​30 Million Brits Are Expected To Watch The England Game Today

No traffic jams. No queues for the self-checkouts in Tesco. No one walking down the street at a snail's pace and getting in your way.

And why will England turn into such a ghost town this afternoon? Because literally everyone is watching the World Cup.

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Sod the beautiful weather, which is meant to see temperatures hit 33°C this afternoon. Let's all pile into the pub or lock ourselves away at home to watch our boys hopefully dominate Sweden.

As well at the 5,000 lucky sods who are at the actual Cosmos Arena in Samara in Russia, a record-breaking 30 million of us are expected to tune in at home.

World Cup fever's definitely hit us all - retailers have reported a £6.5billion boost because of people stocking up on replica kits, booze and food, according to the Mirror.

Families will spend, on average, an extra £237 because of the football. That's according to a study by cereal brand Kellogg's.

"New research reveals UK families will spend around £6.5billion across Britain. As England goes from strength to strength in this year's World Cup, families will splurge almost £2.5billion on footie merchandise," a Kellogg's spokesperson said.

PA

If you want more proof that the country's gone footie mad, how about the fact that 38 million pints are expected to be sunk? Pubs are expected to take in some £100 million.

Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said: "Christmas Eve is a busy night but an England knockout game is a different dimension. We will be very busy."

Asda have created an 'Operation: It's Coming Home', hoping to set up shift swaps for football-loving staff members. They've also reported that they're expecting record sales of BBQ food, helped along by the insane heatwave.

Asda also reckons it will sell over three million litres of beer, which is just about enough to fill the Olympic swimming pool from London 2012. Sounds like a standard Friday night to us...

While it's bloody good news for supermarkets, with Kantar Worldpanel strategic insight director Matt Botham saying, "We're looking at an extra four million trips to the shops on Friday and Saturday," it's going to be less good for the high street.

Stores on Oxford Street will be deserted ahead of kick-off at 3pm today - so if you're not arsed about football, now's the time to go shopping.

Wireless Festival in London will show the game across the festival site, there's the Luna Cinema on Brighton beach, a fan zone in Times Square in Newcastle, another in Millenium Square in Leeds, and one at Ashton Gate football stadium in Bristol.

Come on fellas. Let's bring it home.

Source: The Mirror

Topics: Football, World Cup 2018, England, britain heatwave, Gareth Southgate, World Cup, Sweden, Britain

Daisy Jackson

Daisy Jackson is a freelance writer, who has previously worked at Shortlist Media and Trinity Mirror. She has written about the Manchester terror attacks and appeared on BBC Five live to discuss the aftermath, as well as interviewing an orthopaedic surgeon in Syria.