My plans for Saturday had been to pop into our nearest town, go to the post office and bank, and to have a look for a couple of birthday presents. My actual Saturday turned out to be a trip to Wembley Stadium to watch the rugby!… Mr R had gone for a drink in our local Friday night, one of the regulars had a couple of tickets to watch Saracens vs Harlequins but due to his son being unwell he couldn’t go, so he was giving his tickets away to anyone that wanted them, for free, and Mr R (and I) were the lucky recipients!
So, mid-morning off we set for Wembley. Thankfully, Mrs organised that I am, I’d checked the trains after Mr R arrived home and thrust the tickets into my hand at gone midnight and worked out our route. If I hadn’t we’d have ended up on a 2 hour replacement bus journey to Marylebone before the train to the Stadium… instead we had a wonderfully smooth journey and now I know how easy it is to get there I’ll be booking tickets to another event at the stadium/arena!
After a “pat down” for Mr R and a bag search for me we made our way up the escalators into the stadium and to our seats, which were definitely in the nosebleed section but hey they were free so we’re not complaining! I thought Mr R was being romantic, putting his arm around me, turns out he was just steadying himself after realising how high up we were and how steep it was!
As we sat waiting for the pre-match show, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet and empty the stadium was, although it did fill up quickly just before kick-off (is that the correct term for rugby?!) and there was apparently a record crowd for a league match at a bit over 83,000 people!! However, even with that number of people it remained pretty quiet, which suprised me, I thought the atmosphere would be much more intense… maybe people were too cold to get too excited (after the lovely weather last week it was a shock to the system for it to be sooo cold!), or maybe the situation in this country right now had an effect… who knows, all I know is I felt sorry for the Rock Choir, McFly and the London 2012 Ambassadors that were on before the match as nobody really clapped or cheered, or joined in with the Ambassadors requests.., what a miserable lot!!
The match started and I really didn’t have a clue what was going on, constantly whispering to Mr R to ask what was happening!! I knew what a scrum was and a try but that’s my limit, so maybe not the best person to take to a big rugby match but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. As Saracens are closest to where we live I supported them, though I have to say (if there’s any Saracens fans reading this please don’t shoot me, it’s just my opinion) even with my limited knowledge of the game, I thought they played pretty poorly. They didn’t seem to get “stuck in” and really try or defend, so it wasn’t surprising that the score ended as Saracens 19 – Harlequins 24.
Would I go to a rugby match again, definitely! We had a good day, it was something a bit different for us to go to, at least together anyway, and next time I’ll remember my scarf and gloves…
Leave a Reply