England hideaway ensures 'dentist's chair' stays empty

The England team bus turns right out of the deluxe Westin Hotel, past the more rustic Peter Pan's Coffee House, a 200ft white Buddha, several paddy fields, through a legion of security guards and into their Tsuna training ground. Japan is a nation of contrasts but even by local standards England's 20-minute commute is an unusual one.

How many players look up from their Gameboys is open to question, but those that do may notice the tiled roofs of Sano and Tsuna villages, with the corners upturned to ward off evil spirits. Then there is the police station, with the uniformed Donald Duck figure indicating the entrance.

At the purpose-built training ground, they may wonder what the long green metal chute, suspended 30 yards off the ground behind one end of the pitch, is for. Running from the hills to the sea, it transports rocks from a quarry.

Substitute quarrying for fishing and Tsuna village is remarkably similar, to western eyes, to the one portrayed in the Japanese film Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, recently released in London. It appears poor and is certainly very quiet and just as remote. An hour's drive from Kobe, it is an incongruous place for England's millionaire footballers to be billeted. It is like Brazil setting camp in a small town on the Isle of Sheppey.

Yet it is ideal for Sven Goran Eriksson. "It is top-class," said the England coach yesterday. "The pitch is perfect, the hotel, everything. The ambience is perfect, nothing disturbs us."

With the hotel off-limits to all press except for rights-holders such as the BBC, and the training pitch curtained off with green mesh and guarded by dozens of officials, this is hardly surprising. Even to park at the site, for an FA-sanctioned visit to training, we were required to complete a form addressed to "Dear Tsuna Town Mayor" applying for a temporary "Vehicle Entry Application Form". This is supposed to be a daily procedure which, with England scheduled to stay here until 25 June if all goes well, could mean Mayor Wasiburo Kashiwagi receiving plenty of origami material. The form completed, we were in turn halted by police, then guided to the car park by synchronised stewards. To judge from the number of the latter, either regional unemployment is high or many people have taken a holiday for the lure of being near David Beckham.

Despite being, according to legend, the birthplace of the Shinto religion and Japanese people, Awaji is on the map in name only. The village bid £65,000 for the honour of hosting England and have spent much more on facilities. While the Football Association has contributed substantially, it is hard to see what Tsuna will get out of it apart from publicity and two fine football pitches. With most of the media based in Kobe and the rest, like the players, rarely leaving the Westin, Peter Pan's Coffee House and its few competitiors will not be getting rich.

Eriksson is happy with that. Before Euro '96 the England squad infamously partied at a Hong Kong nightclub whose "dentist's chair" was the fulcrum of alcoholic activities. The only dentist's chair in Tsuna belongs to the dentist.