Londoners confirmed as the nation's biggest late-night World Cup revellers as 5am pub opening confirmed
Chaos on the streets of Covent Garden ahead?
The England football team play Mexico at 1am on Monday morning. It's likely to be a hectic one following Keir Starmer’s confirmation pubs will be allowed to open until 5am for the occasion.
“Football might be coming home but we're making sure fans don't have to,” Starmer said during the announcement.
If you plan to go big for this one, check out our guide to where you can see the match.
Based on some recently-commissioned research, you won’t be alone.
According to stats compiled by tech brand Honor, London has the highest proportion of football fans planning to stay up for the 1am match — at 80 per cent compared to a 68 per cent average across the country.
55 per cent of Londoners also have, or plan to, take time off work for World Cup matches, while around eight per cent even have plans to “pull a sickie” according to the research. Public service announcement: we don’t think you’ll get away with that following the England v Mexico match.
Late night adrenaline rush
The match itself takes place at Azteca stadium, and England captain Harry Kane is already making excuses should the team foul this one up. Azteca stadium sits 2240m above sea level in Mexico City, which both he and manager Thomas Tuchel claim puts the England team at a “huge” disadvantage — given their lack of training at altitude.
At the time of writing the betting odds place England as favourites to win the upcoming match, despite playing on Mexico’s home turf.
Research stats suggest 52 per cent of Greater London viewers struggle to sleep after a World Cup match thanks to all the adrenaline. But we imagine a few of you might have some sleepless nights over the weekend too.
Why is a Chinese tech brand like Honor commissioning research about London football fans? It’s all part of the marketing push for its new Honor Watch 6, which came out last month (and has an £80-off early bird offer until the end of this month, if you're interested).
The research also, to the surprise of no-one, also revealed we’re already unusually tech-pilled in London. Apparently 10 per cent of us already use a smartwatch, and even more — a full 15 per cent — use sleep headphones. Those ambulance sirens and snoring partners won't drown themselves out, right?
Don’t take these stats too seriously, though. Honor only commissioned a 2000-strong survey for these figures.
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