大象传媒

Chard, England

Note pads at the ready, here's a quick history lesson. Chard in Somerset was the headquarters of Cerdic, the first King of Wessex, who some are convinced the legend of King Arthur is based on.

It's a sleepy little town, typified by its lacklustre branch of Woolworths - the sort of place where you can pick up bargain CDs but have to wait half an hour to pay for them whilst the old lady at the front of the queue deliberates with the cashier over whether 57p really is the right price for a role of sellotape.

Chard is also home to 2,000 of the UK's 750,000 Portuguese. Since watching the opening game of Euro 2008 with some of Norfolk's 50,000, we've also discovered communities in Boston (Lincolnshire) and Dungannon in Northern Ireland.

But the Girasol Restaurant in Chard ticked all the right boxes for . It's where workers from the local factory, which makes ready meals for Sainsbury's, relax after completing 12-hour shifts that begin excruciatingly early.

During our 5 Live road trip, we've been asked many times why these European communities exist in such obscure locations. The answer almost always has something to do with work. Chard's Portuguese answered the labour shortage when employment agencies at home targeted them five years ago.

Sadly, Thursday's game didn't go the way our hosts wanted, although there were few grumbles about the result. Neither did they seem too sorry to be losing manager and maintained that their in-demand number 7 still had some way to go to be regarded in the same light as .

Our return journey to London, for our first encounter with the Croatians, take us via again. Maybe this time producer Garth will stump up the admission fee rather than leaving me staring through the mesh fence like a pauper as he did on the way down. What a tight wad!