Hello HedgeEnders.  I went along to watch Saints at the new Wembley on Sunday and thought I’d share my experiences with you instead of writing a proper column:  I need to warn you, though, this is just a random collection of thoughts from the day, not any attempt at a coherent report.

It was certainly a strange day – not quite as strange as the decision to schedule a one-thirty kick off the day the clocks went forward an hour (especially for the Carlisle fans, who, apparently, had a six hour train journey down, so must have needed to be on the road by six at the latest just to have a chance of getting in the stadium on time), but strange enough all the same. 

    The clocks going forward meant an early start for any Saints fans wanting to enjoy a pre-match drink, and although I’m no Saints fan I dragged myself out of the house at seven-thirty (six-thirty really) and wandered off to Hedge End station.  Seeing the platform already busy with people in Saints shirts, some with their faces painted in the club’s colours, was slightly surreal – more like being on a film set than the usually empty platform – as was the fact the train that pulled into the station was virtually empty (obviously hardly any Saints fans live further down the line than Hedge End) but nothing at all compared to what awaited at the next station. 

Because of engineering works somewhere near Basingstoke our train terminated at Eastleigh and everyone piled out to join the crowds milling around the three platforms:  Platform one was absolutely packed and the monitors showed the next Waterloo train was already full.  The ticket office was shut (well, more demolished than shut as they’re doing up Eastleigh station at the moment) and there didn’t seem to be any staff on hand to give anyone any advice (there were three or four police officers doing a good job, though), so the atmosphere on the platform felt quite tense as the train halted and the doors opened but there was no room for anyone to get on.   All the crowd could do was watch the train pull away and hope there’d be room on the next one along:  It was one of those situations – with a lot of fans already drinking and everyone worried there’d be no room on later trains – where there wasn’t any trouble (that I saw), but you felt it could quite easily have turned nasty, and, I think, if it had done, South West Trains would have had a lot to answer for:  It was a difficult situation to take charge of, but they didn’t seem to make any attempt to take control or reassure potentially volatile fans they’d definitely get on a train at some stage – and if there was a danger they wouldn’t, why were they still selling tickets?  (Apparently at other stations they were making sure only so many people were allowed on the platform to minimise any risk of overcrowding or trouble– there was no such effort made at Eastleigh; it was a free-for-all and a mess).    

I already knew there wasn’t any space on the next train along as the group I was travelling with had got on at Totton and texted to say it was packed:  Try the last carriage, they said, otherwise we’ll meet you in London – if you ever get there.   I made my way right down to the end of the platform.  A few others had the same idea but, luckily, not too many, and I was one of the few who managed to get on, squeezed in like cattle for the twenty-eight quid South West Trains thought they were entitled to charge. 

After the uncertainty at Eastleigh the atmosphere on the train was really relaxed and friendly, and there was something great about seeing Waterloo absolutely swamped in red and white, a sight that only intensified the closer we got to Wembley itself.  We made our way to a pub set aside for Saints fans – I think it might have been The Red Lion but, for some reason, my memory’s slightly murky – that overlooked Wembley’s arch and had a few drinks there:  The bar inside was absolutely packed but they’d opened a couple of temporary bars outside so it wasn’t too hard to get served; being totally honest, it was a good job they stopped serving an hour before kick-off or we probably would have missed quite a lot of the game:  Wembley looked a lot closer from the pub-garden than it actually was.  

The stadium, for me, will always be about the 1987 FA Cup Final between Coventry and Spurs.  I went to all our cup games that year, seeing us beat the proper Wimbledon 0-2 at Plough Lane in the quarters (the away end was little more than a set of concrete steps with no roof, and each time a double-decker went past you’d see everyone on the top deck get up to watch the game), Watford 4-1 in the semis at Villa Park (they had a goalkeeping injury crisis and signed a bloke called Gary Plumley who played football part-time and ran a wine-bar for his real job; none of the goals were his fault but, even so, we taunted him with endless chants of ‘you should’ve stayed in your wine bar, stayed in your wine-bar’ all the way through the second-half), then lose to Coventry in the final: Wembley still had terracing back then and, with a sell out crowd of 102,000, had a huge cavernous feel about it – you really felt you were in a place where history had been made. 

This incarnation doesn’t feel nearly the same.

Part of the problem’s the new arch, which doesn’t really do anything other than look like a silly big arch.  Part of it’s the fact – a bit like Old Trafford – it looks like a shopping centre on an industrial estate, just with a silly big arch hanging over it.  Part of it’s the fact I grew up with the old Wembley and was always going to be disappointed no matter how good the new version turned out to be:  Inside, though, the place felt really small compared to how I remember, and the pitch seemed tiny as well.  As great as it was to see forty-four thousand Saints fans crammed in, the place didn’t exactly inspire any awe.   

The view of the action is excellent though and, from our seats behind the goal Saints defended in the first half, we were in the perfect position to see Lambert’s penalty fly in.  The second goal flew in a bit too fast to tell how it had been scored.  I think that was about four minutes before half-time so I took the opportunity to get to the head of the queue for a half-time pint (I’d never do this at a Spurs game, but Saints, you know; it’s just not the same).  Another whinge about the stadium here; the beers at the bar I went to were being sold in plastic bottles, but the staff had to pour each bottle into a plastic cup, meaning it took ages to get served; and not just for the beer drinkers, either, because anyone wanting food or a hot drink was log-jammed in the same queue. 

And that queue’s nothing compared to the queue for the toilets.  They’re tiny.  Considering a good majority of people either want to go to the toilet or grab a drink (or both) at half-time, it’s a bit weak that our supposedly state of the art national stadium caters so poorly for both.  Seriously, I feel really old making a comment about it, but I’ve never seen such huge queues for toilets in a football stadium before.    

Another area it falls short in is that, unlike White Hart Lane and St Mary’s, it doesn’t have TV monitors beneath the stands, so quite a few hundred people still queuing for the toilets or finishing their drinks had no idea the second half had kicked off until they heard the roar for Saints’ third goal...

Back out in the seats and what little tension there was about the result – I think it’s fair to say most Saints fans expected to win, or, maybe, didn’t care about the result and just wanted to enjoy a great day out after five pretty miserable years – disappeared with the fourth goal.  Funnily enough, Saints disappeared after that as well, having their poorest spell since the opening ten minutes.  No one seemed to mind though and there was a fair bit of applause around us when Carlisle got their consolation.  

And that, pretty much, football wise, was that.  Like virtually everyone else in the Saints end – but not quite so many in the Carlisle end – we stayed behind to watch the trophy presented and the players parade it around, then made our way out into chaos.

It’s something that totally baffles me about modern stadiums – what’s the point in making them all seater, then allowing a huge crush to develop outside?  Wembley has a concourse around the stadium with a few sets of steps leading into the streets below, so bottle-necks occur and the crowd ends up at a hemmed in standstill.  Luckily the fans were all good-natured and calm, but it would only have taken a few idiots to start pushing or fighting and it would have been carnage.  I hope it never happens, but unless they do something about this in the future there’s going to be a situation after a game where people’s lives will be risked:  Why don’t they keep the bars in the ground open for an hour after the game?  Plenty of people would choose to stay behind in an area where it’s impossible for opposing fans to get at each other, alleviating the pressure outside. 

Whinge over, we headed back to The Red Lion.  They handled the crowds much better than Wembley.  And their beer tasted better as well.  

All in all, a great day out, a great result for Saints, and let’s hope they make it back to the play-offs in a few weeks time:   Any club that can draw forty-four thousand fans for a game of that level deserves to make its way back up the leagues.