An England fan has spent his £40,000 house deposit on taking his father to watch the Three Lions “win the World Cup”. Jack Goodwin, 34, told the Press Association he has pre-booked hotels, flights and tickets to every game England can play until the final in New Jersey on July 19.
Fan's journey across the US
“We’ve been to New York, we’ve seen the World Cup and we’re going to see us bring it home. It’s a simple equation,” he said. The 34-year-old, originally from Chichester in West Sussex, said he spent approximately £4,000 on a ticket to the final, describing the trip as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”.
Mr Goodwin, who did not give his father’s name, told PA: “Me and my dad, we’ve been here since Dallas. We’ve done Dallas, Boston, New York, arrived in Atlanta… and we’re going all the way to the final and we’re going to watch us win the World Cup.”
Confidence and costs
Speaking ahead of England’s first knockout game against the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Atlanta, Mr Goodwin said: “We’re going to smash them 4-0 and we’re going to play Mexico in the Azteca this Sunday which will be the dream game of all games, the creme of the creme.” The Stoke City fan said he was “sweating” when Panama held the Three Lions to a 0-0 draw at half-time in their final group game.
“We’ve pre-booked everything now to the final – hotels, tickets, everything sorted. We were sweating because we got all our tickets through the FIFA ballot – if we didn’t top the group, all of our tickets would have become invalid.” Mr Goodwin said his dad’s “confidence” meant they booked flights to Atlanta a few weeks ago. “We booked them a few weeks ago, so we were pretty confident. I mean, my dad was pretty confident, so I went with his confidence.”
Financial sacrifice
Explaining how he had funded the trip, Mr Goodwin said his tickets were all at face value, but were still “mega expensive”. “It’s been very expensive. I saved up for a house and I blew my whole house deposit taking me and my dad out,” he said. Questioned on how much he had spent, he continued: “How long’s a piece of string? A good £40,000. We’ve got everything face value but that’s not to say it was cheap – it was mega expensive still.”
He added: “Well, I’ve got no kids, I’ve got no wife, so why not? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Mr Goodwin described the cost of World Cup final tickets as a “joke”. He said: “For the group games… I think it was around 350 dollars. We were in the Gods. But we’ve got category one tickets now for the next few games, and they were 600 dollars face value. The ticket for the final, which is a joke, was through the England Supporters Club. Face value for category two was 8,000 Australian dollars, so about £4,000.”
He added: “We’ve met a lot of people that did ballots and didn’t get tickets so we’re extremely lucky to be here to be honest.”
