Where are travelling England and Scotland fans most likely to find home comfort food and drinks at UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany this summer?
Germany is a country with plenty to offer tourists, including good food, drink, and a warm welcome. Though with the British renowned for packing tea bags on trips abroad, we’re certainly a nation that likes our home comforts.
With UEFA bizarrely announcing stadium bans of “fruit, such as apples, bananas, oranges, etc.”, adding these to the list of ‘prohibited items’, we thought we’d step in to help the travelling support.
To help England and Scotland fans find a taste of home while cheering on their teams in Germany this summer, we’ve explored the menus of over 50,000 food and drink venues across Euro 2024 host cities in Germany. The data has allowed us to pinpoint where travelling fans are most likely to find a classic fry-up breakfast, source a pie and mash, or tuck into some fish and chips. Plus, we’ve even discovered where you can get a proper breakfast tea — with milk, of course!
Key findings
- Berlin — the city set to host the Euro 2024 final — is ‘most English’ city in Germany, with 799 venues serving English food and drink, followed by Hamburg (712 venues) and Munich (623)
- The German capital is where fans can most commonly find a fry up breakfast, fish and chips, pie and mash, and a bacon sandwich
- Frankfurt is the group stage host city where England fans will feel most at home — there’s 515 venues serving British food and drink
- England fans will have a tough start at the Veltins arena in Gelsenkirchen, revealed as one of the German cities with fewest ‘home comforts’ for travelling England fans. The city has a tenth of the selection compared to other host cities.
- The Tartan army’s fan experience is set to be among best in tournament — the opening game against Germany in Munich’s Allianz Arena is reviewed as the second best fan experience from all of the host stadiums.
- The majority of England’s group stage games are held in venues rated below average, when compared to other host venues – the average rating for England’s stadiums is 12 percentage points lower compared to other stadiums in Germany.
Route to the final: Berlin is the ‘most English’ city in Germany
Some England fans might call it a sign — data research has found that Berlin, the city set to host the final of Euro 2024, has the highest number of venues serving English ‘tastes of home’.
There are 799 venues across Berlin where travelling England fans can find classic home comforts, including fish and chips, pork pies, and a full english fry up for the day after.
England group stage host cities have mixed results
England fans will have a tough start in the opening game against Serbia at the Veltins arena in Gelsenkirchen. The city is revealed as one with the fewest ‘home comforts’ for travelling England fans — there’s 16 locations which serve a bacon sandwich. Otherwise fans will need to eat and drink as the locals do!
England fans following the group stages could head to Frankfurt for some pie and mash, bacon sandwich, and a ‘cuppa tea’. England’s second group stage fixture against Denmark, set to be hosted in Frankfurt, has 112 venues serving bacon sandwiches, 281 serving cups of tea, and 11 venues to source a plate of pie and mash.
Where are England’s host cities past the group stage?
England’s potential path to the final as group winners — if the matches at Euro 2024 align with the world rankings, here’s who England would face and the city where they will play in the knockout stages:
- Round of 16: Sunday, June 30 – England vs. Austria/Romania/Turkey at Arena AufSchalke, Gelsenkirchen
- Quarter-final: Saturday, July 6 – England vs. Italy at Merkur Spiel-Arena, Düsseldorf
- Semi-final: Wednesday, July 10 – France vs. England; kick-off at 8pm at Westfalenstadion, Dortmund
- Final: Sunday, July 14 – Spain vs. England; kick-off at 8pm at Olympiastadion, Berlin
- England’s Potential Route as Group Runners-up:
If England finishes second in Group C but other results at Euro 2024 follow the world rankings, here’s who England would face and the city where they will play in the knockout stages:
- Round of 16: Saturday, June 29 – Germany vs. England at Westfalenstadion, Dortmund
- Quarter-final: Friday, July 5 – Spain vs. England at MHPArena, Stuttgart
- Semi-final: Tuesday, July 9 – England vs. Netherlands; kick-off at 8pm at Allianz Arena, Munich
- Final: Sunday, July 14 – England vs. France; kick-off at 8pm at Olympiastadion, Berlin
Fan experience: England group stage stadium venues rated ‘below average’
For the fans who were lucky enough to land a ticket to watch one of the games at Euro 2024, we’ve analysed which stadiums offer the greatest fan experience for travelling England and Scotland supporters.
Unfortunately, travelling England fans should perhaps lower their expectations of the stadium experience. The majority of England’s group stage games are held in venues rated below average, when compared to other host venues – the average rating for England’s stadiums is 12% lower compared to other stadiums in Germany.
The Deutsche Bank Park, or Waldstadion, in Frankfurt ranks 5th for fan experience of the 10 host cities at Euro 2024, and is the best rated stadium England will play in the group stages. This is followed by RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, which ranks 7th and will hosts both England and Scotland fans, and lowest ranking is Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen which ranks 8th out of the 10 host stadiums in Germany.
The Scottish group stages are different, however, as the Tartan army’s fan experience is set to be among best in tournament — the opening game against Germany in Munich’s Allianz Arena is reviewed as the second best fan experience from all of the host stadiums. Second only to the Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund.
What ‘tastes of home’ can Scottish fans expect to find?
Scottish fans can rely on Scotch Whisky and a classic bowl of oatmeal, or porridge, for their Euro 2024 campaign. Scotch Whisky, the national drink of Scotland, can be found in 85 venues across host cities in Germany. The Scottish breakfast staple of porridge can be found at 55 venues.
Good news for fans looking for a classic Scotch pie to remind themselves of the terraces back home — two cities in Scotland’s group games are some of the few locations fans can find some. Though this is limited to just one venue in each city!
- Munich – 16 locations serving Scottish ‘tastes of home’, including a hearty bowl of porridge. There’s even a location to get a classic ‘scotch pie’ for matchday!
- Cologne – 8 locations (4 with Scotch whisky and 4 with porridge)
- Stuttgart – 6 locations (5 with Scotch whisky and 1 scotch pie!)
Bad news for lovers of Scotlands ‘other national drink’, Irn Bru — there’s just 1 venue of all the host cities that serves the Scottish delicacy out of all the host cities. Scottish fans are advised to utilise checked airline baggage wisely!
As the tournament unfolds the real excitement will be the quality of football on display. With teams battling it out in both historical and ultra-modern stadiums across Germany, experiencing local culture and hospitality alongside the ‘home comforts’ for travelling fans is how to truly make it a home away from home!
Methodology:
To collect, analyse, and identify key findings for the research, we:
- Started by identifying the top 30 foods as English and Scottish ‘tastes of home’ food and drink for travelling fans, chosen through fan research and ‘top British food & drink’ lists.
- Used Yelp Fusion API to analyse 55,400 establishments across Euro 2024 host cities in Germany to identify businesses serving the English and Scottish ‘tastes of home’ food and drink, all of which are 10km from middle of each host city. The research found a total of 4,767 venues across all German host cities serving at least one classic English and Scottish food and drink on the menu.
- Identified fan experience rankings at each host stadium, by analysing each stadium listing on TripAdvisor and calculating the number of positive reviews (4 and 5 stars) as a ratio of the number of overall reviews.
