What is it like at England's team hotel?
Thursday, June 9, 2016
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What books are in England's hotel library? What is Jamie Vardy like? Who will get custody of Chris Smalling's cuddly lion next? EURO2016.com's Simon Hart answers some of these questions.
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What do Sir Alex Ferguson, Nelson Mandela, Hunter S Thompson and Zlatan Ibrahimović have in common? All have books in the small library attached to the leisure room at the England team's hotel in Chantilly, L’Auberge du Jeu de Paume.
A pool table and dart board are also there along with video games, board games and a giant screen showing football matches which will help keep Roy Hodgson's squad entertained during the many hours of downtime here in France.
Another source of fun is the toy lion which defender Chris Smalling has been carrying around, though the team's senior players – a group led by Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart and James Milner – will soon hand over custody to another squad member according to Smalling.
"In a couple of days you'll see someone new with it," said Smalling, while refusing to disclose the reason for the cuddly toy's presence.
By the sound of it, Jamie Vardy is putting smiles on faces too. He was one of several players who took a stroll around Chantilly on Wednesday and, fresh from his Cinderella season with Leicester City, is proving something of a livewire in the camp.
"He's an interesting fellow," said defender Smalling with a grin, adding that the hotel's spa was another attraction: "We were in the pool after training and there were quite a few of us joking around and jumping in."
This being 2016, another feature of life in the camp for this England team is the personalised app each player has featuring everything from nutritional advice to information on opposition teams. They must even complete a daily sleep log recording their rest patterns.
It is a far cry from past England tournament experiences, as these examples testify:
• England stayed at the Copacabana beach during the 1950 FIFA World Cup and players found themselves stricken by a lack of sleep and stomach problems which left some squad members on a banana-only diet.
• At the 1962 World Cup in Chile, Walter Winterbottom's squad stayed in a mining camp and would travel down by train to the training pitch. They ate their meals in a canteen and the entertainment was French films with Spanish subtitles.
• At the 1990 World Cup, the squad's Scottish-based trio of Terry Butcher, Gary Stevens and Chris Woods sought to provide some light relief by coming down for dinner one evening in their official team suits and eating their meal in reverse. They had their dessert first and finished off with a bowl of soup.
• Last time England were in France, at the 1998 World Cup, Glenn Hoddle's squad amused themselves by trying to fit as many song lyrics as possible into their interviews – hence Tony Adams cited the Specials, saying "It's a bit like a ghost town here" and Paul Ince, channelling Elvis, declared "It's now or never".