Euros 2024: Sleeping fan at England-Slovenia game reveals surprising truth behind his now-famous nap - and compares himself to fellow Crawley boy Gareth Southgate

Freddie Hahn, who lives in West Green, who has a one-year-old son Arthur with his partner, Tash Copsey, had a moment of fame when the picture of him asleep at England’s 0-0 bore draw with Slovenia in the final Group C game went viral on social media.

His picture adorned the front page of The Sun with headline ‘What’s the scorey? Yawning Glory’ and was captioned ‘Fanzzzone...England supporter sums up drab draw’.. The 32-year-old has also done interviews with the BBC and the Daily Mail. Everything suggested Freddie was pictured during the game. But Freddie, who manages football team Crawley Devils in the Mid Sussex League, has revealed to us the picture was taken before kick off and said the past 36 hours has been a whirlwind.

He said: "When we were coming back from the game it was all over social media. TNT Sports had done a bit, the Sport Bible-type pages had.

“People were tagging me everywhere on social media and woke up the next day and said ‘you are on the front page of The Sun’ which was quite exciting for us all.

“I am sort of enjoying the attention but the narrative does get twisted, particularly with the National press and what they want to convey. It has been good though and I have enjoyed doing it. The truth is I was actually asleep pre-game. It was about two hours before kick off.”

It was a tiring few days for Freddie, who drove to Germany with his Devils colleague. “We were in the car at 4.50am the day before, an early start,” he said. “I have a one-year-old and any person who has young children knows it’s sometimes not the most peaceful environment. We went out during the day of the match and had a few beers, it was hot. So I am putting my tiredness down to that a little. Then we got into the ground and I had a little nap. The next thing you know you are all over the place!”

He was then awake for the full 90 minutes. Freddie said: “I did watch the game and it was a tough watch at times but for what it’s worth I thought we were better than previous games. It was nice to see him [Gareth Southgate] shake it up a little but probably too late 225 minutes into the tournament.

“I do get the frustrations of fans especially when we are struggling to breakdown average teams but hopefully they will turn it around on Sunday.”

Freddie, who works in finance and is a Hull City supporter, hopes the exposure he is getting helps promote the brand of his football club. “Part of my rationale of doing some of the national press was trying to get the Devils brand out there. We are looking for a sponsor still at the moment. Hopefully we can get something off the back of it.

"We are in the Mid Sussex League Premier and we have ambitions of moving up to the Southern Combination League Division 1. We have a good preseason lined up against local sides like TD Shipley and Rudgwick.

“We have been running for 11 or 12 years but we have never had a sponsor and we have ended up at quite a good level and probably need a sponsor now.”

Freddie’s similarities with Southgate do not end at being a football manager, he went to Hazelwick School, where the England manager also went. Southgate grew up in the West Sussex town and also attended Pound Hill Juniors and his parents still live in the town.

But how does Freddie’s management style compare to the England boss? “My management style? I certainly wasn’t ambitious last season and I did park the bus. I do sympathise with Gareth but I would argue he has a slightly better group of players than I did. It would be nice to see him be more expansive and I do understand the negativity towards how he sets up but I think it’s time for him to take the brakes off to see what we can do with these players. Major tournaments don’t come around very often.”

England’s 0-0 draw saw them finish top of the group and set up a last 16 match with Slovakia on Sunday in Gelsenkirchen and meant they were in a different half of the draw to big guns France, Germany and Spain.

What is Freddie’s score prediction? “I think we will win. In my heart of hearts I don’t think we will see an expansive 4 or 5 nil win. Head says 2-0 but heart says 1-0. But we will get the job done in 90 minutes.”