Wednesday Night Football... live from Wembley

Wednesday night brought our first ever World Cup Qualifier - in the magnificant new Wembley Stadium.

Over the past few weeks more and more people we know were slipping into conversation that they had tickets to see Ukraine vs England in this World Cup Qualifier, and we started to wonder why the heck we had not tried to get tickets for this. Anyway, the final straw came two days before the match, and Jen logged on, went through the process to become an Englandfan (the only way left to get tickets) and puchased two for us to go for our first ever major game at Wembley.

Walking from the Tube Station towards Wembley

The walk down from the Tube to the Stadium was insane, a sea of football fans singing and kicking footballs, loading up on overpriced pizza slices and hotdogs (just like at home!) on the walk towards this massive stadium.

Our seats were quite high but allowed us to see the entire ground clearly, even if we couldnt see the players sweat covered faces! Just like playing on Playstation - we could clearly see the passages of play - all we needed were our controllers. The atmosphere was amazing, we learnt a few new football chants during the course of the game and its impossible not to get caught up in the emotion of an international match.

Ukraine and England Teams enter the Ground

Stephen Checks Out the View of the Ground

The Flags Come Out

God Save The Queen

England looked very sharp early on, and were rewarded with a goal by Paul Crouch at around the 40 minute mark. Then they switched off. It appears that the English play football much like a workday... A bit at the start, not much through the day, and then a bit at the end. Suffice it to say, as they were relaxing in the middle, Ukraine managed to steal a goal to equalise (we could tell they had scored by the deafening silence of the crowd). Instantly, England switched on again. They brought Beckham on, without about 20 minutes left in the match, his impact was felt immediately. A couple of free kicks gave us the chance to see him Bend it Like.... well... him. He delivered a corner from the far side and John Terry sent it into the back of the net. the crowd sang "two-one.....two-one....." followed by a standing rendition of "You're not Singing Anymore" whilst pointing at the small section of Ukraine Supporters.

Chanting Crowd

Game Play

A few minutes later the referee signalled the end of the game and we began the crush back towards the Tube Station. Lines of Mounted Police prevented too may people getting into the station at one time, and it actually went quite smoothly. We were home by 11:30 and are now dedicated followers of the World Game.