When you wake up on the day of an event and the sky is grey and your foot hurts because you slept on it funny and you feel hot and urgh, the last thing you probably want to do is spend any significant amount of time with a lot of people you don’t know (and your family) on a coach for about 5 hours. Well, that’s what I was looking forward to on Sunday.
The weather slowly improved and after a drooling shorting snooze I felt better too. Watford Gap and the best BLT I had tasted in a while sorted me out for another sleep and the next thing I knew we were in London. Yes, I slept through England’s green and pleasant land.
The first moment I saw the Wembley arch I got a little buzz but it wasn’t until I got off the coach at The Green Man Hotel (our coach park and ‘refreshment 
centre’) that the excitement really built. Have to say getting up there was ‘interesting’ -the hill was so steep that as the coach got onto it the exhaust banged on the group - lovely!
We got our pints (well you have to really - London prices are apparently the same as Preston so let’s end that particular myth) and wandered out into the beautiful beer garden, where the temperature was a balmy 9000 degrees (measured on the Exaggeration Scale) and soaked in the atmosphere - seeing people we knew enjoying themselves and getting psyched up for the match was a tonic to the long coach ride. We walked down another steep hill and past a car park melting all the time… and there it was.
Stunning.
The last time I was at Wembley was for the Toxic Twin Towers Ball (Aerosmith/Lenny Kravitz/Black Crowes concert) in 1999, so before the redevelopment, when it was a historic mess. The new one shines.
Like a national stadium should.
Lovely.
We passed ‘the enemy’ (everyone apparently decided to walk round the stadium to find their gate as opposed to being on the right side!), passed Bobby Moore and then found gate G.
Inside, past the happiest ticket collector in the world, and then
through the thorough searching (where I laughed at the idiots who didn’t check the website first) it took barely a moment to find our block and then out into the sunlight again to the most beautiful sight of the day.
Oh wow, that moment is going to stay with me for a long time - the noise, the music, the bright red and the lush green, the perfect blue of the sky and the white of the steps. Every colour is planted in my head.
I almost groaned when I saw we were behind five apparently unattended children - one with a noisemaker that was nearly surgically made part of his anatomy, but it all got better when an old friend appeared out of nowhere and offered m
e much needed sun protection.
The teams came out and the National Anthem was sung with an enthusiasm I haven’t heard in a while - it really did lift my heart at that moment.
Then the match (For a fuller match report see here ) - the first half was a little nervy not helped when one of our guys planted a goal… in the wrong net. Lowestoft were winning without even trying. The crowd kept it ll going with a few Mexican waves… As half time arrived it was looking bleak to say the least. I think one of the comments made from our section was something long the lines of ‘How much is Lowestoft paying you, ref?)
A fight to show just how good we are at queueing in the UK for the not overly expensive drinks served by a person who genuinely seemed to enjoy her job (apparently food is where they make their money at Wembley) and then back to the seats where the second half had just begun.
It settled and we had shot after shot after shot at the goal but the Lowestoft keeper seemed to have magnetic hands. It looked like it wasn’t going to be our day when, 10 minutes from the end, Super-Matt, our 17 year old came on and turned things around. A breath later it was…
and our 4,000 strong crowd went wild, while the 15,000 Lowestoft fans fell silent for the first time all game.
The final whistle went several scary moments later and the party started.
Always worried about being left behind, we tramped to the coach where I nearly died climbing the steep steep hill, and I sat trying to breathe again… We had won we had won we had won. I wasn’t in any way putting all my hopes on this match but suddenly the world felt hopeful again. Suddenly it felt like things were possible again. Nothing was bothering me - not the annoying kids on the coach, not the people who were late back, nothing. I stuck my iPod in my ears and smiled all the way home.
Arriving back on the stroke on 11pm, the town was already in party mode. All the pubs were open and full, flags and smiles and scarves and hats and t-shirts all showing the pride we all felt.
A brief consideration to stay out and get ‘hammered’ was over-ruled in favour of a ‘cup of tea and bed’.
It’s amazing how much a sports event can change the way you feel if only for a day. And as this is already quite long, I’ll tell you about today… tomorrow.
(Yes the camera work is dodgy as all hell - I was dancing, k?)
Well done lads!
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