Taking no chances, I had the Friday and Monday off to prepare for, and recover from, the trip. I spent Friday finishing off my 12 foot long "Carlisle United Deckchair Army" banner and getting in supplies for the drive down. Brother Bob arrived early evening with the minibus ready for our early start.
It was about 06:30 Saturday morning as we loaded the minibus and picked the other 8 people up from St Nicholas Gate car park. After positioning the banner so that the "Carlisle" part could be read from behind through the rear window, we were off. It was a fairly uneventful drive, other than all the waving and horn honking, with the exception of the exhaust coming loose near London!
When we reached the hotel, Bob and I waited for the AA man to come and fix the exhaust while the others went sight-seeing. We did get to meet Warren Aspinall's wife at this point when she pulled up and asked for directions! Anyway, with the exhaust fixed and the afternoon virtually over, Bob and I headed for the pub. Then for something to eat. Then the pub again. Then the cinema to see Dumb and Dumber (which was incredily funny when very drunk), before finally finishing in ....... the pub. We spent most of the time in the pub drinking with some Birmingham City fans who were in the same hotel as us. Can't for the life of me remember their names, though. They had crewcuts and blue sunglasses. Oh, and there was a Yorkshireman there. Hmm. It was very confused after a few drinks. If they are out there, email me.
After a good night's sleep and a good breakfast, a quick check on the mini-bus discovered it covered in "Shit on the Villa" stickers. A bit of scraping removed these, and then Bob and I headed down to Wembley. We spent the morning wandering and chatting with both sets of fans about the teams' strengths and weaknesses before staking the banner out on the grass in front of the Press and Celebrity entrance to await our Radio Echo compatriots. After this, it was round to our gate and in for the celebrity and schools matches. These were highly entertaining preambles to the main attraction. By the time the game started the atmosphere was in-cred-ible. I think everyone would agree that the game itself was exciting and the Golden Goal was the best way to settle it, even if it did go against us. Oh for that Paul Conway chance to have gone in!.
So it was with heavy hearts that Bob and I made our way back to the hotel, loaded up the minibus, waited for the others to arrive and then, with foot to the floor on the loud pedal, headed back to Carlisle.
Of Course, when I got up on Monday morning I watched it all again on the video!
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