Glastonbury festival versus the World Cup

You have to pity the acts who were forced to compete with the England versus Germany match at this year's Glastonbury festival. As punters clad in red shirts searched the fields of Worthy Farm for a suitable place to watch the second round of the World Cup at 3pm today, it was left to the likes of Slash, Teddy Thompson and Dr John to entertain the rest. "I came here to see bands, that's why you go to Glastonbury. It's not that I'm not interested in football, but I came here for the music," said Londoner Akay, 25, who opted to watch former Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Slash instead of joining his friends in watching the match. Bristolians Simone and Rachel, both 18, were celebrating the end of their AS levels by watching indie-pop group The Temper Trap. "We would like to see the football but you can watch the game online after," said Rachel. Simone added prophetically: "I might not get a chance to see the band again for ages and we paid a lot to come here. Anyway, they'll probably lose and that would be a downer." Glastonbury festival had factored in the chance of an England game during the weekend in planning the festival. Glastonbury spokesman John Shearlaw told the Guardian: "There has been a major operational plan in place to make sure there is enough space for as many as 70,000 people to watch the football if they like. We have two fields set aside with big screens and various smaller screens throughout the festival." Shearlaw added that many options had been discussed in the run-up to the festival, including the possibility of flashing updates from the match on the big screens on the Pyramid stage. "But it was decided that the best solution was to give festivalgoers the choice between music and the game," he said. England were knocked out of the second group after Germany beat them 4-1, no doubt making a lot of people wish they'd gone to see Mountain Man instead after all.