After Saturday night's guestlist adventures I was up and about on Sunday for MORE Exclusive Excitement that had its own, somewhat different, perils.
For LO! I was off to WEMBERLEY there to see Peterborough United compete in the finals of The Vertu Trophy aka The EFL Trophy aka That Competition That Has U21 Premiership Teams In And Is Inherently Ridiculous Until We Get To The Final. Regular readers of this here blog may recall that I went to the very same final LAST year where Posh had been TRIUMPHANT, but this time I was going with significantly more trepidation. Last time our visit had been part of a Surprisingly Good Season where we had done lots of WINNING, whereas this time it has been a Disappointingly Poor Season where we have done lots of BEING RUBBISH. Also, this time we were playing Birmingham City who had been promoted to the Championship as winners of League One on Tuesday by beating...um... US.
I mean, OBVIOUSLY I personally was full of BELIEF - it was other people who said "we might as well sing the If You've Never Lost At Wembley Clap Your Hands song NOW while we still have the chance", and definitely not me - but it was looking distinctly unlikely that we'd be carrying on our proud record of always - ALWAYS - winning at The National Stadium.
Thus entrepidated I headed off to distant West London to meet everyone at the same West Hampstead bar that we accidentally went to last time. On the way there I finished reading "My Cousin Rachel" by D du Maurier, which was AMAZING, and then settled into 90 minutes of BEER and CHAT before heading off to Actual Wembley.
The train was Oddly Quiet on the way but I assume all of the Birmingham fans had already got there as it is probably all very exciting for them as have NOT been to Wembley only a year ago and also may or may not have somehow LOST there at some point in the past. When we arrived we were CHARMED to see Brummies having their photographs taken with the stadium in the background as it reminded us of the simple wonder of playing there when you are not JADED and consider it your home stadium pretty much hem hem.
Last year one of our number, Mr P Bloodworth, had gone viral online with a photograph taken by his son Mr J Bloodworth showing him stuck in the turnstiles, so there was MUCH HILARITY over whether he'd get in or not (he did), followed by EXCITEMENT once through the gates as we looked around to see if there was anybody we knew. Last time Peterborough's then-MP Mr Paul F Bristow had been seen in a nearby bar, THIS time he was spotted lurking around in our area, which seemed like a GOOD OMEN (probably the first time anybody's ever said that about him).
Beer and DODS were purchased then we went into the stadium for what we thought was going to be a bit of a hammering. This was the biggest crowd Posh had EVER played to, and about two thirds of them were Brummies who were in FULL VOICE. However, something strange happened once the game got going and Posh became Quite Good. Not only that, but we scored - TWICE! First of all Harley Mills scored a FABULOUS free kick and then Hector Kyprianou done a WALLOPING great goal from open play, and we found ourselves WINNING before it was half-time.
I tell you what, there were a lot of DAZED looking Posh fans staggering off to the loo, but the excitement was even MORE so for me because, on the way up the stairs, I saw our pal Mr C Dowsett chatting to none other than Craig Mackail-Smith. CMS is a bona fide POSH LEGEND and one of my favourite players EVER so I GRINNED at him, caught his eye, and then... er... sort of WAVED and then ran off up the steps. I am aware that such behaviour may seem odd to most, who surely view me as an ICE COOL ROCK STAR, but my dears I was quite overcome and had to have a RELAXING BEER to try and calm myself down a bit. Craig Mackail-Smith!!
The second half contained no more goals but was VERY exciting and then nerve-wracking as it went on to the ONE HUNDRED AND SECONDTH MINUTE, but in the end we came out as not only WINNERS but with a massive bag of EXCITING STATS. Not only are we the ONLY team to have ever retained the highly prestigious EFL trophy, but we are the ONLY team to have ever played at Wembley five times and won every time. Previously we were equal with BARCELONA, who had also played there four times and won every one, but now we are technically - and surely ACTUALLY - better than them!
We then hung around for a while to jump around a bit, wave at people above us in the royal box, watch players manhandling the trophy and generally soak up the atmosphere. As you can probably tell I had a BLOODY BRILLIANT day out, and very much hope and EXPECT the same this time again next year. Nothing can go wrong!
