Sorry, this is really off topic, but this discussion has sparked so many memories.
I had a friend who had a friend who could get tickets, so the first match we went to was the Sweden match in Saitama, just north of Tokyo. As the WC began, the Japanese media was full of horror stories of English football hooligans descending on the country -- rape and pillage, etc. Hooligan, aptly, in Japanese is pronounce "fooligan." Anyway, the route from the station to the stadium was closed off, and all the shopfronts along the route were boarded up. We weren't actually caged in, but there were police everywhere and the locals were all hiding.
But by the time we went down to Osaka for the Nigeria match, Osaka is so different from Tokyo. All the kids had had their hair done in "the beckham," and as we walked through the town center kids would come up and shake our hands and cheer us on.
We couldn't get time off work for the Denmark match, but managed to get down to Shizuoka for Brazil. I remember talking to Sir Roger Moore, who was there as a special ambassador for unesco or unicef or something, and had kind of set up stall on the route to the stadium to chat with people. And after the defeat, there was a BBC film crew outside trying to get England supporters to stop and sing "Always look on the bright side of life" for them.
On the shinkansen back to Tokyo, there four or five rowdy England supporters in the same compartment as us, drinking beer. Usually on a shinkansen, staff come down the train selling drinks and snacks, but they weren't doing that with a train full of fooligans. So these guys started hassling the steward on the train, demanding beer. In Japan, sometimes in a bar or shop they'll give a customer something for free, calling it "service." So these guys started chanting "Service Beer! Service Beer!" and, dammit, the steward turned up with cans of beer for them, as service! Afterwards, I overheard them talking, and they were all Tokyo-based stockbrokers for major securities houses.
At the time, I think I was more happy that Japan won their first ever match at a World Cup, and I felt pretty much neutral at the England games, but on reflection, these are some of my happiest memories.
