England's Euros base only available thanks to stripping female fans
Published 22:39 07/11/11 By Martin Lipton
England have taken over a "strip club" for Euro 2012.
FA bosses have identified a city centre site in Krakow, in southern Poland, for their tournament base next June.
Picture special: England's Euro 2012 base revealed
But the club ground they will use for their assault on glory is only still available because women supporters of Hutnik Krakow disrobed for a cash-raising nude calendar last month.
Hutnik, second in the Polish championship in 1995, now play in the fourth division after going bust last year.
Further financial problems this summer almost saw the club going out of business altogether before the fans got together to launch the glamour calendar, which saw fans stripping off for the cameras.
Now the FA is bankrolling a total refit of the Stadion Suche Stawy (Dry Ponds Stadium in English) in order to give Fabio Capello and his stars a suitable training pitch surface for next summer.
Hutnik share the stadium with RKS Gabania but both teams have been kicked off the pitch from now until England vacate at the end of their tournament run, with experts from the Sports Turf Research Institute already having undertaken preliminary work.
Capello's choice of base is a world away from the isolated retreat outside Rustenburg where their World Cup campaign lurched from crisis to crisis in 2010.
Capello learns World Cup lessons with Krakow city centre base for Euro 2012
The boutique, 53-room Hotel Stary is barely 100 yards away from the cafes and horse-drawn carriages of Krakow's Main Market Square.
It does, though, raise the prospect of a potential repeat of the WAGs circus that surrounded Sven Goran Eriksson's squad in Baden-Baden during the 2006 World Cup flop.
But Adrian Bevington, managing director of Club England, the FA department that runs the national team, insisted: "We're in a bigger city. Krakow is very different to Baden Baden.
"There are 1000 cafes and bars. That means there's plenty of space here for the players to inter-mingle."
But the Mayor of Krakow, Jacek Majchrowski, said: "We will prepare a special programme for the wives and partners of the footballers, so they can enjoy it.
"We have a variety of spaces and places they could visit. It all depends on their interests. We have a lot of historical buildings that are really beautiful and worth visiting, quite a few interesting museums and some beautiful examples of natural spaces.
"There is a beautiful and ancient forest, also a castle. It depends on their interests but there are lots of things to do.
"We have plenty of opportunities. There are a lot of restaurants and nightclubs. There are all sorts of shops. If they would like to buy a beautiful fur, there are plenty of shops they can visit."
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Capello learns World Cup lessons with Krakow city centre base for Euro 2012
