Diary – 1 January 1970

In 1755 Lisbon was ruined by a massive earthquake, the shock waves from which were felt as far away as Switzerland. When the rumbling stopped, a great fire ensued, followed by a tsunami that washed away coastal villages. As I awoke on Tuesday morning, I had good reason to believe that Portugal’s capital was about to endure a second devastating tremor. On Lisbon’s Avenida de Joao II, the walls of my tiny hotel room seemed to be swaying and I could hear a terrible banging. My hands were sweating, my heart was pounding. Inside my head, the pressure was so intense that I feared that my eyes would pop out like corks from over-fizzed champagne bottles. Semi-conscious, I struggled to make sense of dreadful thoughts. Was this how it feels in the final moments before a catastrophic seismic event? Was I going to die? Er, not quite. There was, of course, no earthquake. Indeed, terra could not have been more firma. My shaking and rattling were the result of all the rocking and rolling in which we England supporters had indulged the night before. Yes, mine was the Zinedine Zidane of hangovers. After the agony of the last-second defeat by France, the ecstasy of a Sven-inspired revival against plucky Croatia merited proper celebration. This we did until the lights went out. When they came back on, I could say with hand on heart, ‘Darling, the earth is definitely moving for me.’

I flew to Lisbon on Monday with a party of pals, comprising some senior BBC executives, a handful of journalists and one or two people who actually work for a living. In addition to cheering on Becks and the boys, we had a supplementary mission: to demonstrate that it’s possible to enjoy a little paddle in the European wine lake without turning into the kind of boneheaded, scumbag, hooligan filth that has soiled this country’s reputation overseas.