Wember-lee!!

for Dig...

The Sports Cafe on Haymarket was the venue for a good Saturday night catching up with and meeting people. There was two games of rugby on with Ireland playing Scotland and England playing France. Plenty of fans for both, but we had more fun trying to get our table organised thanks to the venue stuffing our booking. A top night out anyway.

A small sleep in for Sunday thanks to Saturday night finishing a little later than it was supposed to. Breakfast was 11am at The Wren pub in Liverpool St station with fellow Spurs fans, before heading off towards Wembley itself. Several “warm up” pints in a nearby pub while a few more people joined the group and then it was on down the road to the stadium itself.

87,660 of us eventually made it into the stadium, and the vibe & atmosphere on the walk down Olympic Way was something to experience. Nothing like the crowds around a regular club match. While the biggest AFL game I’ve done is the big ANZAC day 95,000+ match at the MCG, this really was amazing as it built up as you got closer to the ground, to say nothing of once you were inside and the game was underway.

First it was co-ordinating getting together inside as we were all in different seats around the stadium. Dave, Paul & myself were at least within the same quarter so we got together at one of the bars inside - if you can see it in the pic.

Once seated, there really wasn’t much in the way of pre-match entertainment, unless you count some of the clowns in the stands! Most of it was just a drawn out introduction of the teams and which player was where (which they did via giant flags carried by what I’m guessing were very attractive women). Then came the national anthem, warm ups and the game got underway.
Hair on the back of your neck stuff as basically each half of the ground broke into their respective chants and songs. My seat was five seats from the gap between the two halves of fans, so you could say that I was right in the middle of it. Awesome stuff as the songs seemed to start at each end before literally moving across the stadium towards the opposing fans.

The game itself was quite an emotional rollercoaster. Not helped in part by what seemed like a referee doing the usual ‘favouritism’ bit. Cup final must-win game so to say we were all nervous and edgy on the result would be an understatement and it didn’t take much for the passion to come flowing out in spades around the ground. To go down to an early goal didn’t help things either as Chelsea is very much a bogey team for Spurs.
An equaliser part way through the second half quietened the Chelsea fans down remarkably, and we weren’t bashful in letting them know. To hear nearly 40,000 fans chanting “Your support is f@#kin’ sh*t!” and “Shall we sing a song for you?” was rather funny.
With the game going to extra time, the game itself was definitely still on, and so was a win for either team as well as the complete fraying of nerves for many in the stands. When Spurs scored early on in the 30mins of extra time, it created the longest 22minutes I and some 40,000 others have ever experienced! The number of near misses for both Chelsea to equalise and Spurs to seal the win didn’t help, but eventually the ref blew the whistle for the final time. The celebrations began, and I’m not ashamed to say that I did have teary eyes as I do remember watching Spurs win the FA Cup in the early hours of the morning back in 1981 with Dig. The old green couch and all. It was emotional. Here’s to you ol’ Boy!
Another thing of note was when I noticed quite a few hundred Tottenham fans appearing in the Chelsea end of the stadium. While all the Chelsea fans were leaving there were many jackets coming off to reveal Spurs shirts on people as they made their way towards us!!
Presentations and celebrations continued on in the stadium for quite some time before the team went back into the rooms leaving us the fun part of leaving the stadium and heading home with only one tube station available.

It took Paul and myself quite some time to make it home before we headed up to the Tottenham High Rd to kick on in the pub we frequent before and after the matches at White Hart Lane. A massive night too. Rather entertaining as everyone in the pub kept going despite the place running out of beer and turning the lights off to let us know they were closing. We did eventually leave and head home, but not before several of us failed to get into the only other place open at that time...

To unfortunately paraphrase a crappy magazine.. “What a day”