Woinderful Wembley!

Darren and i had a great time at Wembley on Friday, we wanted to take pictures and checked about whether they officially allowed cameras into the ground - the answer was that a smallish compact camera is fine but not one with "lenses and stuff!" I translated this as point and shoot but not DSLR which is a shame as i wanted to try out my long zoom and play with the settings for some shots. Nevermind though, our old digi compact has an 11x zoom so it did an ok job..

We drove to Stanmore (we usually park at Newbury Park and get the tube into London but it was better to drive further and only be four stops on the tube this time) journey was pretty good til we were nearly at the Tube station and then it got a bit slow as everyone tried to park.

Four short stops and we were at Wembley Park Station, as you exit the station you get a view up Wembley way which is a good start! We were heading for a pub Darren found on the net (in the hope of a bit of food and not too expensive beer, but after a very long walk it was packed out, nowhere to sit and eat except in the middle of a throng of smokers - urgh, I try to be tolerant but I really can't stand to have smoke breathed all over my food :(

So we had a quick drink and headed to Pizza hut instead! A bowl of salad and a Chicken Supreme later we headed back to the Stadium.

Wow - I was very impressed. It looked great from the outside, there were no problems with excessive queues to get in and although we were in the top tier there were escalators and lifts manned by stewards to ensure that everyone got to their seat quickly and safely.

Now this may sound bizarre but I think you can tell a lot about a place by the toilets!!!!! Darren and I travelled to Milan for the day to the famous San Siro Stadium a few years ago to watch Ipswich play Inter Milan - amazing stadium, glad I went, but the toilets were strategically placed holes in the floor - in the ladies loo. Not up to scratch I'm afraid! In the area we were in the toilets were plentiful, clean and tidy. However the hand driers sounded like there was an alien invasion going on - VERY noisy and strange!

Anyway, toilets aside we went to find our seats. We had opted for the cheapest seats and were prepared for not the greatest view but boy were we pleasantly surprised. We were three rows from the back and diagonally behind the corner flag so pretty much as far as you can get away but the whole pitch was clearly in view, there was plenty of room in the seats and the gradient was steep enough so the person in fronts head wasn't in the way but not so steep you felt like you might fall off!

Before kick off they held a minutes applause for Alan Ball which was well respected and I managed to use the zoom to get this shot of the players clapping.

I couldn't get right in on the action without going into the digital zoom which ruins the quality but I like this pic which captures the zie of the stadium and the crowd as well as a bit of the game.

Anyway, enough rambling, we had a fab time, it was great to see David Beckham playing again (excuse the picture it was taken off the big screen) and we thought he or John Terry should have been man of the match not Steven Gerrard.

As we left I managed to get some pics of the arch all lit up which was lovely.