Internationals / Mike Norman / 22 June 2009 /

Mike Norman is in a foul mood today, and is lamenting the lack of support being shown to the England under-21 side ahead of their final group game against old rivals Germany tonight.

So here I am at last, blogging to you from my hotel room in Malmo, hoping and praying that England make it through to the U21 European Championship Final next Monday.

I won an online competition you see, the prize being a ten-day holiday in Sweden with a pair of tickets to next week's concluding game.

Bizarrely, the tickets came with a set of instructions that read, "If England make it through to the final game at Sweden's expense, you will find the trophy in the tea room located at the Swedbank Stadion. Please wear suitable attire when presenting the trophy and don't forget to pay the ref his match fee before you depart. Finally, it is imperative that you lock the stadium securely when you leave, remembering that the code for the alarm is 1521".

Seriously (I'm not really in Malmo), you have to feel a little sorry for our under-21 lads. If this were the senior team, the whole country would be on cloud nine now at the prospect of playing in the last four of a major competition.

But instead, our lads are being very poorly supported over in Sweden. Just 6,000 attended the Finland/England game last week, with 95% of them being Fins or neutrals.

The support over here isn't much better either. Even a pub I visited last week was showing US Open golf highlights (as the live action was rained off) instead of the mouthwatering clash between England and Spain. The landlord - a big football fan may I add - wasn't even aware that the game was on until I told him.

A quick glance at the BBC and Sky Sports' home pages and there's hardly a mention of the U21 European Championshp, whilst (to my knowledge at least) there isn't a back page in the country giving precedence to England's encounter with Germany tonight - instead, it's all strawberries and cream!

It annoys me that millions of so called football fans haven't got a clue what's happening in Sweden, yet they could tell you everything there is to know about some wretched Big Brother contestant's love life.

Maybe my mood is down to catching too much sun yesterday, or perhaps I'm still reeling at being called a word that I've never heard of from my colleague Tobias Gourlay. But if I could get one message across to the nation whilst chomping on my delicious Delia carrot cake, then it would be this, "Where are you, where are you, let's be having you, come on".

England can be backed at [3.7] for victory over Germany ([3.35]) tonight, with The Draw not surprisingly being the favourite at [2.28] given what the loquacious (so my spies tell me) Gourlay has had to say.

Tonight's other Group B fixture has Spain available to back at [1.36], Finland at [11.4], and The Draw available at [5.2]. The Callipygian (or so the lads in the office tell me) Tobias Gourlay has also taken a look at this game for us. Only messing Tobias!

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