Mighty_Onions
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Offline, last online: May 22 2008, 22:51 PM

Well we did it. The Road to Wembley that started as a tentative idea early last year has been turned into a successful journey to all parts of the country in all kinds of weather, culminating in Saturday’s FA Cup final. Starting at Hall Road Rangers in August and finishing with Portsmouth v Cardiff City at Wembley in May, we’ve attended 17 matches – some fantastic, some dire - and travelled about 5,000 miles. Before I go any further I have to thank Geoff Payne of Barrow for allowing us to complete our quest by donating to us his Club Wembley tickets. Such a grand gesture is a fine note on which to end and encapsulates the warmth and generosity that we have encountered from game one. While the scramble for tickets went on, we were able to relax in the knowledge that we’d be watching the final in the lap of luxury. We haven’t even met Geoff but we hope to do so as we continue to follow Barrow’s fortunes after developing a lasting liking and interest in the club. More of that later.
FA Cup final day is special. It’s one of those days, perhaps THE day, that you remember as a kid and I’ve been hooked on the competition since my first memories of it as an eight-year old in 1983 watching Manchester United v Brighton & Hove Albion in our living room. A pre-6am start was required as we ditched the car and ventured onto public transport for the first time on the Road to Wembley. While it may be a little boring, everything went to plan. No delayed trains, no lost luggage, no disasters at all, and we were at the ground – via Wembley Way – in good time to sample the hospitality of Club Wembley. I had hoped to see a series of VIPs on our Road to Wembley and while we’ve seen the odd famous face, the most known on Saturday was former Spurs and Scotland striker Alan Brazil, and cricketer Ronnie Irani. Hardly a stellar cast, although we have film director Richard Curtis down as a maybe. I’ve knocked the FA plenty of times and with very good reason, but there’s no denying that Wembley is impressive. Maybe not exactly value for money given how much the thing cost to build, but impressive nevertheless. This is even more the case in Club Wembley, a corporate area that allowed us to relax and see how the other half live. While the champagne and seafood bar proved to be a little beyond our financial means, we were happy to pay for a few overpriced pints before the game in such great surroundings. In a sense it’s somewhat detached from the reality of football but I think after what we’ve sampled over the months, we were entitled to it. We took to our padded seats in good time to hear Katherine Jenkins and Lesley Garrett murder the traditional Abide with Me and for each set of supporters to boo the others’ national anthems. The atmosphere just before kick-off was absolutely electric, generating the most incredible atmosphere I have ever sampled for a few minutes. Watching from behind the goal was similar to watching a film at the cinema, with the widescreen vista developing before us.
The game itself was interesting. Maybe not the most stunning word to use, but I think it’s appropriate. Portsmouth played like a decent Premier League side and Cardiff played like a decent Championship side, and therefore Portsmouth won. Neither team had any pace, either up front or out wide, and that was the main drawback to the game. Cardiff never quite looked confident enough that they would win and the result was right in the end. Two flapping goalkeepers, two organised defences and several slow attackers were on show, along with a referee in control and that may not have endeared itself to the purists. I can’t let the match pass without mentioning the supporters. We were in the Club Wembley section in the Cardiff end. The vast majority of fans behaved in an exemplary manner, but the last 10 minutes of the first half were pretty unsavoury. Several Portsmouth supporters around us celebrated their goal, some with a little too much passion that the Cardiff fans took umbrage to. A large section of the crowd proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes with their backs to the biggest game of their lives making a series of gestures at the Portsmouth fans. Quite why a section of nutters seem to think they are allowed to support their club, but others are wrong to support theirs has always been beyond me. Two or three were ejected by the rapid response team – including a Portsmouth idiot – and half-time and the chance of a few more pints quelled the taste for antagonism. And so as the clock ticked down I sat part watching the game and part thinking back to past matches on the Road to Wembley. In a sense it’s sad that it’s all over, while on the other hand there’s a huge sense of pride and satisfaction that you feel inside. We will naturally always hold many wonderful memories and we’ve been helped by numerous kindly folk along the way. And we now have the odd extra grudge against those clubs who have turned an ignorant blind eye to us. The likes of Millwall, Hall Road Rangers, Coventry, West Brom and Billingham Town have been hugely helpful, but it’s fair to say that Barrow are the club that we will remember most fondly. We watched them five times in the FA Cup and also went to the Blue Square North play-off final at Burton Albion to led our support to their fantastic end to the season. We’ll certainly be back to see them next season and we’ll always be grateful to John Little, Maurice Ross, Sharkey and Geoff Payne for their various offers of assistance. Good luck to all at Holker Street in the future.
After a final post-match drink at Wembley we headed away from the ground and to our evening destination of Muswell Hill. Leaving the crowds behind allowed us a quiet evening of reflection in a pleasant locale, and the night never really got going due to sheer exhaustion for the pair of us. The comfort of a deep leather chair was much appreciated though! Sitting in the pub with the cup final highlights on in the background it was easy to feel detached from proceedings, almost as if we had built a world of our own over the last 10 months and now we had to share that with everyone else. To us this has been a fantastic and memorable journey, one that has taken us north, south, east and west and we have enjoyed every minute. It’s one that I can recommend to anyone wanting to get back to the heart and soul of a sport that is in serious danger of imploding. We’ve succeeded on our Road to Wembley and for that I’d like to thank fellow devotee Richard and all that have made that possible.