, depends what you want to see, the porn is hardcore so it does not matter much about the dialogue!

I can’t say that the Germans mock the British, but most of them seem to admire British humor. Dressing up as a Nazi, Prince