Well, as with all of us, my trip to Wembley started with buying the tickets. Since we had decided that we wanted to be on the Royal Box side, as near to the centre as we could, I started queueing from 06:20 on the Tuesday morning. If possible, I wanted 5 tickets, but I only had an allocation of 4, but luckily while talking to the guy next to me in the queue I discovered that he only wanted 3, so I was in! The highlight of the morning was the Yellow Pages delivery guy. He arrived at about 07:50 with a huge articulated lorry and discovered the car park full of people and cars. Not to be discouraged, he did a U-turn (no political reference there) causing the queue to disintegrate in "relaxed fear" mode!
After collecting my tickets I set off back to the car to go to work and was amazed at the queue - only 08:50 and it was already almost onto Warwick Road! As I crossed Warwick Road, observing the Green Cross Code, a guy lost control coming out of the lane opposite the Club Shop and almost hit the cars on the other side heading out of Carlisle. I had just made it to the pavement and wasn't watching him anymore when a very loud bang made me glance back - and he had mounted the pavement, hit one of the metal posts and was heading straight for me! In the next split second, I recognized him as having been in the queue ahead of me, but my brain said "uh, excuse me, but shouldn't we get out of the way?". The rest of me agreed that this seemed like a good idea, so my legs sprung into action and I skipped (without gay abandon) out of the way. Who said it was safe being a Carlisle United supporter these days?!
My preparations for the big day were normal up to the Friday morning when I got up at 05:00. Why? Well on Saturday I was getting up at 03:00 so that we could set off 03:45 and so I was making sure I would get some sleep on Friday night. The reason for the early start was so that we could stop off in Burnley to pick up my brother Bob. We also didn't want to take the chance that the IRA would ruin our plans.
We had Breakfast at the Tescos in Wycombe. As we were pulling in, it suddenly occurred to us to hide the scarves! Breakfast was a lovely fried one which nourished our frail bodies. Anybody who has seen my "frail body" will recognise this as sarcasm!
We arrived at Twickenham at about 10:35 after having trouble finding the West Car Park because of the lack of signs. Pre-Twickenham drinks were in the Admiral Nelson where we watched Calamity James (David James, Superstar, drops more bollocks than Grobellaar!) help Manchester United beat Liverpool. Doh! Ah, yes - Twickenham! As an ex "egg-chaser", I was looking forward to watching the Cumbrians massacre the West Country Yokels, and so it proved to be. After a tentative start, the Cumbrians gained control of the game and went on to win 21-13. This was a game which caused the Somerset fans some confusion - why were Cumbria (playing in blue) being supported by all these mad people (wearing green) from Carlisle which, as we all know, is in Scotland? After the match we "invaded" the pitch to cheer on the team as they collected the trophy. I also bumped into Bryan "Black Sheep" Graham outside the Stadium.
After the game we headed off to our B&B in Harrow-on-the-hill (where we stayed for the Birmingham City final two years previously), got freshened up and then headed to the Moon on the Hill, the pub where we spent most of the night two years previously! We had a meal, lots of drink, another meal and more drink. Well, we were hungry.... In between the two meals, I popped back to the B&B for our T-shirts and scarves. When we stripped off our tops (not a pretty sight) and put on the T-shirts, it caused most of the pub to stop talking and look at us! Among the people who came over to talk to us after this were several Larndurners (Carlisle, aint that in Scotland?), a Forest fan (Division 1, mate ;) and a couple from the B&B next to ours who were also Carlisle United fans. At one point in the evening we heard "Blue Army" being sung on the other side of the pub and, in the interests of education, we started to sing "Mervyn Day's Deckchair Army". This, however, led to the landlady materialising (it's the only word for it - she just, like, appeared there, man!) next to our table and stating, quite forcefully, that singing was not allowed, except on match days, and that we were to shut up or be "asked" to leave. We shut up :( If you were the group in the pub, let me know! The rest of the evening went well and we eventually returned to the B&B to sleep. I think.
Sunday morning started with another fry-up breakfast, then a wee walk and after Patrick, the fifth beetle, arrived we took the tube trip to Wembley to soak up the atmosphere. Our first stop was to be the samosa shop where we got our lunch last time, but it had gone! Shaking off this disaster we headed for Wembley Way so that we could take a photo of ourselves bedecked and holding my Big Banner. On the way I met David "Olga The Fox" Arnison who was amazed that he had actually spotted me! After the photo on Wembley way I was interviewed by Sky TV, but I must have been too boring because I never made it onto the screen. Or maybe it was the fact that I criticised their rights deal with the League. After buying some Sarnies we headed for gate F, but on entering the ground we had our bottle tops confiscated! Now if anyone can explain the logic behind that one, I would love to hear it! Before the main event there was a kids game (which showed pace and skill) and a celebrity match. This was quite amusing, especially the infamous Ginge, Chris Evans. Now, allegedly, before the game he was referring to Carlisle fans as "smelly, ignorant Scots" and he couldn't understand why Carlisle were in the competition. If this quote is accurate, it shows what an ignorant prat he is on two counts. The first being that Carlisle isn't in Scotland (at the moment) and the second being that racism, in whatever context, is unacceptable. The celebrity game itself was entertaining and Alan from Eastenders was awarded Man of the Match for his Stephane-like performance, although John Leslie was Caig-like and, for me, was a close second. The final result in this game was 2-2.
The game itself was uneventful except for when the corner flag got broken and it seemed to take 20 minutes for them to find a replacement. The groundsman was greeted to chants of "Hero, Hero" when he came running onto the pitch with the replacement and hurdled the advertising boards. But the day was summed up by the agony of golden goal extra time and then the agony and ecstasy of penalties. For me, the Man of the Match award was a tie between Steph and the "corner flag" groundsman!
Eventually we managed to drag ourselves away from Wembley, caught the tube back to the B&B to get the car and then stopped for Petrol. In order to celebrate I bought everyone a "Nestlé's Kit-Kat deckchair chocolate", otherwise known as a mint kit-kat!
There was a immense High as we milled away from Wembley and the carnival procession on the motorway home was incredible - all those scarf and banner bedecked vehicles! The Services north of Birmingham were fun - we just got in before the coaches! There was also one of those grabber machines where you try to get a stuffed toy and it was full of foxes - now that was a smart marketing move!
And finally:
Oh my hero, oh my hero, oh my hero Tony Caig,
Saved two
penalties in the shoot-out, oh my hero Tony Caig!
Perhaps Wembley will shut up his knockers......
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